Integration Training Journal - Mark Walsh's Blog Brighton, Sussex, UK

Integration Training - Associates Contract

2010-04-07T14:47:00.003+01:00

We do things a little differently at business training providers Integration Training and I wanted to share a taste of that (transparency being a core principle in how we operate). Below is our associates agreement - unedited - the first part is what makes it unusual I think. The associates community is one I really value and is unashamedly elitist and somewhat difficult to become a part of...

As an aside - those familiar with the integral model may notice I, we and it elements in the agreement below:

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Integration Training (IT) is a team of trainers, coaches and administrative staff dedicated to:

Awesome training
Their own personal and professional development
Being part of a mutually supportive community
Something bigger (each person has their own larger “for the sake of what” or “higher power”).

NB: ”IT” in this document refers to the leadership/administrative arm of IT – Mark Walsh and staff.

Associate Work - Principles:

Service

Work is undertaken with the spirit of service to self, client, IT and something bigger. Our multiple bottom-lines are (but not limited to) money, learning, contribution to a better world and fun.

Choice

Associates may choose to decline any work and Mark is not obliged to offer work.

Transparency/ Dialogue

What IT will get paid by a client and what associates are paid will be transparent. The fundamental principles of all associate work are dialogue and openness.

Specifics

Stage of Involvement

Associates may become involved at earlier of later stages of work as they like. For example some associates don’t mind meeting clients to discuss work prior to a sale (and risking there may be no sale), others would like to be involved when sold in design, others just in the delivery.

Fees

Fees will be negotiable in each instance. Approx:

10% - This is the minimal fee IT will work with for “handovers” where all I do is receive a call and pass on details.

30% - This may be a more typical fee for associate work where I have been involved in selling work to a client (face to face or on e-mail).

50% - This is the maximum IT will take. Where IT have sold and designed the work, and an associate only delivers (e.g. for a more off the shelf stress workshop this is likely to be the fee. )

These are just guidelines – the idea is that IT discusses things with associates, being transparent about what the client can pay and then make an offer to associates which they are free to accept or decline.

Payments will go through Integration Training. I contract with clients to get paid within 30 days, I will then immediately pay you.

Repeat Work

All requests for repeat work and further work of any type coming from clients will be directed back to IT (though you can of course tell them your availability). The fee for repeat work I will take will be renegotiable (and likely to drop).

Cancellation

Once committed to undertaking a piece of work IT will expect associates to take full responsibility for ensuring they fulfil (serious illness and family emergencies being the only exceptions).

Branding and Quality

All handouts would be branded Integration Training. IT ensures quality primarily through associate selection. A standing request is that IT have access to client feedback (questionnaires or conversationally).

Expenses

To be included in associates fee, not billed separately.

A Note re Trust and Relationships from Mark

For me putting my business reputation and clients in the hands of anyone else is a matter of great trust – so I have picked associates whom I regard as having impeccable integrity J The standard of reliability I request is also impeccability. Due to who you are, the community and relationships we’ve built I feel comfortable with you all. To me relationships are the base of associate not contracts which are a nice extra and I hope add clarity.

Withinsourcing

2010-04-07T10:42:00.006+01:00

I've been thinking about outsourcing recently as my training company has started to grow. There are some major ethical and quality considerations for me in this area and I also need to do less myself in order not to go utterly crazy. While thinking about outsourcing it occurs to me that much of what I have learnt and now teach is almost the opposite - "withinsourcing " if you like. My NGO and martial arts background encourages me to make-do with what is available and dig deep to get things done. While taken to extremes this could be a recipe for stress and burn-out I am certainly not looking for a 4 minute work week either. So here is another way of looking at things...

Withinsourcing Strategies

Withinsourcing (not to be confused with insourcing) is drawing on one's own inner resources to get a job done. This includes

State Management (mindfulness, centring, etc)

- mange your primary "resource"

Intuition

- what does your gut say?

Integrity

- without a spine you are nothing

Adaptability and Creativity

- how can you make do?

Emotional Resilience

- can you bounce back?

Spirituality

- it's not really you that does the hard work anyway...dig deep.

To be clear - it's not that I'm anti outsourcing per se - I would like to do more of the things I'm good at and enjoy - it's just that I think the idea needs balancing - inner and outer.

How to be Reborn at Work

2010-04-05T15:12:00.000+01:00

I had several requests after the Easter themed article article How to die at work for a more positive follow-up on how to be fully alive and human in the workplace. So with some concern that people may view me as the wrong kind of crazy...here it is:

How to be Reborn at Work

Many people complain about their work and colleagues and some even say they don't feel "fully alive" at work. Whining is in fact something of a national sport here in the UK and in many other countries I've worked in. Clients sometimes tell me everything would be OK if they had a new boss, got promoted...or whatever. What focusing on external things that can not be changed easily does is dis-empower people, which has the nice pay-off that no action is needed and righteousness is assured. Rather than focus on bitching, moaning and complaining however here are a few areas that anyone can work on to feel like a human being again in the workplace.

Get Healthy

This is the part where I tell you what you already know and have to give my mum 10% of all royalties. If you look after yourself - and start with the basics - sleep, exercise, diet, drug intake - you will feel and work a lot better (fact) and may start enjoying your job more (probable). Health is your foundation and you can't cheat the biological system - prioritise it.

Get Real
Many people split off a part of themselves at work and put on a face to get by in a job they hate. Used sparingly this can have a positive side (professionalism) but as a daily tactic is psychologically unhealthy, undermines your own values and leads to an inauthentic soul destroying workplace. Try getting real at work - by this I don't mean be rude - "be yourself...but carefully" was the best pre-date advice I ever had and applies here too. By getting real you can start to ask for what you want and make positive changes rather than building quiet resentment.

Get Creative

Creativity is increasingly part of the modern workplace. While "we are all artists now" may be overstating it I believe that creativity as the hardest thing to outsource is not only essential for feeling fully alive but is a critical employment skill. How else could you do what you are doing? What other possibilities exist? Go on, live a little, be creative.

Get it Together

Managing stress and getting yourself together under pressure by centring at work is a great way to cope with the madness and feel human again.

Get Together

Reach out to other people at work and really communicate with them. Really ask and answer "how are you?" Being human is a communal process and you can't go it alone, so why not build real relationships at work? I will also use this opportunity to plug the communication and team building training I provide which helps with this aspect tremendously.

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So What: There is a lot you can do starting today to feel more alive at work.

The Paradox of having a ‘Vision’ and Not ‘knowing what it looks like’

2010-04-02T15:17:00.003+01:00

Guest blogger Joolz Lewis "the corporate hippy" discusses vision:

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“Pain pushes… Vision pulls”

Whether you’re stuck in a job you don’t enjoy and dreaming of a ‘better way’, you’re running a successful and established business, or you’re just starting out on your own; having a vision is absolutely necessary to keep you going in those ‘dark nights of the soul’. Why? Because there are two forces that will both work to keep you moving in the direction of your ‘deepest intent’ - your intent to use your work as a platform from which to show up and serve, and to make a difference. One of those forces is quite simply ‘pain’. The pain of not being fulfilled, of knowing that there’s something ‘more’, of feeling like your soul is like a bird trapped in its cage, aching to break free and express its true purpose. The pain of uncertainty, of anxiety re. decision making and getting new business. Pain pushes you forward.

At the other end of the spectrum, there’s the vision. Vision is what pulls you forward - it inspires you, it motivates you, it energises you, and it’s what drives you to never give up on the dream. Vision is a dream turned into possibility. Pain pushes… vision pulls.

The Paradox

Enter the paradox. How to have a vision that is ‘real’, and clear, without really knowing what it’s going to look like? How is it possible to commit to a vision, at the same time as surrender the detail of how it might look? And should a vision be achievable and realistic, or should it be grand and inspiring in its audacity?

What Vision Is

Firstly, vision is about envisaging what ‘different’ might look like. Many people are nervous of having a ‘big’ vision; for fear that it might paralyse them. I was one of those. My vision has always been for a world wherein people work in business from a place of purpose and passion, for mutual win-win-win (employee-customer-planet). At first, the vision was barely a whisper. I couldn’t even articulate it, it seemed so huge, so much bigger than me, I didn’t dare speak it. But that’s the point of vision - in order to be inspiring, a vision has to involve other people, it has to extend beyond our limited selves, our current way of being. So by default, it’s impossible to know exactly what our vision will look like when realised. Having a vision is different to knowing what it will look like.

Once you have a vision, you can more easily identify what your purpose is in relation to it. It provides a framework for you to define a business mission, from which achievable and realistic goals can be set.

How you Relate to It

Now for the second part - how do you move towards the vision, without a clear idea of what it will look like? By necessity, if your vision is ‘bigger than you’, it’ll be difficult to know exactly what it will look like, or what your life will look like in relation to it. So there are two parts to this paradox.

1) Imagine your vision. You can’t ‘know’ what it will look like, but you can imagine it. I highly recommend doing a collage exercise, to allow you to imagine what it might look like to you. Make a ritual out of it - draw, cut up magazines, paint it. Do visualisation exercises. Write and use affirmations starting with ‘I contribute directly to a world in which [vision]’. Find a piece of music that resonates with the spirit of your vision. Feel it - what does your vision feel like in your body? What are the emotions you associate with this vision?

2) AND, focus on the here and now. What small step(s) can you take - right now - that will move you in the direction of your vision? Have you got realistic goals that you can achieve relatively quickly so you can make progress and not lose motivation along the way? Listen to your inner guidance and intuition on a daily or minimum weekly basis, and pay attention to those subtle ‘nudges’ you get - the ideas that come to you in the middle of the night, on a train home from work, or while walking on the beach. Follow them up. Pay attention to how you feel while performing tasks or activities that support your vision - if you are energised, motivated, enthused and passionate about what you’re doing then you’re on the right track.

Possibility Consciousness

The most important piece of this paradox is that both having a vision, and moving towards it, means living in ‘possibility consciousness’. You can imagine what it might look like, and surrender the ‘having to know’. On a daily basis you can stay open and available to possibility, to the daily evidence that your vision is revealing itself - perhaps not in its entirety, but glimpses that show you that you’re on the right track, that you are in fact making a difference, that you are living your purpose.

How to Die at Work

2010-04-01T11:43:00.005+01:00

As it's Easter/ Pagan Spring festival time here's a post on how to die at work...I may get around to how to be reborn later.

Overwork

An utter lack of work-life balance (notice the differentiation between "life" and "work") , poor stress management and general recession overwork means that many people are literally working themselves to death. Heart attacks and other stress related conditions are easily the leading cause of death in the Western world.

Cut off your body and emotions

Paying no attention to, or actively denying and repressing the emotional and embodied side of human life has been the norm in the industrial Western workplace for many years. Because these aspects are so crucial to being human this is a kind of death in my opinion. Happily the business training I provide combats this trend and things seem to be changing :-)

Inauthenticity

Likewise, simply being yourself at work is frowned upon by many employers and workplaces, and if someone spends 8-10 hours a day wearing a mask they risk becoming that mask. Many people are doing "jobs they hate to buy crap they don't need" to steal a phrase from Fight Club - for me this was always a kind of death I couldn't tolerate (an no I am not from a rich family or have ever been long-term unemployed).

Professional Suicide

In the old days this just meant snapping one day or getting drunk at the Christmas party and telling your boss EXACTLY what you think of him/her. These days social media makes undermining yourself professionally much easier

Physical death

Thankfully this continues to decline, however there are still some dangerous professions like fishing, farming (high suicide rates) and deep sea diving. Joking aside, I would also like to nod respectfully to those such as aid workers, journalists and armed forces personnel who choose face danger on a daily basis at work to do jobs that benefit all of us. Happy Easter everyone, stay safe.

Speed Reading Tips

2010-03-29T14:58:00.004+01:00

The following speed reading tips were taken from UK speed reading experts Susan Norman and Jan Cisek, you can download their FREE ebook: Spd Rdng Bible, 37
Speed Reading Techniques and Tips - How to read faster. I got a lot from their course and am now giving Amazon a lot of business!

Speed Reading Tips

Preview books

- What are you reading?!

Read with a purpose to find information

- What are you reading for?

Get in a good state

- through the centring exercises that are part of Embodied Management Training for example

Use your finger to help your eyes!

- Simple but helps a lot.

Focus on "hot spots" of information

- Learn to identify the crucial parts of passages (certain eye-scanning patterns help with this)

Personal Development Condensed

2010-03-29T12:38:00.000+01:00

This article is the personal development literature from the last hundred years condensed into seven digestible paragraphs - each with a recommended "gold-star" practice if you'd like to take things further. I was going to call this post "Personal Development for Dummies" but there is already a book with that title and the opposite personal development for smart people is also covered.

The personal development field is vaguely defined and often inhabited by vague people which is problematic. It can can across as "overly American" to a British audience and as unmeasurable, self-indulgent, hippie nonsense to the business clients I work with. Personal development has a bad name for itself and this is often deserved. Lacking a coherent model of what "development" might actually mean the area has bumbled along since Dale Carnegie first failed in several careers and then tried to help others do the opposite. (Some history is here). The integral model however now sets the standard as a meta-framework of what personal development could entail which gives me hope for the future. I believe there is much gold amongst the piles of self-help crap and this article is an attempt to shift through some of that. I have been reading personal development literature since I was a kid and it has become apparent to me that there are just a few themes that cover 90% of the books. These are:

Attention!
Awareness is the basis of all personal development as if you don't know what you're doing you can't hope to change it. Paying attention to the here and now (mindfulness) has no gone mainstream due to the work of Jon Kabat-Zinn and many others like him and has a wide variety of applications. If you ignore the rest of this article just taking this part on board will transform your life (a claim you'll hear a lot in the personal development world that is usually bunk but in this case I'd put money on it).

Source: Most spiritual traditions, especially Buddhism.
Gold Star Practice: Start a regular sitting meditation or awareness movement art such as tai chi

Your Thoughts Create YOUR Reality!
There are many versions of this from well researched Western psychology, therapies and their spin-offs (e.g. CBT, NLP), genuine Eastern wisdom (e.g. Buddhism), to utter non-sense like every dim New-Agers favourite The Secret. The idea that how people think has a huge effect on their lives is a mainstay of much personal development literature going back to Napoleon Hill and the idea of "positive thinking". This idea can have a cheesy, egoic American flavour "If you can dream it you can get it!", be wayyyyy-out there "I affirm that angels are looking after me through the crystal vortex" or be very common-sensical and grounded. Often quantum physics and the Buddha are refereed to, though the Cambridge University Buddhist physicists I know say this is a diabolical misappropriation and every small Brighton business person I know who meditates on abundance does less well than those who have a well-researched marketing plan. Pick wisely what you take on in this area.

