Understanding your need for Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness and Fairness.

At the Leadership Jersey Conference Jeremy Cross talked about the SCARF model

This model helps us understand people's needs (hopes and fears) in relation to leadership and change.

The self assessment test is here...http://www.scarfsolutions.com/selfassessment.aspx


Knowing your preferences within the SCARF model can help you:

Understand your own reactions and those of others
Better regulate your emotions
Better communicate your needs to others
Make choices more suited to your own preferences

STATUS

If status is your biggest driver, you are naturally competitive. You love winning but hate coming second. It might be having the highest sales record, or the owning the latest technology or throwing the most exuberant party that drives you. It could be beating your personal best. Whatever it is, being top is key.

If status rates high in your life, you might need to watch your natural competitive spirit. You might find yourself continuing the argument simply for the sake of winning. Or you might easily be bored if the challenge is missing. You might need to remember to ‘just be.’

You are however motivated by a good contest so look for ways to bring this into your working and personal life. Competition is the norm in sales environments, the legal profession, and sporting clubs. Focus on areas where you have natural ability and can continue to improve.


CERTAINTY

If certainty is your biggest driver, you like things planned well in advance and you don’t like last minute changes. You have a natural affinity with systems and processes. You are a list person and often find yourself the organizer in social and work situations.

With certainty as your biggest driver, be aware that you may naturally limit yourself from doing new (and therefore uncertain) things, even those that could be good for you, like learning new tasks or travelling. You may also react very strongly when people leave things to the last minute or constantly change their mind. Remember they are not doing this just to annoy you!

To feel more reward and less threat with certainty as your key driver involves asking questions to make sure you are clear on expectations. Don’t wait for others to come to you.

AUTONOMY

When autonomy is important, you like being in the driver’s seat. You like calling the shots and don’t like being told what to do or how to do it.

Be aware that you may say no to things simply because they are not your idea. You may also need to remember to give other people the opportunity to choose from time to time!

If autonomy is your biggest driver, find ways to create more choice, even if you have to stick within defined parameters. Ask for where you can have clear autonomy so you can exercise this. And watch out for tasks where you have to follow other people's orders precisely.

RELATEDNESS

If relatedness is your biggest driver, you find it easy to remember things about other people. You always make the effort socially and hate it when others don’t. You find it easy to connect with others and love doing things that make others feel important and special.

When relatedness is your biggest driver, be aware that you may expect more from your friends and colleagues that they can give. You may find yourself easily offended when people don’t respond to invitations or get back to you with answers.

To increase reward and reduce threat around relatedness look for opportunities to connect with others who are important to you. This could be joining a sporting team, organizing an interest group, or phoning family at a certain time each week. Watch out for long terms situations that isolate you from others – such as working on your own.

FAIRNESS

If fairness is your biggest driver, you are happy if beaten by a better player but hate someone who cheats the system. People who jump the queue really get under your skin, but you’ll sign up to a roster that ensures everyone contributes equally.

When fairness is important to you, you might find yourself always speaking up for others when sometimes it’s okay just to let things slide. Fairness tends to dominate all areas of our lives, so in your relationships make room for other feelings such as simply caring for others.

To create more reward and less threat around the domain of fairness, look for ways to get involved. Knowing how decisions are made, or having a say in the process will help. This might be through a career in HR, social justice or policy creation, or getting simply joining in at a community level.

THE AUTHOR

Tim Rogers is an experienced Project and Change Leader. He is founder of ciChange.org and curator for TEDxStHelier.Com . Roles have included Programme Manager for the incorporation of Ports and Jersey, and Jersey Post, as well as Operations Change and Sales Support for RBSI/NatWest. He is also Commonwealth Triathlete and World Championships Rower . He has a passion for learning and has been a Tutor/Mentor for the Chartered Management Institute. He is a Chartered Member of the British Computer Society, has an MBA (Management Consultancy) and is both a PRINCE2 and Change Management Practitioner.

CONTACT

@timhjrogers
Tim@TEDxStHelier.com
447797762051

Wanted Generation-Z partners to tell me how the world really works.

One of the things that makes me most proud running TEDxStHelier is the opportunity to share new ideas and novel thinking and also to give people a voice. You’ll see that this year (2015) TEDxStHelier featured a lot of conversation about education from teachers, pupils and business leaders.