Source: Varied, ancient philosophies and New Age misinterpretations mainly, but also Western psychology.
Gold Star Practice: Keep The Secret a secret so future generations don't suffer!

Set Goals and Take Charge of Your Life!
Planning, goal setting and generally having direction in life are a major part of much personal development literature. As one of my friends puts it "set the address in the sat-nav before you head off". The emphasis here is on agency and taking charge of your life rather than just being flotsam. Personal productivity books from Covey's 7 Habits to David Allen's Getting Things Done also fall in this "organise and lead" category.

Source: Modern US gurus? Ancient precedent?
Gold Star Practice: Set concrete goals for anything you do and implement a personal productivity system like GTD.

Go with the Flow...
The counter to plan and control everything is the go with the flow brigade that includes Taoism, radical acceptance and some forms of paganism and "green" spiritualities. These two poles can also be thought of as masculine and feminine. Much work on right-brain thinking and creativity is also about going with the flow.

Source: Taoism, Buddhist, New Age?
Gold Star Practice: Play

Got Body?
The personal development movement has rediscovered the body in a big way, especially the subjective experience of having one. Mose Feldenkrais, Ida Rolfing, FM Alexander were all pioneers in this area and on any day in Brighton one can now choose from dance classes like Five Rhythms, aikido, kung-fu, or twenty types of yoga. This is my particular area of specialisation and I love bringing this area into business training.

Source: Shamanic/pagan? Embodied Leadership and somatics in recent times.
Gold Star Practice: Take up a martial art, dance or yoga. Look for an art which will balance what you already embody not just make you more like your habit.

Communication and EI Skills

In the real world outside the yoga studio there are other people to get along with - we are social animals, and we are emotional as well as purely physical. Many personal development books therefore incorporate some kind of communication system or emotional intelligence training (see Daniel Goleman's seminal work).

Source: Folk wisdom and Western psychology.
Gold Star Practice: NonViolent Communication or the linguistics "speech acts" work of Fernando Flores

Practice!
Last and most important, thinking alone is not enough. Conscious, regular practice, guided by a teacher and in a community of support is what it takes for real change in the vast majority of cases. Happily, though perhaps belatedly, this idea is starting to come into the personal development field.

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My hope for the world of personal development is that is gets more rigorous and more widespread, and I see these two aspects going hand in hand. This is a very broad overview and I'm sure I've missed some areas out, let me know what haven't I covered that you would have?

Spirituality and Stress

2010-03-24T20:14:00.002Z

The stress management training I provide often incorporate work with gratitude, meditation, discussion of meaning, a model based on the serenity prayer, and other work that could be considered "spiritual." I do this because it is what works, so was was glad to find this is an article on spirituality and stress.

"As a cancer and hospice physician, I care for people at the end of their lives. The average survival time for patients we see in our hospital is about 22 days. Daily I see the importance of spirituality as individuals reach out for consolation and strength from outside of themselves. The name that they use for this higher power may be different. It may be God, Prophet, Lord or Allah — or it may be an unnamed force.

I've come to believe that the need for spirituality — belief in a higher power — must be inherent in humans, much like the need for water and oxygen. We may have different belief systems, but at the end of the day we all reach for something over and above ourselves. As many of you have commented, taking care of ourselves includes nurturing our spirituality."

Performance Management for Dummies

2010-03-22T17:32:00.002Z

Fellow Brighton trainer Harry Puckering on performance management.

And here is Integration Training's own management and leadership training.

Learning and Memory Mind Maps

2010-03-18T19:40:00.000Z

Here's a learning mind-map from the excellent IQ Matrix site - more mind maps for memory, stress and time management where that came from.

Men's Liberation?

2010-03-18T12:45:00.000Z

Men's Liberation?

Beyond the Disposable Hero
- from Integral Life, with Warren Farrell and Ken Wilber

Dr. Warren Farrell talks with Ken Wilber about power, oppression, and the urgent need for men to begin redefining their roles for today's world.

Some key points:

•"Power" is not defined by the amount of control someone has over others, but the amount of control one has over his or her own life.
•Feminism can be defined as freeing females from being coerced into traditional female roles, and the same work needs to be done by men.
•Feminism did a great job of exploring issues of male power and female powerlessness, but not a great job at exploring issues of female power and male powerlessness.
•In terms of recognizing and developing their power, men are in a similar position today as women were in the late 1950's, at the dawn of the feminist movement.
•As long as men do not rise to the challenge of redefining themselves for today's world, women continue to be pressured to learn how to "row on both sides of the boat," while men keep to their own side. The result? The boat just keeps going around in circles....
•In order to succeed, men need to learn from the feminist movements of recent decades, and use their work as a jumping-off pointand not to hold feminism or women's studies as an opposition to men's liberation.
•In order to take a truly comprehensive view of sex and gender, we need to look through at least four lenses: subjective/psychological (e.g. masculine vs. feminine), objective/biological (e.g. male vs. female), intersubjective/cultural (e.g. gender roles and definitions of "man" and "woman"), and interobjective/social (e.g. the techno-economic realities of the time).

Charge as Much as You Can

2010-03-16T13:36:00.000Z

Charge as much as you can and pay as little as you can. This is my philosophy and business practice.

Now, reading this you will likely have just had one of three responses. If you are like many regular business folks you will read this and say "of course, that's what business is all about." If however you are a non-psychopathic human being you will be disgusted and be saying "what about XY and Z!". If you are a regular reader or anyone who knows me at all you will likely be thinking I have gone insane, sold-out my principles or am about to make a clever turn luring readers into a cunning game of mental naked Twister as is my habit :-) The later is true - here's why:

The rub here is the word "pay." If all you value is money in the short term it "pays" to screw everyone over as much as people. Charge as much as you can possibly get away with and pay suppliers as little money as possible. The best form for this is slavery and violent domination, the second best is many modern corporations and businesses involved in "unfair trade", sweatshops, environmental degradation, and general nastiness :-(

The next step up from this is to build a business that looks for more sustainable profits by thinking longer term and building more mutually beneficial relationships. Happily many people who have been in business a while operate this way, simply because it is good for profits in the long-run. In this way I may want to charge as much as I can without pissing my clients off and pay as little as I can to my suppliers to keep them happy. Relationship is taken into account and the world is a slightly better place than the dog-eat-dog mindset of before.

Note that this development is both moral and intellectual, and also more profitable. If you are thinking "yes, but nice guys finish last", I'd agree (though "nice people" may judge the race by different criteria which means in their eyes they still win). Being "nice" is not true moral developmeent but just violence with cherries on top. Truely compasionate powerful people finish first.

The third stage of development in business is where "multiple bottom-lines" are taken into account. This means that people considering what is being "paid" in wider terms than just money. Other things such as human and environmental factors become important in their own right (what it means to "win") and not just as means to profit or as a marketing exercise. By considering my core values when I pay as little as I can and charge as much as I can I work in a way that is in-line with my deepest self and the kind of world I'd like to help create. It also not only still get the job done but gets it done better than just looking at £££. This is the future of business. Come join us, we're having WAY more fun :-)

Stress in the News

2010-03-15T20:04:00.002Z

Stress in the News

Last weekend’s Times had a whole supplement devoted to stress – leading with the headline “Anxious Britain” and the figure that 70% of people are stressed. Now as a resilience and stress management training provider I thought I better give it a read. I’ve seen a bunch of other stress management articles in mainstream news media in the last six months – perhaps influenced by the recession I wonder – though these things tend to be cyclical. A number of themes have emerged for me looking at stress in the news, here are what I regard as the positive and negative themes:

Positives aspects of stress in the news

That it’s in the news at all is a good start. Britain seems to be overcoming its repressed upper lip and admitting there is an issue with stress in society and stress at work.
A wide variety of approaches are discussed from numerous types of therapy to meditation and diet in the Times article. While not quite integral (which would how this diversity fits together) it is a broad spectrum.
Sex and stress is being discussed seriously – again the British are finally getting it up...I mean growing up...in this area
Mindfulness has gone mainstream. From hippy beginnings to the modern boardroom – meditation is moving up in the world! (Happy to be a part of this trend myself).
The increasing stress and mental health problem of children is being recognised. Do you think all those exams are a good idea? Or perhaps it’s part of the wider “broken Britain” debate?

Negative aspects of stress s in the news

Confession Time? While I’m a big fan of healthy expression of mental health related issues I also do not enjoy US style confessionals, gushing and blaming other people for ones problems. Along with the repression there is also something very healthy in the personal responsibility, adaptive “Dunkirk Spirit” and self-management of the traditional British response to stress.
When people talk about “stress” as a personal psychological issue the deeper underlying societal causes are not examined. Even at a personal level the idea of stress can be somewhat superficial and just a nice way of saying “suffering” or “unhappiness”.
Related to this many of the therapies and solutions offered were quick fixes unlikely to address the root causes of anyone’s stress. Stress band-aids aren’t the answer.
Celebrities are given more column inches than experts – even in the Times. Dizzy Rascal is not a stress management expert.
Overly simplistic questionnaires and typologies are par for the course i mainstream media.

All in all though I’m pleasantly surprised that stress is being discussed and how it is. Kudos to the Times and the other news media sources for covering it. Long may intelligent debate on the subject continue.

Power, Principle, Profit, People, Planet

2010-03-11T11:00:00.000Z

Value are not just randomly distributed - they come in sets. This is common sense really - one may be able to guess other lifestyle factors from the paper person reads for example.

There are five basic values-sets showing up in individuals and organisation today. A good way of remembering these is to think of five P's that they are concerned with: Power, Principle, Profit, People and Planet. These are five ways of thinking, behaving and being.

Power
People and organisations at this stage of development are only concerned with power and threat and are largely egocentric. Gangsters and "hard" sales people are often operate from here.

Principle
Order and orthodoxy are important from this worldview - where there is a definite right and wrong. Some "old-school" businesses in the legal and agricultural arenas for example, and many public sector organisations work in this way.
Profit
This group are concerned with what works, efficiency and in the business world - just making money. Most businesses and increasingly public sector organisations are operating from here.

People
This worldview sees people, feelings and cultural sensitivity as important. This worldview is responsible for civil rights and is the leading edge of a few business such as Google and John Lewis.

Planet
This stage is just emerging and takes into account all of those before it (who previously have been antagonistic to one another). The "planet" label does not just means environmental concerns (which may exist at other levels, particularly at "People") but means that in a business effectiveness, profits, people, integrity/principles and influence/power will all be important.

See also my post on the evolution of training.

Leadership So What: Know who your talking with and make offers and language what you say to match.

NB: This theory comes from Spiral Dynamics and the integral movement and is part of the leadership training I provide.

Ashridge Management Index 2010 - Leaders are Good!

2010-03-09T14:49:00.004Z

Ashridge has published the 2010 management index.

"The Ashridge Management Index (AMI), a periodic survey of managers’ and leaders’ views and attitudes, was launched in 1994. The aim of the research is to examine the current business environment and to better understand some of the key challenges and opportunities which exist for managers and leaders.

Conducted in the autumn of 2009, this latest research explored the views and attitudes toward topics including: management and organisational challenges; personal challenges; organisational change; motivation and learning and development. Over 1200 senior and middle managers from the private and public sector were surveyed. In addition to the survey we conducted interviews with organisations including Sun Microsystems and Cisco.

The report highlights many positive findings but equally there a number of areas which give cause for concern – and interestingly it is the same issues arising year on year. Fiona Dent, Director of Executive Education at Ashridge comments:

"This survey is a fascinating insight on the highs, and some of the lows, that managers are currently experiencing. It's been one of the toughest years in business and we were interested to see how this is impacting on organisations and on managers."

100 Year Business Plan

2010-03-05T09:30:00.001Z

In 100 years I will be dead and so will you. What will be left behind of the work you did this week? What about your life's work?

I've been thinking about this since I heard of several Japanese companies having 250 year business plans. 250 years is a bit much for me so I've just gone for a 100 year medium-term one. I am fully aware that "no plan survives the battlefield" and think it's vital to have one none the less.

This type of long-term thinking may seem shocking from a "quick-fix" Western point of view and utterly pointless from an ego-centric "what do I care, I'll be dead" mentality. Short-term unsustainable thinking has been at the root of many of the world's problems from the global economic downturn to environmental degradation. Note that "time-frames of consideration" usually increase developmentally(though this doesn't mean people are not present in the moment) so this type of thinking shows a certain maturity.

In balance to my last post suggesting the lens of "would I still so this if I had a year to live?" can be useful, I would also suggest that asking "How does this fit into my 100 year business plan" is another good one. Is your work sustainable? Is it making a difference? If not, why bother?

Pretend You Have Cancer

2010-03-03T21:40:00.002Z

I used to work for an NGO and saw some violence, hunger and poverty in places like Ethiopia, Palestine and the favela slums of Brazil. Although my experience was moderate compared to some people's in the sector, it was intense enough that "ordinary" life in the UK seemed to lack meaning afterwards. At the end of the three years of charity work I was somewhat burnt-out. I came home to the UK to settle down and figure out what to do with my life. At this point I had a couple of serious illnesses picked up along the way, a near death-car crash and my mother whom I am very close to got cancer. This period of my life as you can imagine SUCKED.

It was also at the end of this time when I decided to do something meaningful with my life long-term, got some focus and I started my business as soon as my mother started to recover (thank you NHS/God). This bounce-back is known technically as "post traumatic growth" and when difficult experiences are handled in a healthily manner is quite common. "The darkest hour is right before the dawn" or whatever cliche you prefer.

I stopped some damaging behaviours, became happier than I ever was and grateful to be alive and able to contribute. Since then life has really blossomed and I have a strong business, good health and a loving partner today. To pay my dues to life, on the trauma front I am now designing a program to increase the resiliency of people working in conflict zones which I think will prevent a lot of suffering.

It has been three years since my life was seriously threatened and what I find now is that priorities, perspective and the fact that life is short fades from memory amongst day-to-day concerns. Like most people I am more interested in the mundane details of work, weather, renting DVDs, what cute dress my girlfriend is wearing, than with the meaning of life. I don't want to lose track of what's important however so sometimes I just pretend I have cancer. To be crystal clear lest this post be considered bad taste, what I mean by this is that I remember that my time is limited and I like everyone else am dying (not lie or fake illness!) . I ask myself "If I had a year to live would I still do this work?", "Would I hold back and keep being so nice?" Or "Would I say that hurtful thing or bite my tongue?" etc. I know this may sound strange but this perspective helps tremendously and keeps giving me the kind of life I enjoy. So, while I fully appreciate that life threatening illness and situations are no joke in one sense (though laughter was one of the things that kept me and my sister sane in hospital with mum) and I am not disrespecting anyone with any illness, I highly recommend looking at life through the lens of suffering and impermanence as the Buddhist's might say. So go on, live a little - pretend you have cancer.

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Postscript: The biggest trauma of all however in this story is that I have just realised this post echoes a cheesy county and western song!

Creativity Day-Festival

2010-03-03T09:00:00.000Z

Creativity Day-Festival

-Would you like to rediscover your natural creative talent?

-Would improved lateral thinking help your work or just be more fun?

-Would you like to reconnect to the spirit of discovery and play?

This event is a smorgasbord extravaganza of creativity activities. Drop-in to mini-workshops on creative thinking, drumming, theatre games, spontaneity, singing and more. The day is a chance to discover hidden talents, bring more innovation into your life and have fun.

Come if you’d like to:

Unleash your innovation!
Gain practical tools for living
Activate dormant talents
Use your whole brain and exercise your imagination
Become even more interesting!
Play Exploding Zombie Tag and The Indiana Jones Game!
Try being an alien
Have holistic fun and make friends!

Workshop leaders include Jane Hunt (whole brain thinking), Francis Briers (presence and spontaneity), Chris Tero (rhythm collective), Adrian Harris (being an alien), Niki Davey (chakra singing), Judi Goodwin (creative thinking and writing) and Pilar Orti (theatre games).

Saturday 20^th March - Brighton 10.30am-5.30pm

Location - Ki Centre, Queens Square, Brighton

5 min walk from Brighton station, 1 hr from London Victoria).

Fee: £40 payment in advance (includes all activities), places limited

Online Payment and cheque details: http://integrationtraining.co.uk/training_payments.html

Contact: Mark Walsh – 07762 541 855 warkmalsh@yahoo.co.uk

How People Evolve

2010-03-02T11:30:00.000Z

A great diagram of Spiral Dynamics and how people evolve.

Why E-Learning Doesn't Work

2010-03-01T18:06:00.004Z

Training Zone has published an article of mine on Why E Learning Doesn't Work that is proving popular..well, controversial at least :-) Here it is in full:

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E-learning is increasingly popular but there’s a problem: it’s not really learning and it doesn’t really work. What! How can I say that? It’s all modern and uses computers and everything! I’m being somewhat flippant but here’s my point – e-learning is good at certain things and rubbish at others. This article explains why.

First, I should explain my own perspective as I’m not an impartial observer. I’m a specialist in experiential, interactive and “embodied training”. I use this approach both because it fits my values and because I’ve found that it’s what’s most effective. I would be equally happy writing an article called “why traditional classroom learning is a total waste of time” too. I am also no technophobe enjoying Twitter, blogging and my I-Phone.

What is Learning?

The majority of people in the Western world now have the close to the sum total of human knowledge at their fingertips via the internet, To be more precise they have information, and e-learning is a part of this boom (as is this article). Information isn’t however wisdom as almost any viral internet phenomena will prove! Like the web, e-learning is great for learning about things. Like most people I use Google and Wikipedia to find about things and e-learning makes this more efficient collecting relevant data in one place, but this is not to learn to do things. Think about driving – yes, the theory test is useful, but there is no substitute for lessons. HUman Learning any skill whether it be driving, speaking French or leadership skills, takes real-world practice and bespoke human support. E-learning often misses these two critical points. To be fair, not always, and the use of video, customer support and real-time “synchronous” e-learning is growing and generally viewed as making e-learning more effective (more a driving simulator to continue the analogy). Note however that this is making e-learning more effective by making it more like traditional training!

The Human Touch

Being able to see delegates, resonant with them emotionally, pick up on subtle nuances of communication and respond appropriately is the very essence education. I believe passionately that training and coaching are not about getting a “thing” from one head to another, but are an intimate dance that transforms both parties. We are not computers and if we treat people as such they will rightly resist and rebel.

I highly recommend the new film Up in The Air staring George Clooney. In it a company that makes people redundant tries to switch from face-to-face firing to video conferencing. The film explores the issue of removing this vital “human” touch. I use this fictitious example to protect the guilty in the real world. I would regard some e-learning “solutions” I have seen applied to human issues (and this definitely includes stress management and leadership training) as not only ineffective but dehumanising and ethically dubious.

Retention of Knowledge

Tell me by e-mail I forget. Show me I may remember. Involve all of me (and not just by clicking through a few games) and I really learn.

Second Order Learning

A whole level of learning that Wikipedia doesn’t touch is when the learner themselves changes. This “second order” or “ontological” learning is what is required for lasting behavioral change and therefore impact on bottom-line results. Let’s take stress and time management training which I provide regularly. I’ve seen bad e-learning programs which are just like Power Bore slide telling people about stress and time management. This in no way helps with people’s actual stress or time management. More advanced interactive e-learning programs may encourage people set goals and establish practices like regular deep breathing or list-making to support behavioral change in these areas. This is a bit better. I have never yet however seen an e-learning program which works effectively at the level at being. What do I mean by this? For example - does a person have a set of beliefs about workload that mean they will always be overwhelmed? Is there an embodied tendency to say yes? What is a person’s unique emotional pay-off for consistently being overwhelmed? Unless this level of highly individual learning is accessed “tricks and tips/ tick-box e-learning won’t be effective, and any money spent will be wasted.*

This applies to other areas too, from leadership which I hope is very obviously not learnt from an I-Pad, to health and safety. Can a person really safely learn manual handling without being given feedback targeted to their specific body and tasks? Traditional class-room learning (which itself can be non-interactive and “cookie cutter” in its approach) often fails to shift lasting habits – how much more so a few slides which may or may not even be read?

But What About...

What about all the advantages of e-learning? It’s cheap right? Yes, so is the clock I bought from Poundland that doesn’t work either. If not effective at producing behavioral change (and therefore better results) e-learning is hardly good value. Likewise, it can be standardized but this is not usually a good thing for learners and therefore outcomes.

Much of what I have said is also not fair to all e-learning providers so feel free to “yeah but...” this articles and advertise quality wares that address the issues I raise. My sense is that e-learning is definitely improving (there are some great companies here in Brighton alone - hello Brightwave, Kineo and Epic!). I also don’t think that the e-learning train is likely to stop, I do however hope it picks up the essence of what learning is all about along the way.

The Future

Perhaps blended learning solutions are the future - bringing together the best of e-learning and traditional training? Getting some factual learning across electronically before an interactive course and having good e-follow-up for example can make better use of “contact” time. I also think e-learning is a good challenge to stagnant traditional trainers as now they have to offer something that Wikipedia cannot. A concern I have is that increasing demand for e-learning will replace subject matter experts who know their material and how to work with people deeply, with tech wizards and companies large enough to afford the outlay of e-learning design. Time will tell, and ultimately what works will prosper.

I hope this article I’ve clarified some of the less obvious weaknesses of e-learning to balance its apparent strengths .

* See also Kirkpatrick’s work on learning evaluation theory.

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Mark Walsh is a UK pioneer of embodied training. Based in Brighton, Sussex, he heads Integration Training - business training providers specialising in management and leadership training, team building, stress management and time management training. Contact Mark on 07762 541 855 or visit his training blog.

Summary Points

· E-Learning has gotten popular but may not be good for certain things
· Learning about is not the same as learning to do or be
· The human touch is essential
· Cheap isn’t the same as good value
· Not all e-learning is equal
· Blended solutions may be the future

Help for Parents from Business Training

2010-02-26T16:49:00.012Z

How can business help parents? Simple - we'll sell your children. Only joking.

I lead business training courses and in these participants who are also parents often say, "Wow, that's great, I can use that with my kids" or similar. The joke has become they get a free "help for parents from business" workshop as well as the business training course. With this in mind and my impending uncledom :-) I have decided to write an article on this area explicitly rather than just helping parents by mistake. Please note, I am not a parent but have worked with children on five continents since I was one in various fields, so know a bit, but not a lot about children. I am including what parents on my training courses have told me is most useful.

Stress Management Training

Children are really stressful (as well as wonderful). Mindfulness, embodied techniques, good social support and cognitive reframing are all very useful for parents. Here are my top stress management resources and tips. I am particularly interested in resilience training currently and being a parent seems all about this! The research shows that talking about feelings, social support, good physical health and the meaning people make of events are all important for resilience.

Time Management Training

One reason I am in awe of anyone who raises children is that I wonder how they get anything done as kids are so demanding??!!!? With that in mind here are my top time management tips. Being able to say no and ask for help are critical as is understanding when you have made a commitment, and when children wreck your plans - how to renegotiate commitments in a way which looks after relationships and dignity.

Communication Training

Communicating with children and teenagers (retch) can be demanding. Good emotional intelligence skills are essential - listening often being the one that training course participants find the most useful, and I have noticed working with children that those that seem healthiest have parents who can listen well and encourage them to both express and manage their emotions. Looking for underlying needs, separating observations from evaluations and making clear requests are also all very helpful communication skills. Here are my top communication tips.

Leadership Training
Being a parent is being a leader. After about two years age children have to be lead and the core leadership skills for business people are the same for parents. I work with "embodied" approaches to leadership in particular which are particularly good with young people who pay more attention to what you do and communicate non-verbally than what you say. Here are some further details on leadership training (and a video). Note that good leadership is authentic (children have great BS detectors), and leading by threats and coercion will only get you so far (sooner or later you will get either rebellion or resentment). And as a final thought I would remember that all good leadership is servant leadership.

I hope these have helped - it is not my intention to tell anyone how to parent, only to offer what I have learnt form the business training world. Feedback welcome.

Rules for Life

2010-02-25T11:00:00.000Z

In my arogance I have compiled some rules for life - please don't take them too seriously, and none of them are too original:

You will die, use your time like a man in the desert uses his last bottle of water
Go with the flow, there's plenty of water
It's not about you - give all your water away
Be nice to your mum (enough with the water thing already)
Remember you are unique
Remember you're the same as everyone else
Laugh and play, you're funny as hell
Listen
Fall for life again and again. It's all a love story
There are no rules and people who say there are should be ignored...

Fun Stress Test

2010-02-24T22:10:00.000Z

Here's my fun new stress test for those in need of stress management in the office or elsewhere. It is in no way a scientific stress test by the way!

How many ways of killing you boss have you thought?

a) None! Every time he does something challenging I you just pray for us both

b) On or two, on a bad day, but you wouldn't

C) Dozens, many of which are very painful and you have planned in great details...in fact you just might get away with it...

When it last snowed did you...

a) Gaze upon the beauty of creation

b) Get a bit irate when you were late but cope without too much stress

C) Keep the bodies outside for a change

The photocopier breaks, do you...

a) Be thankful for your own health

b) Swear, but then use the one next door

c) Burn it and the office with it, laughing manically

Someone steals your Mars Bar from the office fridge do you...

a) Thank whoever it was for saving you calories

b) Leave an angry note and wish they get fat

c) Not eat the stuff but if you did and someone stole it you would tie them up and pour burning liquid chocolate down their throat until they drowned in it

John in accounts gets your pay-check wrong AGAIN! Do you...

a) Think that money only corrupts anyway and bless him

b) Phone him up straight away and ask him to sort it out immediately or you will report his incompetence

c) Use what he has paid you to hire thugs to break into his house, steals his children's toys and sell them on E-Bay

What is REALLY on your last business trip expense claim form?

a) Nothing, you live off love and air

b) A meals with clients, a few beers after the deal to manage the stress

c) Some fava beans and a nice bottle of Chianti

If you scored...

mostly a's - you are a saint, you need to be in a convent not a regular job

mostly b's - you're pretty normal, relax, we all get stressed at work

mostly c's- you are Hannibal Lecter

Managing Difficult Behaviour Training

2010-02-24T21:30:00.002Z

We have uploaded a new page for one of our core offers : Managing Difficult Behaviour Training Courses.

"Our managing difficult behaviour training courses are effective and enjoyable. We provide practical behaviour management training, resources and communication tools to help people get the job done. We work with individuals and organisations interested in managing difficult people and behaviour in Brighton (Sussex), Birmingham, London and the South East. We also take an ethical and respectful approach not focusing on -difficult people- but learnt behavioural strategies and ways to develop new ones. We find avoiding labelling and judging to finding underlying motivations and get behind the -difficult- behaviour creates mutual understanding and is what is most effective. "...

How many people to choose a video? – A Metaphor for Decision Making

2010-02-22T11:11:00.003Z

How many people is too many to choose a video to watch? How many people is too many to make any decision in business or life in general?

When I was a kid I was lucky to have tolerant parents and would sometimes have quite large groups of friends around the family home to watch a film at weekends. We would go en masse to the video rental shop and a dozen or more of us would argue for hours about what movie to rent. We would often either not make a decision at all or make one that most people were unhappy with after calling each other a lot of names and a reluctant vote. In order to solve this problem sometimes I would just get one myself ahead of the party, but I found even when being a benign dictator that tried to predict what others would like my decision was often rejected as people hated having no say. Another thing we tried was to vote on the genre to watch and then send one person to get a film that was in that category, a tactic which had some success but was not much liked. The solution we came up with that worked reasonably well was to elect three people that would represent the groups concerns (gender and mood for example were considered) and the three would pick a video – only agreeing if their decision was unanimous. This method had both consideration for those involved (stakeholders to use a buzzword) and a nimble and accountable executive branch that could get the job done.

Note what didn’t work when choosing a video and how this applies to business and organisational life:

- Endless discussion/ one person, one vote - I have seen charities, New Age groups and local government departments run in an “overly considerate” way where everyone has a say but nothing gets done.

- Compromise - Compromise is everyone loses a bit, not win win. See this Zen story on chopping babies in half. Many businesses use this method between departments to ill ends

- Dictatorship – Most businesses are essentially totalitarian regimes of threat and intimidation, this will get submission which is paid for in resentment, or rebellion.

So how can the method we came up with as eleven-year-olds help business? Surely most organisations are too big for this type of solution? Well, Google for example are huge but rarely use teams of more than five people. There is also a sense of accountability and both listening and firm executive decision making in many of the healthier organisations I have worked with. These two need to go hand in hand to balance task and relationships. What do you think?

Aside from the leadership training I currently do around this and other management issues I’m also very interested in sociocracy which may be a bit too fluffy for many businesses, and holocracy which sounds fabulous.

Leadership So What: Don’t be lame and don’t be a bully, listen well then act decisively

E-Mail and Emotions

2010-02-21T07:12:00.000Z

Theory of the Day - People like e-mail because they are emotionally "cold" (this also goes for text messages). Because so much of emotionally significant communication is carried in tone and body language e-mail is both dangerous and safe for people. Safe, or at least the illusion of safe, as less resonance occurs than face to face. This means that less desirable messages (I'm thinking of people cancelling appointments at the last minutes for example) can be sent without feeling the reaction of the person being dumped/fired/ generally shat upon. A more positive side of this is that people have time to edit "toxic" thoughts into more constructive ones. Even this however is dangerous as authenticity may be lost.

The main danger is that e-mails are no less "emotional" in their impact and because of the lack of clarity around tone may be easily misunderstood (which is why the much maligned smileys were invented :-) For me, e-mailing difficult message shows a lack of courage or concern. If you deliver an unpleasant message by e-mail you will pay for it in the long run in damage to task, relationship and your own integrity. Don't be a coward - deliver emotional messages face to face or at least by phone - it will save you a lot of trouble in the long-run. If this is too scary and idea it may be time to develop your emotional intelligence, personal leadership and ability to handle stress.

Cat Herding and Leadership

2010-02-17T12:10:00.003Z

I was commenting to my new mentor Lynne Sedgemore that leadership and training is like cat herding with capable intelligent people. She sent me this:

Why are People Late? & How Not to Be Late

2010-02-15T09:45:00.001Z

How many times are you planning on being late this week? How many times will you be? I've been asking myself for a few years - why are people late (myself occasionally included). It's a personal bug of mine as like many business people my time is precious and I know life is short. Most people hold the view that being late is rude - and while there are wide cultural differences around this (as my Brazilian ex will tell you...) - it is at least in Northern European and US culture regarded as disrespectful. Why then are people late?

The two most obvious explanations are that people are late because they are stupid or don't care. Let's take don't care first.

People are late because they don't care

First, it's worth differentiating sincerity from reliability. I have a number of friends who really believe they will be on time but rarely are - they are unreliable but not consciously insincere when they make time bound promises. Liars are not the same as flakes. In between are people who don't respect other people's time (hell, it's only their life). If you care about the person you are meeting take responsibility and make sure you are on time as it.

People are late because they're stupid

I had a close friend at University who was always late. She was an A grade student but was "late-stupid." This used to frustrate me as at the time I didn't understand what the problem was -she cared, was clever but was reliably unreliable. It's not really intelligence but other cognitive factors at play

Attention

Most people do not have a trained attention so they easily forget what they are doing and get drawn into other things. People are generally not good at holding multiple commitments in mind.

Reminder Systems

The human brain is bad at recalling information (e..g I have a meeting) at specific times, it works by association rather than like a clock. This means we need reliable reminder systems which can be high (a Blackberry) or low tech (a washing basket placed in front of the door)

Optimism, Memory and Mental Modelling

In order to be on time you have to remember past instances of going somewhere and/or model how long things will take. Some people are habitually optimistic in doing this - often failing to account for what I call "corridor time" - the time it takes to get shoes on, go to the toilet etc, between actual activities. In this way being late is a modelling issue.

Emotional Issues

Often people who are late often get an emotional pay-off for doing so - attention from others, the excitement of rushing, even getting to beat themselves up internally. Unless these are resolved time management systems won't be effective.

People are Late Because of Acts of God?

Late people usually blame external circumstances - traffic, weather, their own children, whatever. This removes blame and accountability. Notice however there is a continuum between "I was hit by lightening" and "I bumped into a friend and we had to have a coffee" (a real one from Brazil ;-) Take for example when it snowed recently - I was running a time management workshop in London and didn't want to be late/cancel! I looked at the weather the day before, travelled up from Brighton the night before heavy snow was forecast, stayed at a friends near the venue and walked in the next day. Some in the workshop went to even greater, most didn't and were late/ didn't show.

Some people see themselves as victims of circumstance and others don't, what is really different is their mind-set and their commitment, and it pisses me off when people don't own that as it damages the relationship, the work and their own power.

What about flexibility you may be asking -yes, that's important too, but another article :-) In the meantime here are my top tips for how not to be late:

How Not to Be Late

- Take 100% responsibility for being on time, all the time, under ALL circumstances

- Use past experience as a guide then add some extra time (20% is good)

- Have a plan B

- Meditate to train your attention

- Get reliable reminder systems (e.g. a phone that beeps at you)

- Take account of "corridor time"

- Look at the emotional pay-offs involved for you

- Don't ruin an apology with an explanation if you are late

Spiritual Intelligence

2010-02-11T11:00:00.000Z

Here's a nice diagram of spiritual intelligence competencies from Conscious Pursuits.

I'm not sure I'd equate spirituality just with peace and equanimity - what about the table turning fire of spirit? - but I like it and am very glad the author Cindy Wigglesworth is out there in the business world.

I'm currently working on a similar Daniel Goleman inspired map for embodied intelligence...

The Future of Training Revisited

2010-02-10T11:30:00.004Z

Change Board have just published an article on The Future of Training - it is an edit of a popular article from the blog a month back.
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Cultures in business are slowly shifting to become more people-focused and the end of the recession will likely speed this. Employers are realising that people are not machines, need to work sustainably, have emotions, families and even spiritual beliefs. This trend will however collide with the idea of "more from less" - which has been getting people to work longer and longer hours. "The end of more" is a trend that applies to both consumerism and the future workplace. Ultimately the "return of the human" trend will win out as it is more competitive long-term (e.g. reduce sickness and burnout) - we are seeing this with leading edge companies such as Google, Semco and Innocent today. Long may it continue...

Paul Linden UK Workshop - Embodied Training Tools

2010-02-08T12:43:00.015Z

test

Conscious Business

2010-02-08T11:14:00.001Z

My Dutch friends Realize have produced this summary of Fred Kofman's Conscious Business. If you work, read it.

At Integration Training we both use and train these matters in our leadership, stress management and conflict resolution courses.
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Conscious Business

Conscious businesses yield above average returns, because they practice principles which in the long run serve not only the bottom line, but also the relationships between, and integrity of employees. Fred Kofman, co-founder and president of Axialent and internationally acclaimed speaker, uncovers seven principles of conscious business: fundamental human principles which can be practiced daily and which are at the heart of personal leadership.

Unconditional responsibility

Response-ability refers to the ability to respond to a situation. It is unconditional in the sense that, no matter how little influence you have on a situation you are confronted with, there is always a degree of freedom in how you choose to deal with it.

Essential integrity

In organizations, the success of your actions is largely evaluated in terms of the results you achieve. Essential integrity adds a criterion, which is the degree to which your actions are an expression of your fundamental values. The higher the alignment between actions and values, the larger is the degree of integrity.

Ontological humility

Ontological humility refers to the recognition that you have no special claim to truth, and that the views of others are to be respected and considered. This attitude is opposed to ‘ontological arrogance’: ‘my truth is the only truth’. Although it may seem obvious that people have different perspective, most of us don’t act on this understanding, particularly in situations of disagreement or conflict.

Authentic communication

The challenge of communication is sharing difficult information in an authentic and respectful manner, in alignment with your fundamental values. Communicating in this way deepens your relationships and improves your performance (and that of the organization). In order to understand the challenge of authentic ommunication: how would you tell a colleague that you think his/her proposal is a very bad idea, in a way which will help both of you to move forward?
Constructive negotiation

Constructive negotiation is an approach to conflict management which is based on the attitude of mutual learning. It deals with three aspects of conflict: the topic (decision-making), the relationship (mutual respect), and the integrity of both individuals. Constructive negotiation allows all of the involved to orient themselves toward ‘winning with’ the other(s), instead of ‘winning from’ the other(s).

Impeccable coordination

The challenge of good coordination is facing up to and keeping commitments in the context of uncertainty and change. This means you can ‘count on each other’. When this is not (entirely) the case, an organization falls into a vicious circle in which existing commitments fail to be kept, causing new commitments to be made which couldn’t possibly be kept in the first place.

Emotional mastery

Emotional mastery refers to the art of continuously acting consciously and in full alignment with your values, even while confronted with stress. When the emotional circuit is strong enough, it can withstand high charges. When it is weak, intense emotions will blow the fuses, taking your conscious mind offline.
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Fred Kofman on organizational behaviors:

"Many organizations seem hell-bent on pretending that what is happening is not really happening. To survive, employees have to accept that they are not experiencing what they experience. This puts them in impossible contradictions. Furthermore, they have to act as if these contradictions don't exist, which makes it impossible to discuss or change them. It is not surprising that stress and apathy run rampant. Repressing reality is at the core of mental illness."

Some examples of contradictory behaviors in organizations:

Tell the truth, but don’t bring bad news.
Take risks, but don’t make mistakes.
Be a team player, but what really counts is your individual performance.
Be creative, but don’t break the rules.
Promise only what you can deliver, but never say no to a request from your boss.
Follow all the rules above, but act as if none of them exist.

The Pain and Beauty of Service

2010-02-05T11:54:00.001Z

Recently I have been working with a number of very different organisations and an emotive theme has emerged for me – the pain and beauty of service.

I do the training I do in organisations to serve - not in some glib “customer service and shareholder value” BS way, but from the heart. I have chosen to do what I do as it is the best way I know to support my own development, the world I want to bring into being and the spirit permeating it all. I don’t want this to sound grand as to me this is a necessity and no more noble than eating when I am hungry or sleeping when I am tired. I don’t think I could go back to a “normal” job without this now to be honest...I ‘m utterly ruined.

I jest, I am fortunate to be able to live this way, and grateful for an opportunity not afforded to thousands of generations before. I am frequently astounded by the beauty of midwifing learning and individual’s development. When the inner-light-bulbs go off that it is possible to be a human being at work in stress, leadership or emotional intelligence trainings for example, it is hard for me not to burst with emotion like an overripe tomato in a goddess’ lips. For me it is beautiful and it is not a metaphor when I say I regularly fall in love with groups of delegates.

Note that I don't say my job is to please*. Many days I do not please myself and sometimes I do not please my clients...but I serve them. For me there is a great pain in service, and a loneliness of working within organisations that can exhibit painfully low levels of development (e.g. emotionally) and therefore need support. To be another Einstein appropriator- a problem cannot be solved from the level of thinking that created it – so effective consultants and coaches will always be isolated no matter how empathic. It is literally psychically painful for me to work in some of the organisations that need what I do the most, and at the end of a day of dancing in and out of resonance (as it serves) I have to be held in the arms of my woman for a long time to feel again.

Happily I have been a part of building a mutually supportive community in the last few years (Integration Training) and have been welcomed into others such as Newfield that help ease this strain and loneliness. For me this is no small thing and again it is no exaggeration to say that I love them. Without this small evolving way-faring sangha I would not be able to bear it. Thank we, thank we, thank we.

I’d also like to note a couple of traps for me around these themes that I regularly jump into - playing the martyr and arrogance. An overemphasis on serving others (as opposed to self AND other) can lead me to some “woe is me, bearing the cross” BS at times, this is not beautiful or what this piece is about. Another danger is the “consultant/magician/ parent knows best” superiority complex. It is a delicate balancing of having another perspective that can be of use with accepting the basic equality of all people. I also reject that false humility and non developmentally informed new-age crap prevalent in the coaching and counselling world that believes (and it is a belief) that people are beautiful unique snow-flakes who can solve all their own problems. If you disagree come round and ask me to put you in an aikido hold and see if you can figure out the counter – without adequate training you will not.

How then do I proceed and hold both a profound belief in acceptance and equality with a desire to lead and support growth? How also to lick the plates of pain and beauty equally? Like many things these days I suspect an answer would remove the point. It is in staying with the beauty and pain of the contradiction and question that is worthwhile. The meta-joke is of course that this is itself is “taking sides” so I’ll also be acting with full conviction one way or another in the meantime...The pain is frankly hilarious and beauty is full of bloody awe.

*thank you Aboodi Shabi for the distinction

Are you a Business Prostitute?

2010-02-01T13:00:00.001Z

In Amsterdam recently it occurred to me a prostitute isn't just someone who sells sex, but some anyone who exchanges what is sacred for what is not. I define a "business prostitute" as anyone devoting their working life to an activity without a higher cause beyond profit.

I claim that our lives are sacred (in the sense of important, not necessarily any religious sense) and that just using it to make money is a waste of the precious life we have. I am not saying that making money or capitalism is bad, only that for me this is how I run a business, not why I run a business. Incidentally if you are a hedonist and all you want from life is pleasure, research shows that making money beyond the minimum to live is a dumb strategy too.

Often I hear people say "but I have to do this work to live, blah, blah, blah..."I have children to feed...blah, blah, blah" Bullshit, we are not serfs - people that say this are rarely at subsistence levels of survival, rather they are prioritizing consumerism. A down and out street prostitute who sell his or her wares to live I can understand, but what can those who are not starving buy that is more important than their lives?

Your children will thank you more for doing something of worth than for a big house and car (which if you do something you really love well you'll probably be able to afford anyway- business prostitution doesn't even make sense economically - people are much more likely to get rich doing something they love than something they don't).

My message is this - If you are a business prostitute take personal responsibility and do something with your time that really matters to you. You may well be able to do that within a mainstream organisation without dropping out and joining a commune. It is a travesty to exchange what matters for what doesn't. Don't be a whore, get a life.

The Daily Mind

2010-01-28T12:52:00.000Z

Billed as "Eastern wisdom to make the daily grind more meaningful" The Daily Mind is a great site with a lot in common with this one. Recommended.

Metaphors for Managing Complexity

2010-01-27T12:26:00.000Z

In business today a critical leadership skill is dealing with multiple variables, commitments and time-frames simultaneously. This can be very stressful so I'm often bought in to do time and stress management workshops. These are effectiveness however there is a more fundamental issue - what are the metaphors people have for managing the complexity of the modern world? People are as effective as their metaphors and models of the world allow. People live "in" their stories and images of the world, and these shape their lives.

Garbage

"This is a mess - let's clean it up!" This is an old "command and control" metaphor where leaders try to get everything in it's correct place. It rarely works these days - there's too much change and uncertainly and this model will just make you stressed.

Juggling

"I'm juggling a lot of projects at the moment, get back to me". Another control model but one that acknowledges that things may never be completed. The hidden message of course is "and i may drop something" so I would also see this as a stress inducing narrative.

Surfing and Dancing

"Going with the flow." "Leading the sales tango." Moving from control to accepting and responding to what is, newer metaphors are emerging to cope with the current business environment.

Randori

"Randori" is a Japanese word from the martial art of aikido to do with effortlessly dealing with a multiple attack situation in a calm and flowing manner. While perhaps too foreign or combative for some this is a personal favourite.

Green Research for Business

2010-01-26T11:00:00.002Z

Verdantix are one of the top research firms looking at Green issues and their impact on business. Their website is a good example of the type of togetherness and languaging need for the green movement to work with mainstream business.

Networking Tips and No Nos

2010-01-26T08:03:00.000Z

Networking Tips and No Nos

If you're in business you're meant to network, it's in THE RULES or something. Most networking business people do however is a complete waste of time however, and an unpleasant inauthentic crass one at that. Here are my list of networking tips and no nos. Things to avoid:

Being a Selfish Git (a.k.a. a "Netjerk")

Networking IS about getting in touch with certain specific people - your target market and people who may know your target market (in my case training managers in medium to large sized companies in the UK for example). AND while targeting is key, don't just be a blinkered selfish user git. It's networking not getworking or netjerking.

It may be the wife, friend or son of an apparently "useless" person that connects you to a buyer for example. You are also building your public identity with each person you speak with. Note also that effective networking is about giving and being useful to others. The person that is now providing me with web design gave several good pieces of free advice and contacts for other work before we started working together - people reciprocate and cross refer naturally once relationship is built.

Being Boring

Me, me, me is boring, boring, boring. Remember that people's time is precious, listen and get to know people. This is in your interest as well as their as any good sales person will tell you.

Shoulder Gazer

Give people your full attention or none at all, looking over someones shoulder to see if anyone more "useful" around at a networking event is offensive.

Card Thrusting

When you meet someone do not just trust your card towards them straight away - this is definite no no. The card handover should be like a respectful kiss at the end of a first date. You don't even have to exchange cards with everyone you meet.

Being a Networking Fake

Be yourself, you're better that way and most people can smell BS a mile off anyway. If someone asks how business is and it's not great, say "not great". If someone asks how you are answer them truthfully, you will be building trust.

Card Collecting

While networking for me is not about just talking to people I can sell to, it is also worth following-up connections, and getting put in touch with people you can sell to (or buy from). Add people to your database, LinkedIn, Twitter or whatever else the kids use these days, after you meet them. Mail that day or make a note to phone people to continue building relationship and being generous. Just collecting a bunch of cards won't achieve anything.

Being a Networking Tart
Find one or two groups and get to know people within them by building relationships over time.
Groups I enjoy networking with for example are the Brighton and Hove Chamber of Commerce who are friendly and funky and the local CIPD group (I work in business training so these are my peers and potential customers).

Networking Tips and No Nos Conclusion

I hope you've found these networking tips and no nos useful. Good networking is just being yourself and getting to know people, who you may be of service to, and who may enjoy helping you out. Look for the win-wins and enjoy being yourself.

Do You Want Lies With That? - Training vs Authenticity

2010-01-25T10:50:00.000Z

Here's part of a diaglogue along in a fast food restaurant along with what went through my head (in blue) and what I actually said.

"How can I help"
Your face looks like you would rather do anything other than help...
"Just the cheeseburger meal please mate."

"Do you want to go large?"
Stop trying to upsell, clearly I don't need to.
"No thanks"

"Have a nice nice day sir."
You don't mean that. You're full of BS, and when did I get knighted?
"Cheers"

Maybe I was having an off day, maybe I am just tired of inauthentic exchanges with supposedly well trained staff. Like most people I have these kind of dialogues daily, sometimes I try and bring reality into into it by saying what's on my mind (usually in a more polite way than above) but this usually just freaks staff out.

In many companies customer service training is the opposite of authentic communication and it in NO WAY makes up for staff who don't want to be there because they hate their jobs.. It always shows when people hate their work and have contempt for customers, as so much communication is non-verbal. People who are trained to say one thing but mean another are leaking the truth anyway through their body language. Inauthentic communication alienates and frustrates all involved.

On a more positive note, I've had an entirely different experience at the Apple store in Brighton. Also a large corporate chain but one where employees seem to genuinely love their product and are allowed to be themselves. I have chatted to several staff their and have been met by no stock lines or general plastic BS. Their (some might say cultish) loyalty and genuine desire to help is somewhat disconcerting in a world where it is so far from the norm in fact.

Clearly there are several factors at play here and I'm not comparing like with like. I would however say that training that stresses authentic communication over scripts is essential for businesses. (Quick plug for moi while I think about it: BS free communication training in Brighton, London, Birmingham and the SE.)

Lastly, I'll finish by saying that culture is a big part of this - British people in general value authenticity and humour, and training that has been imported from the USA wholesale isn't appropriate. The manager at the Brighton Apple store is American, but the feel of the staff interaction is very British (very Brighton in fact). Let's end fake plastic crap communication and get back to being human and British. In the words of a great British statesman - "Keep it real".

Anger Management Training

2010-01-23T16:55:00.003Z

We have added a new anger management training courses page to the Integration Training website.

"Managing anger is necessary for many people to be effective at work, to have healthy relationships (with colleagues or at home) and for health and wellbeing. Anger reduces workplace productivity and creates stress for everyone. Our anger management courses identify the causes of anger and provide practical effective anger management techniques that can be used by participants immediately and on an ongoing basis. We take an integral view of anger management, aggression and rage showing how psychology, biology, communication, cultural factors and lifestyle (e.g. diet, exercise and alcohol consumption) are all important, and give anger management resources in these areas. We work with individuals and organisations interested in anger management in Brighton (Sussex), Birmingham, London and the South East...."

Green Training?

2010-01-22T10:51:00.003Z

Can training be made more green? Jeremy Woods from Anglia Training Associates thinks so:

"Having been involved in green things for about 30 years it seemed appropriate to make a contribution to the Training business in some way. This consumes energy, just like any other business, involving travel, the use of facilities and consumables. In the case of the latter this is mainly paper.Think about the energy content of a sheet of A4 copy paper. The trees were cut down by mechanical means, transported to a paper mill where a large energy input is used to reduce the tree to pulp. Then paper production including heating and drying. It then has to be transported - somewhere and it’s heavy." CONT

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On a related note, Integration Training is currently looking for "green trainers" (in this case trainers who work with companies specifically in green issues) - please get in touch if you work in this area.

S**t! I'm a Manager!

2010-01-20T16:17:00.003Z

A classic problem in business is when people with technical skills are promoted to managerial positions which they are not equipped for. A great engineer, chemist or lawyer may say to themselves, "S**t!" when promoted to a new manager and it becomes apparent that a very different skill-set is now needed. This article is for people in that position or HR personnel who wish to support new managers.

- Acknowledge the Need

In order to develop the necessary skills managers must first recognise the "skill gap" and acknowledge that something needs to be done about it. The mind-set that managers bring to this is crucial "S**t, I'm a manager!" is quite different from "I've learnt before, I'll learn again" for example.

- Training
Once a skill-gap has been identified the relevant training should be provided (often soft skills). Ideally this will be provided before a move into a leadership position but realistically it may happen after. If a manager is aware of a need but not getting support they may need to insist (it is an obligation for employers to suitably train anyone for a role) or go outside and get the training themselves.

- Mentoring
Mentoring is a great way for new managers to learn "on the job". Often people respect and relate to those who have made an equivalent journey themselves.

- Practice
New skills take time to acquire and improved people skills are no different. A new manager will need to be committed and practice whatever they learn (just reading a Daniel Goleman book won't cut it).

- Evaluation
After a suitable period of training, mentoring and adaptation an evaluation needs to be made as to if the new manager is suited to a leadership role. Some may be happier in a technical role - having a company structure that allows financial progression without managerial responsibilities can be beneficial.

Further information on business leadership and management training (no obscenities)

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Managerial So What: If promoted from a technical to a managerial position new skills are needed and can be learnt.

Unlearning Styles

2010-01-20T11:56:00.003Z

"The illiterate of the twenty-first century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn." --Alvin Toffler More unlearning quotes

Learning styles are so popular in business training and development as to be almost a cliche, but what about unlearning? It could be said this id just another way of looking at learning but it feels slightly different to me. In the modern world where information is so freely available and change is constant it is also a key skill.

Just for kicks and giggles here are my own totally unscientifically researched unlearning styles:

Replacers
Replacers simply replace the old with the new, forgetting and importing. This is actually very rare.

Destroyers
Destroyers take old models kick them in the head and torture them to death. Having a destroyer as a delegate/student can be challenging for all concerned. They are committed to truth but risk damaging relationships in the process.

Dismantlers
Dismantlers are more careful and considered than destroyers, examining and taking old ideas apart carefully bit y bit (this can be frustratingly slow and hyper-rational).

Cloakers
Cloakers don't really unlearn at all, but rather make their old knowledge look like something new to please or fit a trend. Because underlying beliefs remain the same everyone is wasting their time with cloaking.

Transformers
Transformers are not only robots in disguise but learners who develop old ideas into new ones. This is common and healthy enough, the only downside being when a paradigm shift is needed.

I know that many teachers, trainers and coaches read this blog - what distinctions would you add?
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Training So What: Learning is about unlearning and there are different ways to do this.

Comfortable Computer Use

2010-01-18T10:52:00.000Z

Comfortable Computer Use - by Paul Linden

The information age is also the age of aches and pains. Computers are everywhere — at work, at school and at home — and millions of people are suffering from computer-related stress, fatigue, and Repetitive Strain Injuries. The results is job dissatisfaction, loss of productivity, and high medical bills.

However, through training in body awareness, relaxation and body mechanics, it is surprisingly easy to achieve comfortable computer use. Here are eight hints to make your life easier—taken from my book Comfort at Your
Computer.

• Computer use is an intense athletic event. Holding your body in position for hours on end forces your whole body to work hard. Keyboarding is not just sitting around resting.
• It isn’t what you do, it’s how you do it. If you sit and move in tense, awkward ways, you will experience fatigue and pain. If you use your body in relaxed, balanced ways, and take appropriate rest and movement breaks, you will be comfortable.
• Body awareness is the key. Most people do not have enough knowledge about the anatomical structure and functioning of the body to be able to figure out strain-free ways of using their bodies, proper ways of setting up their computers, or effective movement breaks.
• Breathe gently. Many adults have learned to “suck in their guts” as they inhale, but this tension interferes with free breathing and whole body ease. The belly, chest, and back should all swell gently outward during inhalation and gently release during exhalation.
• Level your foundation. Contrary to most people’s beliefs, sitting up straight is not done by straightening the back, throwing back the shoulders or elevating the chest. It is done by rolling the pelvis into place as a foundation for the spinal column and head. Sitting up in an anatomically natural manner is surprisingly easy and comfortable, but people need instruction to learn how to do this. Using a towel roll for pelvic support will make your whole body comfortable.

• The periphery is supported by the core. The positions of your legs, arms and head are determined by how you arrange your pelvis and spinal column. In order to allow your feet to be flat on the floor and your thighs to be horizontal, the height of your chair should be equal to the length of your lower leg plus the thickness of your shoe sole. Your desk should be at a height which allows your elbows to hang by your sides and your forearms to be horizontal when you hands are on the keyboard.
• Relax your eyes. Keeping your eyes focused for lengthy periods on a single spot close to your face is fatiguing to your eye muscles. Place your monitor about an arm’s length from your face, and look away from your computer every few minutes. Look off into the distance. Close your eyes and move them around in gentle circles and figure eights. In order to keep from twisting and straining your neck and eyes, your monitor should be directly in front of your eyes, with the top edge about eyebrow level.
• Never adjust yourself to the computer. Always adjust the workstation to the requirements of your body. Obtain equipment that will work properly for you, and adjust it to fit your needs.
Paying attention to yourself as you use your computer will pay off in two ways. First, it will reduce your fatigue and prevent injuries. Second, it will allow you to practice gentle alertness, which will have beneficial results throughout your life.

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This article on comfortable computer use was written by Paul Linden who will be in the UK in May, contact business training providers Integration Training for details.

Emodied Leadership in Action in Europe

2010-01-16T21:40:00.005Z

Here's a report on embodied training from the recent Authentic Leadership in Action course in Amsterdam. Rather jealous I didn't make it in fact :-(

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"The module I’m taking here is Wendy Palmer’s Embodied Leadership. It is extremely powerful work - Conscious Embodiment Using physical exercises, we are exploring reactive patterns – ways that our personality or ego like things done. Just noticing. So for instance, when in an exercise a partner pushes me, I automatically fall back, shoulders tighten. I’m off-centre, trying to negate the conflict. And then, Wendy coaches us through a four-part centering exercise – breathing out, we ground ourselves and feel ourselves becoming more upright and stable. Our arms move forward and out, fingers outstretched. In that minute it takes, we transform. We are no longer dependent on the other to be centered – what other people do or don’t do doesn’t dictate our actions. So while in work or home we may not be physically pushed – we may find ourselves triggered. And doing this, can enable us to recover to our centre."

Integration Training is one of the few training providers of embodied work in the UK.

Haiti Earthquake Stress Management Tips

2010-01-16T20:41:00.002Z

This article by the American Psychological Association includes stress management tips in regard to the Haiti earthquake. It is aimed at those who have friends or relatives there and are suffering form stress.

And here are Integration Training's stress resources and tips.

Beautiful Integral Website

2010-01-15T10:46:00.000Z

One beautiful website on integra l, and they do aikido too! Aside from being a beautiful site they have lots of free integral resources...if you're wondering what the hell integral is. Now to look up "atelier"...

Suicide Prevention Resources

2010-01-14T12:10:00.000Z

Here are some excellent resources relating to suicide and suicide prevention from my friends at Grassroots Training. Pass it on, you may save someones life.

The Future Of Training

2010-01-13T09:12:00.000Z

What is the future of training? What will the next ten years bring? What will grow and what will die? Who knows! But here are my wild guesses. Given that I run a training business I should also point out that I'm totally biased:

The "Return of the Human" Collides with "More from Less"

Cultures in business are slowly shifting to become more people-focused and the end of the recession will likely speed this. Employers are realising that people are not machines, need to work sustainably, have emotions, families and even spiritual beliefs. This trend will however collide with the idea of "more from less" - which has been getting people to work longer and longer hours. "The end of more" is a trend that applies to both consumerism and the future workplace. Ultimately the "return of the human" trend will win out as it is more competitive long term (e.g. reduce sickness and burnout) - we are seeing this with leading edge companies such as Google, Semco and Innocent today. Long may it continue.

The Growth and Decline of PC Training

Businesses and other organisations have been getting more tuned in to diversity, equality and how language can be oppressive over the last twenty years. This is a good thing - Stewart Lee says why better than I can - that has transformed working environments. Training companies have made a lot of money teaching people why "person with disabilities" is a better thing to say than "disabled person" for example, and this will continue...for a time. There has also been a backlash against what is perceived as political correctness and I believe diversity and equality training will decline, both because of this backlash and because eventually I hope, we will reach a point where such training is no longer necessary, as it will be a given.

Interestingly, there are now many trainers out there doing what I would call "post-PC" diversity and equality training which accepts that phraseology constantly changes and can be a mouthful, and moves beyond a "blaming and shaming". Hurrah!

The Growth of CSR and Environmental Training

The growing power of business means that it will be demanded that business have social responsibility in the future. This change will also come from the inside as those involved in business evolve personally. This one is a hope as well as a prediction, because if business doesn't do this we are doomed (yes, doomed). In part this will be about post recession business checking its values and from a younger generation which has motivations beyond profit. London Business School for example now run courses in CSR, socially responsible investment and social enterprise because of demand from younger students. Crucially such changes are also profitable so the old-guard will be left behind. The times they are a changing.

The Growth of Integral Training

Training that includes more of the delegates will prosper. "Head-led" Power Point borefests will not be as successful as interactive, emotionally informed embodied training. Training that takes into account all of Wilber's quadrants (subjective and objective,plural and singular) lines (multiple intelligences), levels (developmental stages), types (e.g. MBTI) and states of consciousness will grow. Training that is integral is more effective and gets better results as it takes into account more of the factors that are involved.

E-Learning Learns its Place

E-Learning has become popular and will continue to do so because it is cheap and versatile. It also not really learning. Wow, hang-on cowgirl, what did I just say? 9 times out of 10 E-learning is learning "about" things. It rarely teaches how to do things and I've never seen it teach about the person doing the things. This last level (called second order or "ontological" learning) is what really makes the difference. Wikipedia is a good way to learn about things, training needs to provide a better service in the future.

I don't mean to be too hard on e-learning - there are some great providers locally like Epic and Brightwave - and it has it's place. The place of e-learning is in support of bespoke human-led training -machines can not teach like people. I therefore predicted that blended learning will grow and the one-size-fits-all-people are just-machines form of e-learning will decline.

The Growth and Decline of Measuring Training Results

Those responsible for training in organisation and outside providers will be under increasing pressure to "prove it". Application over theory will triumph and training results will increasingly be demanded and measured. As the downside of reductionism and excluding tricky human unmeasurables becomes clear, people may becoming dissatisfied with Key Performance Indicators and we may eventually see a decline in this trend. One way of looking at this is that training needs to moves from a pre-rational belief based model where it's at currently, through facts and figures to a post-rational human way of doing things.

The Death of The Expert/ Growth of Coaching?

The coaching method will increase as the learning paradigm shifts from expert led to learner led, with an emphasis on practice and application rather than just theory This will mean a growth of not only coaching but of action learning sets, humanistic schooling, etc. Coaching also risks cynical kick-back and decline however due to lack of standards and regulation (If I see one more under qualified life-coach on Twitter...") . This trend will also mean a growth in informal non-classroom learning (facilitated by e-learning used appropriately).

The Growth of Knowledge Management Training
Organisations are realising that much learning happens "off-line" in informal settings. Also that organisations know "more than they know" to steal a phrase. As a trainer I find the classroom as a group will often know more about a subject combined than myself as an "expert" individual (my role then becomes bringing out and managing that knowledge). Perhaps more fundamentally we increasingly live in a "knowledge economy" where the ability to retain and grow knowledge in any organisation is paramount. With these things in mind I predict that training relating to knowledge management will continue to grow.

The Emergence of Slow Training

Over the years there has been an ever increasing pressure to do training in less and less time. I'm told that Ashridge for example in the 1930s had a standard 13 week leadership course (where now five days would be standard), similarly my half-day courses are very popular and bite-size lunch-time learning has become a trend. I think there will be a kick-back against this as people realise that real learning takes time. The "slow" movement will emerge as it has in food, parenting and travel.

The Death of Training Institutions?
I don't think many large training institutions will survive the next ten years - they are too unwieldy for the rapid pace of change. The CIPD may become defunct, many MBAs irrelevant and the large aristocratic British business training residencies may suffer. In many cases I hope not, but this is my prediction.

And last but not least, we will all wear Lycra.
I've seen science fiction so this one is the only one I can say with certainty :-) The rest is just guesswork, what do you think?

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*NB: In posting this there is a risk of a pre-trans fallacy in interpretation, please do not call me an blah-blah-blah-ist or accuse me of an ism without knowing my life.

Being a Woman at Work

2010-01-12T11:30:00.002Z

A good blog post about reclaiming feminine values and being a woman at work. Fellow student of Richard Strozzi Heckler Susan Harrow:

"Women often believe that they must act like men to succeed. They scramble up the corporate ladder by copying traditional male behavior. Although it sometimes buys them temporary "success", most of the time, on a deeper level, it doesn't work. They frequently find themselves dissatisfied, restless, and ultimately unfulfilled." CONT

Bullshit Bingo - Jargon

2010-01-11T10:53:00.008Z

I'm a fan of plain English, however some of you may be working in companies where this is unfashionable and consultese is the norm. How then to make meetings bearable? The answer is bullshit bingo! To the best of my knowledge this game was invented by some friends in a major London management consultancy company about ten years back.

How to Play Bullshit Bingo

First you need a friend- it can be played alone but it's not nearly as much fun

You and you friend pick nine jargon words and put them in a grid as shown
Bring this to a meeting and cross off words that are mentioned

When you get a line, you must say a sentence involving every word in that line to claim victory!

More information on bullshit bingo is here. And there's even a special NHS version here.

To be fair (an overused opener) all organisations have their own jargon and this isn't necessarily a bad thing as uncommon terms can speed things up. For me jargon only becomes bullshit when it takes away clarity ("swings and roundabouts" for example seems to mean different things to different people and be used as a catch all justification for non action."

Look here for good quality and relatively* jargon free business training,

*I think "embodied" is necessary terminology, I'll let you decide about "bespoke" and "bottom line" :-)

George Leonard Sensei

2010-01-10T18:17:00.004Z

It is with sadness that I pass on the news that George Leonard Sensei has passed away. George Leonard Sensei was a pioneer of the embodied work that is now my living. A couple of years back I hosted the current president of Integral Transformative Practice (ITP) which he invented and recently Integration Training associate Francis Briers became trained in his wonderful The Samurai Game.

Thank you Leonard Sensei for opening doors for many of us. A full obituary of a wonderful life is here.

What Type of Manager are You? - A Free Training

2010-01-09T15:25:00.012Z

– Discover your leadership potential
A free training for representatives of organisations

Explore what’s valuable in your leadership style and what might put you at risk. This interactive training will refer to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and enable you to experience the range and practicality of a tool which is sometimes misunderstood or used superficially. You will also have a chance to experience leading-edge “Embodied Training” and get personal feedback on your body language. Accurate self-knowledge is the basis of leadership and we all have blind-spots. In addition this workshop will benefit those who manage diverse teams with members with different personalities.

Benefits of Attending The Training Include:

• Insight into your management and leadership style
• Increased awareness of your strengths and potentially damaging limitations
• Ways to develop the strengths and avoid the pit-falls of your management style
• An introduction to Myers-Briggs (self assessment - no questionnaires)
• A fresh take on the MBTI for those already familiar with it
• Increased awareness of team member’s diversity and how to best support them
• A fascinating and fun end to the week

Integration Training associates Mark Walsh, Clare Myatt, Anthony Davies, Dawn Bentley and Martin Egan bring a wealth of experience from leadership development, coaching and psychology.

Friday 19th March 2pm-5pm (optional buffet lunch at 1.15)
Venue: Friend’s Meetings House Brighton
(10 min from the Station, 1hr from London Victoria)

Free to representatives from organisations that are responsible for booking training and those willing to report back to them. You get good quality free training, we get a chance to impress you.

Booking in advance – Contact Mark Walsh
mark@integrationtraining.co.uk 07762 541 855

Office Headaches

2010-01-06T23:00:00.000Z

Headaches seem to be a regular feature of office life for many people and in the stress workshops I do I hear them mentioned frequently. Headaches in the office can be caused by:

Dehydration

Many health experts recommend drinking 8 glasses (4 pints) of water a day and minimising alcohol and caffeine intake to stay hydrated. This will also ensure you have plenty of breaks :-)

Computer Screens

Staring at a close-range light source for hours at a time is not what we evolved for. Information on avoiding eye strain related headaches here and office headaches related to monitors here.

Stress

Stress related illness is the leading cause of work absenteeism in the UK and many office headaches are stress related. Either directly or through lack of sleep and overwork. Good stress management is a HSE requirement for UK employers.

Posture
Bad computer posture can lead to office headaches. I recommend this book by Paul Linden for those interested in computer posture.

Office Headache Cures
While not medical advice in my experience addressing one of the problems above will help with most office headaches (there are of course a host of other causes such as food allergies and serious illnesses). Killing your boss is another useful measure to relive office headaches...joke. Painkillers just mask symptoms so if you're needing to use them repeatedly it may worth looking for underlying causes. An alternative somatic approach to dealing with office headaches is here.

If in doubt about headaches ask a doctor. This is not medical advice.

Confidence and Assertiveness Training Courses

2010-01-06T13:00:00.000Z

We've added a new page to the Integration Training site - Confidence and Assertiveness Training Courses. Here is the ever popular confidence tips page too.

Stress Research

2010-01-05T08:28:00.000Z

I have updated Integration Training's stress management research page.

From the HSE Stress Research:

"Why tackle work-related stress?

To reduce sickness absence

- Work-related stress accounts for over a third of all new incidences of ill health and this is on the increase.
- Each case of work-related stress, depression or anxiety related ill health leads to an average of 30.2 working days lost
- A total of 13.8 million working days were lost to work-related stress, depression and anxiety in 2006/07
- Mental health problems (most of which are stress related) cost employers an average of £600 per employee per year - 2009 figure)

To benefit your business

As well as reducing sickness absence costs to an organisation, tackling stress can have a positive effect on:
- Employee commitment to work
- Staff performance and productivity
- Staff turnover or intention to leave
- Staff recruitment and retention
- Customer satisfaction
- Organisational image and reputation..."

How to Manage E-Mails

2010-01-04T10:55:00.000Z

Often on my time management courses I'm asked, "How do I manage e-mails?" or "My e-mail inbox is overflowing, how do I empty it?!?" It seems like we all have too many e-mails to handle and trying to manage e-mail takes up a good part of most office-workers days.

Here are a few considerations and e-mail tips influenced by Getting Things Done (GTD) and other time management systems:

Pick-Up Time and Breaks
No, not how quickly you can get lucky in a bar but how long it takes to stop doing an activity and then start again because of an interruption. It is much more efficient to e-mail in blocks than continuously throughout the day. It is not efficient to multi-task.

The counter balance to minimising pick-up time is that too long doing anyone activity will lead to a decrease in efficiency and an increase in mistakes, so regular breaks are essential. Even micro breaks where you look out of the window for a moment or sip a drink and savour it will save your heath and increase your productivity.

Tip - Turn off signals that new mails have arrived like Outlook's pop-up notice

Is a new mail actionable?
If not it is either an FYI, junk or reference material. Delete junk immediately (blocking the sender if a reoccurring), read FYI and delete if you are comfortable to or move to storage with reference. Storage areas should be mutually exclusive to make ease of reference later (i.e. a mail couldn't be in either "Clients" or "UK Clients").

Tip - The @ symbol will be above ABC etc in your folders for categories you use often. E.g. @ Important Client

Can you do it in less than two minutes
If you can responds to a mail instantly in less than two minutes you might as well do it now rather than put it off. Two minutes is a shorter period of time than most e-mailer think - it may amount to two lines or less.

Tip: Look out for the crucial request in long e-mails -what does the sender want?

Can you delegate it?
Self explanatory. Declines and requests can also be made upwards ("no I won't buy your wife flowers boss", "I can do X or Y, what is your priority?" and sideways "Bob, would you mind doing this my workload is crazy today) - depending upon company culture (I would suggest the ability to both decline and make requests is a sign of healthy individuals and companies).

Can you put it aside for later?
Putting e-mails that require a response that may take a little while aside to specific "project" folders is useful. You may also want to put a note to respond after a particular time (in your diary) or after something you are waiting for (on a "waiting for" section of a to-do list)

!!!Urgent!!!Mails!!!
Who says, the sender or you? Do you have an ongoing commitment to respond to mails within a certain time frame? Are you working on assumptions in this regard (you might be surprised how long people are happy to wait for a response). Often it is e-mail addiction rather than any real commitment that keeps people checking their Blackberries 100's of times a day (also bad for work-life boundaries and stress management).

Using this method you can empty your in-box. It will take an average of two minutes per mail so book aside as much time as you need to do this uninterrupted. If this amounts to days and you don't have time accept that you may have just dropped some balls and move all e-mails received after a certain date into an @old folder (this just neatens up what you are effectively doing anyway).

New Year's Resolutions That Work

2010-01-01T14:00:00.005Z

Guest blogger and London coach Natalie Korris write about New Year's resolutions that work. See also this article on how to change.

...........

New Year Resolutions that Work

It’s this time of the year when a lot of people take time out to reflect on what they’ve achieved and commit to projects or lifestyle changes for the new coming year.

According to previous surveys, many will have broken their resolutions by the end of January.

As a life coach, I recommend to my clients not to wait for the beginning of the year to make resolutions but to decide to live a happy and fulfilling life every month, every day and every minute of the year.

If you have decided to make a New Year resolution, here are my

10 Steps to Keep your New Year Resolutions:

1 - Start something that you know YOU want to do.

2 - Concentrate on one thing for now.

3 - Treat your resolution as a goal and make it SMART:

Make it Specific: Describe what would you like to achieve in detail and be specific. How much weight do you want to lose? Why do you want to achieve this? What it will give you?

Make it Measurable: Imagine you have achieved your resolution. What difference will that make to your life? How will you know you have achieved it?

Make it Achievable: How far is achieving this goal under your control? Do you have enough time to achieve it?

Make it Realistic: Do you have the skills and resources to achieve your goal?

Make it Time-framed: When do you want to have achieved your goal by?

4 - Visualize the end result.
Write down what you want to achieve, make a vision board of it and place it where you can see it every day. This is classic law of attraction theory. Imagine what it will feel like when you have achieved it.

5 - Write down the steps.
What do you need to do in order to achieve your goal? List all your options and tasks and set yourself deadlines. What are you going to commit to do in the next few weeks?

6 - Tell the important people in your life about your New Year resolution.
This will make it more real.

7 - Keep track of your progress.
If you see that you are progressing, it will encourage you to continue.

8 - Be positive and forgiving.
If things are difficult and you have setbacks, be positive towards yourself. Ask yourself this: if you beat yourself up, will that help you to achieve your goals? Be kind to yourself. It’s OK to have a bad day.

9 - Reward yourself.

10 - Enjoy the process!

Training Interview

2010-01-01T11:00:00.001Z

I was recently interviewed by my friend Jonathan Senior of Sharp End Training and we talked training. It starts with me being called weird and we go on to discuss embodied training, how war-zones are like the boardrooms, stress, time management, peer support, how trainers are human and how martial arts influences what I do.

CSR - Benefits to Business

2009-12-31T12:10:00.003Z

The following article from the ever great Mindtools highlights some of the benefits of corporate social responsibility (CSR).

..........

"Today's societies often ask more from major corporations than simply making a profit and paying taxes. There's a general expectation that companies should do their best to trade fairly, uphold human rights, and protect the environment. And the focus is not just on big corporations: small companies are often asked to support local causes and play their part in community development.

How can a business manage these expectations, but benefit its bottom line as well? A successful Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategy can help."...

Clearly, CSR programs cost money and take some staff attention away from the organization's business. However, a good CSR program can bring you multiple business benefits, including the following:

Improving your company's reputation, and its ability to manage reputational risks.
Helping to promote your brand and image in an increasingly socially-aware and perceptive market place (this may be particularly important if your clients are public entities).
Allowing you to create the right environment for your particular business to succeed.
Giving you an effective way to manage the pressures on your organization for charitable giving. CSR allows you to make sure any charitable expenditure is effective and linked to business objectives, and that it can be properly accounted for, measured, and advertised.
Improving your staff's motivation and retention rates, or broaden skill sets – for example, where your staff are directly involved in volunteering in the local community, or in other sponsorship activities. "

Time Management Mind Map

2009-12-31T00:01:00.000Z

Here's a good Time Management Mind Map

Stress Management Training - What is Effective?

2009-12-30T11:01:00.004Z

New E-Zine article asking what makes stress training effective (or not).

"Stress Management

In the businesses, NGOs and government organisations I work with there are two kinds of people -those who admit there is stress in their lives and those in denial. Both may suffer but the latter cannot address what is a crucial workplace issue (in the UK the Health and Safety Executive make it a legal requirement for employers to address it is considered so important irrespective). Happily macho attitudes are dying out as people realise the impact stress can have on health (most of the Western World killers are stress related), efficiency/productivity (studies show that stressed people DO NOT work well) and relationships at work and at home.

Stress training is becoming recognised by businesses as valuable as if done well it decreases staff turnover (churn-rate), increases effectiveness and reduces absenteeism. As well as being an ethical stance, providing stress management saves organisations money. What then are some of the barriers relating to stress training? Aside from prejudicial attitudes that stress can make one weak there is also a misconception that people work well stressed. Some positive arousal or eustress can of course be beneficial - but most people in modern organisations that I see are well beyond this daily and working on adrenaline and heading towards burnout. The concept of "sustainable working" is often a useful one for managing stress, as is the distinction between "live relaxation" (like an athlete) and "dead relaxation" (like a unconscious drunk)." CONT

Ten Behaviours for Coping with A Crisis - William Harryman - E-Book Review

2009-12-29T15:35:00.000Z

Ten Behaviours for Coping with a Crisis (Dealing with Change) is the first e-book by master blogger William Harryman. I have been an avid reader of William's Integral Options Cafe for the last few years, using it as a kind of RSS feed and filter for...well...anything interesting.

The book would make a good adjunct to traditional stress and modern Western psychological resilience literature and draws strongly from Buddhist traditions (being present here and now and developing a string observer self through meditation for example).

Joseph Campbell is also mentioned (the hero's journey, follow your bliss guy) , as is Jung (Freud's hippy son), Robert Masters (a renown and controversial modern bodyworker/therapist), ecopsychology (nature is good for your brain), the importance of creativity and physical heath (naturally I liked the embodied and practice driven nature of the book).

It's a good read, that balances the literature out there on the subject already. Criticisms...don't like the title - not snappy or as focused as it might be, resilience rather than coping may be a better dialogue to embed the book in and to to be integral traditional Western approaches could be included. There minor points though and all in all, I'd highly recommend it- available HERE.

William Harryman is a freelance writer and editor, a blogger, a personal fitness trainer, and a graduate student in counseling psychology. He is certified in Spiral Dynamics Integral: Personal Emergence. He lives in Tucson with his girlfriend, a trauma therapist, and their very large Great Dane, Maggie.

William blogs at Integral Options Café and The Masculine Heart.

Semco Video

2009-12-27T11:30:00.000Z

Here's a video about Brazilian "caring capitalists" Semco - lead by "caring capitalist" and alternative management guru Ricardo Semler.

From the Semco Video blurb: "Some call it anarchic socialism, some cutting edge capitalism. At Brazilian manufacturer Semco, the workers have sacked the boss, and run the company themselves."

NGO Training

2009-12-26T13:13:00.003Z

We have added a new NGO training page to the Integration Training site in light of the increasing amount of work we are doing in the non profit/ charities training sector.

How to Change a Habit

2009-12-26T12:08:00.004Z

In the run up to New Years this article on how to change habits and potential pitfalls may be useful. See also this article on behaviour change.

"1. Trying to change too many habits at once.

This is perhaps the most common mistake. It’s easy to get wrapped up in the enthusiasm and the hope that you will give your life a total overhaul. Nothing wrong with that.
But in my experience you won’t be able to keep it up until your new habits are established and stable. Sure, you can live on your enthusiasm for a week or two. But sooner or later life interferes or the stress of doing it all at once causes too much inner and outer resistance and you give up.

Changing a habit is a lot of mental effort. You have resistance from within as your mind tries to drag you back to the comfort it has known for so long (no matter if that familiar place isn’t that healthy for you). You may face resistance from the outside as people question your change.
Changing just one habit at a time may seem pretty boring. But do you want the excitement of the thought that you are completely changing your life but then have little to no results later on? Or do you want a real change in your life?

If you want the real change then you may have to take the more boring and patient route.
My advice would be to go for the one habit you want the most right now and just focus on that one. And to let go of listening to the voice of the inner child that tells you “I want it all right now!”.

2. You are not doing it long enough.

When I tried to add a habit of working out each week I think I failed about four times before it really stuck. A common piece of knowledge is that you should do something for 21 days and it will stick as a new habit. For me it has taken longer than that. It has been messier.
It does seem to matter how much effort it takes to incorporate the new habit. And how much discomfort it causes you. Some habits I have slipped into quite easily within just a few weeks...."CONT

Time Management is Wrong

2009-12-22T11:32:00.000Z

I've been thinking about time management (one of the main areas I train) and it strike me that everyone in the business training world may have gotten it totally wrong (myself included).

Time management is normally about figuring out what is important and making sure you are doing these things by setting targets, goals and saying no to everything that is not relevant. Important is differentiated from urgent (see Covey) ,priorities are sought and lists made. Traditional time management is a linear command and control deal where you work out what to do and then do it ("take massive action" as Tony Robbins says while pumping iron). Now this way of doing things has some advantages - I certainly get A LOT done using the time management methods I teach, however it has some major drawbacks too. So what are some of the issues with traditional time management?

Life Happens
You start at 9am with a nice neat list of things in your diary (first mistake) of things to do then what happens? Life! The phone rings, the kids get sick, your top client brings a deadline forward, 5000 e-mails labelled "urgent, the world will end unless you do this NOW" arrive in your in-box, etc. The plan goes to hell.

"Bottom-up" rather than "top-down" systems with work-flow structures - e.g. Getting Things Done (GTD) allow some room for dealing with what occurs (they recommend flexible to-do lists separated from calenders for example) however I think these are still basically in the old command and control mindset. I have yet to see a truly flexible "flow management" system...in fact it wouldn't be a system at all in the "If X happens do Y" model.

Emotional and Embodied Snags to Time Management

A good time management system like David Allen's Getting Things Done (GTD) sets out a nice neat structure and you follow it perfectly right? Errr, wrong. I have NEVER known anyone who could follow a neat time management system because the person they are ALWAYS gets in the way. Let's take being able to say no. This is a deeply personal and historical skill, embodied in a person's very being (or not) that is essential for time management. Was a person taught to say no as a child? Do they live in a body of defiance? Do they live in a narrative that saying no means saying no to the person not the action? Without addressing the emotional, linguistic* and embodied levels, rigid logical systems no not stand a chance.

Your Head is Not in Charge
Often people know the right thing to do on a cognitive level to get what they need to done, but find themselves tyrannised by what is grabbing their attention (e.g. Outlook mails popping up) rather than priorities. I teach "centring" exercises in my time management workshops to help people "put the head back on the chicken" as one participant recently said, which helps to some extent, but again maybe I'm missing the point...

Masculine and Industrial?

It strikes me that the notion of time management has come out of an industrial way of looking at the world and now we're finding out the downsides of viewing people as machines - a new approach may be needed. Also there's something very masculine about "time management" - I know this will be controversial but that's how it comes across to me - like a man saying "what are we going to do about it?" when listening is what is needed.

Intuition

I'm not anti-intellect - I just think that without heart the intellect is aimless and gut instinct is really what most people use day to day, so why not integrate the three. What would a time management "system" that incorporated feeling be like (without just reverting to "do what you want" feeling victimisation)? Equally how could intuition be Incorporated and refined? We work with these issues in Embodied Management Training but I have not yet incorporate them into an accessible time management course.

Surrender Non Management
OK, let me take it a step further. The other side of managing things (even managing with heart and belly) is surrender. I don't imagine this will have immediate appeal in the leadership, business training and time management world so let me explain. Surrendering to the wider flow of things, rather than struggling against them, or surrendering to a higher power than oneself is part of all spiritual traditions. In Taoism this art of giving in to get your way, control though no control and going with the flow is considered the highest wisdom. The martial art of aikido shows it's very practical application and I think business could learn a lot from this way of doing things. Management needs to be balanced with surrender both for the sake of sanity ("grant me the courage to accept the things I can not change...") and paradoxically, for good management itself.

So is Time Management Wrong?
Time management certainly has it's uses and I'll keep teaching it, I will however continue to broaden my definition of time management and try and incorporate what currently isn't included. Is time management wrong? No, but it is lop-sided.

.................

*Note that another way of looking at time management is commitment management - how a person manages their promises - time after all just keeps rolling on.

Small Business Owners and Stress

2009-12-21T11:30:00.000Z

Here is the latest the HSE has for small business owners (and SME's in general) on stress:

Key messages

Everyone in the organisation has responsibility for tackling Work related stress[1], involving unions, staff representatives and employees is critical to raise awareness and improve employee health & well being.

Employers underestimate the extent to which employees are suffering from stress or other forms of mental illness.

Most organisations will have some form of stress-related problems, the key is to find out where and what the problems are, and how and why they happen. The Management Standards[2] help you decide how to make changes and is a way measure performance.

Recognise Work related stress[3] is a legitimate health and safety issue and can be dealt with like any other health and safety risk.

You may play a critical role in specifying task and job requirements and allocating individual job roles, your actions and behaviour could have an impact on the quality of working life of your team.

You should play a major role in communication ensuring information goes both ways between senior staff and employees.

CONT

Christmas Stress Management Game

2009-12-20T22:18:00.000Z

CIPD have uploaded a silly Christmas stress management game. You'll find real stress management here, but the game is a bit of seasonal fun.

"Back by popular demand, for December only, our simple, fun and festive game for HR people - or indeed anyone who has a boss! Just use your mouse to pick up and throw seasonal items in their direction, your points will be added up as you go along." LINK

Shades of Green - Levels of Sustainability in Business

2009-12-18T11:00:00.000Z

Good article from my friend at the Capacity Evolution Blog about how green isn't green isn't green. They claim that there are six distinct levels of sustainability in business:

.........

"Sustainability” is not always sustainable. Simply, doing and describing what you do as sustainable does not make it so. For organizations (and us, personally!) to be sustainable in what we do, we have to be sustainable in who we are and how we see the world. This gives us our best shot at doing something that is actually going to get or generate sustainable results. In the following series of six posts I will introduce the six levels of engaging in sustainability: Compliance, Conformity, Cooperation, Collaboration, Coherence and Constellation. We use these at Interkannections to help our clients clarify their current goals around sustainability and map out their paths for deepening their practice and impact.

Each level includes and transcends the one before it, adding additional functionality and value. CONT."

Top 10 Business Training Challenges

2009-12-17T15:46:00.002Z

Here's a new E-Zine article on the top 10 business training challenges faced by purchasers and business training suppliers.

This article discusses some of the challenges faced by those purchasing business training and issues confronting business training providers. If business is being done with integrity these are closely related as both purchasers (e.g. CEOs, HR managers or training managers) and training providers want effective training that does the job.

Challenges Faced When Purchasing Business Training

Not Sure What Training Is Needed
In order to determine what training is really needed a company should do a training needs analysis (TNA) so as not to waste their time and money.

Not Enough Time
People in businesses are busy and often do not have much time for training. Training can be thought of as an investment and companies can get the most out of training with focused aims and pre- and post-training support from providers.

Not Enough Money
Training need not be expensive. Using small companies with low overheads helps and government grants like Train to Gain in the UK can help. Again being targeted with aims is useful. E-Learning may be cheaper but often does not do the job and lacks the essential "human touch"...CONT

Time Management Video

2009-12-17T14:47:00.003Z

Good time management video with up-to-date thinking on e-mails and Blackberries.

here's some information on my own time management courses which are very much aligned with this.

Stress Management Mind Map

2009-12-16T14:00:00.001Z

Here's an excellent Mind Map of stress management.

And here's a link to our own stress management training.

A Buddhist in Copenhagen

2009-12-15T18:04:00.004Z

My friend Hannah Gower has written this from Copenhagen. She went with a largely Buddhist delegation from Brighton and other parts of the UK and this informs her perspective.

.......................................

This weekend I travelled with a group of fellow Buddhists to Copenhagen where the UN Climate Conference is being held. We went to join the march to demonstrate our concern for the environment and to urge the delegates to be courageous and to act with wisdom and compassion. I also went to immerse myself in the climate forum to learn more about the global situation and from those that are both personally affected by climate change and those trying to respond.
Our journey took 48 hours and 12 trains in total, much sleep deprivation and discomfort, and a lot of waiting around and walking in the brutal cold. And it was totally worth it. As the most challenging and potentially catastrophic situation facing humanity, what the nation leaders decide this week is of utmost significance to us all. With that in mind, a little bit of suffering on my part dropped easily for a bigger concern. The rally was well attended, by countless charities, NGO’s and individuals from all over the world. It was a carnival-like atmosphere with people coming from different perspectives – socialists, anarchists, workers rights, animal rights, wildlife protection, spiritual groups, students and concerned citizens of the world. It was well organized and carried a strong sense of mission, an energy that surged us peacefully (mostly) although very noisily through the city’s streets to the site of the conference.

I am holding my breath with nervousness and prayers as to the outcome of the meetings. It is an extraordinary task before our Politian’s, our business’s, our citizens, and it would be nothing short of a revolution if what was needed to turn around global warming was agreed upon and implemented. The obstacles to success are many, and even if the most optimistic targets where agreed upon, these would be “insufficient to safeguard the planet” says The New York Times.
I have been asking myself what to do when faced with both confusion and a sense of urgency? How to engage in an emotional way - without getting lost in despair, grief or apathy - and how to act in a responsible way? Over the last few months I have felt the need to open my heart wide to the suffering of the world. And in doing so, I have opened to the complexity. Our global economic systems are so difficult to understand, I’m not sure that anyone really does. And it is our economic system that is bound irrevocably to our environment. Our economic system relies on financial growth, which relies on people buying more, which relies on things being produced, which relies on fossil fuel and natural material use, which results in environmental degradation.

In one of the lectures I was in on Sunday, the speaker asked us to put our hands up if we believed we could live without burning fossil fuels. I put my hand up, as did most of the others, but did so thinking – yes I am willing to try, but so much would have to change, and I don’t really know how. We face a huge challenge; in business, as individuals and as a society. Business’s need to act with realism and ingenuity in contributing to a new society. Individually I feel we need to grapple with the urgency of the situation and make sacrifices. We don’t have to buy into the culture that tries to hypnotise us into believing that in order to be happy we need to consume more. We can make choices that are difficult to make and make them anyway, and let go of the expectation of constant financial growth. For me this involves practicing renunciation - relying instead on the happiness that cultivating positive states of mind bring -; continuing practicing widening my circle of care to include all others; and keeping my eyes and mind open, letting my heart struggle with what it sees, trusting the responses born from care.

“Peace is a competition between despair and hope, between disempowerment and committed persistence” Diasaku Ikeda

Work Life-Balance on the Radio

2009-12-14T22:48:00.003Z

I was on the radio not long back talking about work-life balance and how it feels to run a business. With Curtis James (left) and Soraya Shaw (right) we discuss stress management, time management, leadership and host of other subjects. Thanks to host host Julie Stanford of The Essential Business Guide and Brighton and Hove Chamber of Commerce for inviting me on.

NGO Training Resources

2009-12-14T11:30:00.001Z

NGO training friends IMA have produced an nice page of NGO training resources. Many of these such as "How good a leader are you?" quiz and mind mapping apply to training in general in fact not just NGOs.

While I'm at it here's Integration Training's own NGO training page.

........

From the NGO Resource section of IMA's website:

Mind Mapping Toolkit
The developer of this world-renowned memory tool, Tony Buzan, states that our brains are sleeping giants. Experts say that we use only 1% of our brain’s potential. As a development professional, the benefits of mind mapping can be used in numerous situations, such as project planning, communication, organising, meetings, interviewing, appraisals and brain-storming. New biochemical, physiological and psychological research suggests that mind mapping
brings our brain to life by using colour, images, codes and shapes. This form of note-taking aids memory, increases creativity and opens the mind as an effective alternative to linear methods...

Non Violent Communication (NVC) and The Military

2009-12-14T09:50:00.000Z

Non Violent Communication (NVC) and The Military may seem like an odd combination but this article from Capital NVC shows how they are being bought together to benefit service personnel.

............

by Greg Rouillard

"During my twenty years on active duty in the U.S. Marines, I was deployed away from my family five times, usually for a period of about six months. The whole deployment process was trying on my relationships with my wife and children, including separation anxiety, dealing with family crises from the other side of the world, and re-integrating into a family that had changed during my absence. The most difficult re-entry for me was from my last deployment in 2005, when I returned from five months in Iraq.

The challenges my family and I experienced around my return from Iraq were a strong boost on the path that led me to the study and practice of Nonviolent Communication (NVC). As I reflect on my difficulty in communicating my experiences in Iraq to my family and how hard it was to ask for the space I needed in a compassionate way, I realize that having learned NVC skills before the deployment would have contributed to much greater ease, authenticity, and connection during the time I was gone and after I returned home. I can imagine how difficult it is today for other service members and their families as they go through the upheaval of military deployments, and I want to contribute to easing their suffering and pain."...

CONT

Communication Tips

2009-12-13T22:20:00.003Z

I've uploaded a page of communication tips to the Integration Training website. Influenced by NVC, somatics and ontological coaching these communication tips will be of interest to anyone... who communicates.

..................

"Communication is a complex context-dependant and highly individual matter making generic communication tips difficult. There are some however some "rules of thumb" which you may find useful - please hold them lightly and not as absolute. So here are our top 15 communication tips - most of which apply to face-to-face communication, on the phone and on e-mail"

Listen First
Breathe
Say "I..."
Avoid Judgement, Blame, Denial of Responsibility and Comparisons
Separate Facts from Opinions
Be Aware of Emotions
Be Careful with "Feelings" and Who Know Causes Them
Be Aware of Needs and Values
Mind your Mood
Ask for What you Want
Make declarations
Have a Look at What You're Saying
Take Individual Differences Into Account
Listen Some More

Full communication tips article

Somatic Marketing

2009-12-12T11:30:00.000Z

Uh-oh..not sure whether to be delighted or deeply worried that advertising and marketing has gotten it's grubby little paws on somatics (the lived experience of the body)...

.....................

From Marketing Somatics

What makes the difference for some packs and some ads that have that little bit of intangible something extra? What is the feather that tilts preferences in your brand's direction when all other things are equal?

We are learning through our research at INSIDE STORY with youth that the appropriate expression of the body language (or in other words the somatic experience) that principally defines a person as an individual can potentially make such a difference.

Take the Toyota jump for instance. There are very good reasons why it is a jump and not a flop, a slouch or a tumble. This is to do with the fundamental and primary relevance of the up metaphor for human experience. Metaphors allow us to understand one domain of experience in terms of another.

Latest discoveries in neuroscience are showing that our identities or senses of self originate in the body and are somatically defined (Damasio - Somatic Marker Hypothesis). Much of experience goes back to the primary bodily experience. This includes experiences relevant to marketers..."

Time Management for Dummies - Clare Evans - Book Review

2009-12-11T13:00:00.000Z

I teach time management courses regularly and like to read around the subject - I was happy then to meet fellow Brighton resident Clare Evans at a Chamber of Commerce event who lent me her book - Time Management for Dummies (UK Editition).

What I like about the book is it's holistics approach, taking into account more than just theory and systems. Work-life balance, health and working from home for example are covered. Time Management for Dummies also condenses much conventional wisdom into an accessible form and personally I like the light, dip-in Dummies format. Above all it's a practical readable book.

For those familiar with the field I'd say that if Eat that Frog were GCSE and Getting Things Done PhD Time Management for Dummies would be a good A-Level text. Recommended.

Team Building is A Waste Of Time?

2009-12-11T11:00:00.000Z

Nice article and discussion on how most team building events are a waste of time. Alex's blog is well worth a look if you haven't seen it yet.

Action Logics

2009-12-10T23:20:00.001Z

Nice application of integral theory and developmental levels to business from a friend I've never net Zach Smith.

...................

We do as we are. The choices we make and the actions we take are inextricably linked to our capacity to engage the world around us. A large part of that capacity depends on the lenses with which we view the world. These lenses are variously called “mindsets”, “mental models”, “worldview” or in developmental terms–”action logics.” Action logic meaning literally the logic behind our actions.

As we move through life, experience the world and face challenges we routinely engage the world from a set of established action logics. We begin moving through these action logics at birth and have the potential to continue to evolve our worldview all throughout our lives. Recognizable stages a great many of us pass through include:

X: At this stage we are opportunists seeking to satisfy our immediate needs. If we need wood we chop down a tree. For more detail click here.
G: We tend to conform to social norms, peer pressure and the will of the group. Our wood gathering depends on what and how others are doing it. For more detail click here.
I: We value and seek expertise. We believe in and try to follow the “right way.” We place a high value on logic and order. We develop a bureaucracy to manage trees with well-crafted rules for gathering wood. For more detail click here.
T: We recognize the value in multiple perspectives and seek to align them to achieve our aims and goals. We recognize and revel in our ability to be self-authoring, creative, effective and successful. Thinking is generally linear. The utility and management practices of trees and forests is rigorously researched and investigated. Short and mid-term timber management planning goals are set. For more detail click here.

cont...

Eleven Things That Aren't Spiritual

2009-12-09T10:25:00.002Z

I was thinking of what passes for spirituality and how this gives genuine practice a bad press recently, so thought I'd come up with another of those damn Christmas lists. Please excuse my use of the second person, I'm thinking of particular individuals in each case, none of which are likely to be you :-)

Speaking in a Funny Voice

Putting on a soft airy voice and speaking slowly doesn't mean you're spiritual, it means no one can hear you dumb-ass. And as for putting on the Indian accent of your guru or Japanese tones of your aikido Sensei - give me a break.

Going to India/Thailand/Malaga

These are holidays. HOLIDAYS. Spirituality is in you and your back-garden as much as any exotic destination or not at all.

Dressing Down/ Unemployment

You are not a Jain monk - you are a bum my son. Being poor or scruffy doesn't make you spiritual. Real monks like those at Chithurst for example dress simple but tale great care in their surroundings and appearance. Making a contribution to the wider world is also part of many traditions (e.g about half the Catholic Orders) so yes, you can even work for a living an be spiritual.

Quantum Physics
"It's bad physics and bad mysticism" - Ken Wilber (backed up by a Cambridge University Physicist Buddhist I know, oh and Einstein). The great physicists were all mystical - they did not however confuse the two. Small energy and stuff is still energy and stuff no matter how weird it gets - new-age interpretations of the "observer effect" are narcissist misunderstandings - get over it. What the bleep do we know? That no real scientists or mystics were in that film.

Using Non-Standard Words and Vague Ill-defined Phrases
"I feel connection it your heart"? "It's all just a flow of energy" "I want to manifest my vision of wholeness" - What on earth are you on about - speak English dammit and get some rigour hippy. Buddhist monks in Tibet spend fully one third of their time in rigorous intellectual debate - and staying up chatting around a camp fire at Glasto doesn't count. God isn't a moron, he's more than an intellectual not less than one.

Drugs
Most drugs are ego enhancing an definitely anti-spiritual. The Buddhists would say they cloud your mind, having worked behind bars I can say without a doubt that the most popular drug of the Western world is moron-juice, the Muslims would say don't drink that crap it's 40C out...etc. There are some ego-destroying drugs that hold genuine mind altering properties but don't confuse state shifting and personal development. I can alter anyone's state of consciousness by hitting them on the head with a shovel, but when they come around they will be the same old Muppet. There are some genuine paths that involve psychedelics - but don't kid yourself getting off your head on shrooms at the fairground for a laugh, or pretending you're a Native Amercian Shaman when you've had less than 20-30 years full-time training, is a joke. This goes for drugs by other means too - "state shifters" such as some kinds of dancing and intense breathing techniques.

Feeling and Emotions
OK, OK, I know this is going to be unpopular but here goes...feelings aren't spirituality. Much of the modern new-age gives a primacy to first-person knowing and associates feelings with truth. The rub here of course is there is no debate and a kind of narcissistic indulgent "spirituality" can develop where prejudice is mixed in with intuition. That is not to say feelings aren't a part fo things or that bodily intuition can't point in the right direction.

Being a Big Girl's Blouse or a Hairy Man-Ape

Men, you do not need to pretend to be castrate wimps or roam naked in the forest to be spiritual. You are men, you are fine. Relax. (I'm sure there's a female equivalent here too...)

Self-Absorption

"Let me tell you about me, and how I has this spiritual experience, I was like so..." "My therapist said I was self-absorbed, and I've been thinking about it, what do you think of me?" Narcissist self-absorption is a personal favourite and a common malady for the modern spiritual seeker, so can risk becoming a "spiritual consumer." Note too that therapy is not spirituality though it may free up some energy* for spirituality.

Talking About Spirituality (Including here)
While I'm not anti-intellectual practice is necessary and just debating spirituality is not enough. I'll just squeeze in one more...

Christmas
Let's face it the consumerist gang-bang that supposedly celebrates the birth of Christ on the old pagan midwinter date is as far from spiritual as Gomorrah's dirty underwear.

Disclaimer

I'm not anyone really worth listening to when it comes to what is and what isn't spiritual and the whole exercise is somewhat ridiculous as in the final analysis many would say it's ALL spiritual anyway. In order to end on a upbeat note, here are the positive correlates of the points above. As I said, I'm not expert but I personally find spirit more likely to be associated with the following:

Speaking with your genuine voice
Finding spirit within and in the everyday
Aesthetic care
Studying external truth through physics and internal truth introspective meditation
Giving credit to learning and study where due
Health

Feelings and emotions as a gateway and direction pointer
Comfort with ones gender

Healthy self-interest
Practice as well as talk
Christmas if you want it to be

*oops

Nobel Prize Winners on Emotion

2009-12-08T16:14:00.000Z

Nobel Prize winners on emotions (from Newfield-more here):

Shirin Ebadi (Nobel Peace Prize, 2003)“It is very difficult to think that a change in Iran can be produced because people are scared and prefer to maintain, when they must risk their lives and those of their family. The fear is much greater than anybody can imagine. Any person who wants to fight for human rights in Iran must live with fear in their body from the time they are born until the time they die. But I already have learned to surpass it."

Jorge Luis Borges (Buenos Aires, 1899-1986)“It is not possible to contemplate without passion. He who contemplates dispassionately does not contemplate.”

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)“The basis of optimism is sheer terror."

Plato (Greek dude) "All learning has an emotional base."