2015TEDxStHelier Videos on-Line at https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=tedxsthelier


I attended Leadership Perspectives: Small Island, Big Opportunities @leadershipjsy #leadershipjsy15

I was impressed by Max Bourcier @MaxBourcier, who, like the fantastic students who spoke at TEDx was full of passion, ideas and enthusiasm.

A number of business leaders said wouldn’t it be great to have that type of thinking to invigorate our organisation and challenge our thinking.

My idea is GenZ-Consulting.

To be fair my idea is simply a name, because to truly embrace the concept what I need to do is engage the Generation-Z people and their tutors, teachers, mentors and inspiration and to work with them to co-create something that can benefit business, offer bi-directional mentoring and perhaps do something novel, interesting, informative and worthwhile.

“Problems cannot be solved with the same mind set that created them.” ― Albert Einstein.

So it is madness for a Baby Boomer (me) to talk about Generation-Z things, but I do think there may be mileage and mutual benefit working together. If you are interested in this idea and particularly if you are under the age of 20 please contact me.

CONTACT

@timhjrogers
Tim@TEDxStHelier.com
007797762051


THE AUTHOR

Tim Rogers is an experienced Project and Change Leader. He is founder of ciChange.org and curator for TEDxStHelier.Com . Roles have included Programme Manager for the incorporation of Ports and Jersey, and Jersey Post, as well as Operations Change and Sales Support for RBSI/NatWest. He is also Commonwealth Triathlete and World Championships Rower . He has a passion for learning and has been a Tutor/Mentor for the Chartered Management Institute. He is a Chartered Member of the British Computer Society, has an MBA (Management Consultancy) and is both a PRINCE2 and Change Management Practitioner.

You send the invites, I’ll bring the cake and we’ll have a party!

Lord Sugar in The Apprentice will often ridicule anyone with professional qualifications and if you have an MBA then you are a prime target.

Interestingly most entrepreneurs don’t appear to have MBAs. Maybe that’s because statistically there are more entrepreneurs than MBAs. Or maybe a lack of qualifications, a little naivety and a being nearer to poverty are exactly the circumstances that drive people into being an entrepreneur.

It is interesting to compare this to the delivery of projects. You may have some enterprising people coming up with new products, services or ventures and some bright people advising on the governance and implementation.

The former are internal entrepreneurs, or as James Caan once suggested intra-preneurs. The latter are the programme and project managers. The challenge for the latter is the same for the MBAs which is not to dissect and analyse every critical component, but instead create the environment and context for success.

I have seen programme and project managers monitor meticulously what is on-time, on-budget, to-specification and log the start date, end date, budget and other KPIs only to find that they are plotting a trajectory for doom. The information may provide light on what is happening, but the difference between project management and project leadership is doing something about it.

Project leadership demands being more enterprising, working with or in some cases being the intra-preneurs and taking responsibility beyond the time, budget and scope and being more focussed on the new products, services or ventures.

The success of a project is not that it was on-time, on-budget, to-specification. That is a management measure of success. The success surely must be that the new products, services or ventures achieved their aims for their intended audience.

Delivery of anything to a target is fraught with problems if the success factor is an output and not an outcome. For example delivery of a chocolate cake (£25) by 10:00am on 17 October is important part of a Birthday Party, but the completion of the task is not sufficient to guarantee a fantastic, fun and memorable occasion for all the participants.

One of the quoted challenges of LEAN (making things more efficient, effective [and cheaper] ) is that too often it results in a chocolate cake (£20) by 9:30am on 16 October without due regard to context. This is very often the case in divisional organisations or silo situations where each component might be great in isolation but somehow the outputs don’t come together as planned when it comes to outcome.

Plotting failure can be precise, achieving success is altogether vaguer. The issue is one of certainty. Managers like working with certainty. Leaders are most valued when you are dealing with uncertainty.

The public sector, as a function of their stewardship of public finances, will tend toward management of risk, of outputs, of money in their endeavours to deliver a cake. The private sector ostensibly appears less focussed on the cake and more on the party. Moreover a greater proportion of their resources will be deployed on the party, than the management of it.

But businesses fail. Even those of Richard Brandson and Lord Sugar, whereas government cannot fail. If government departments went broke as often as ventures on our high street people might go hungry, homeless or start a revolution.

Is there room therefore for greater public / private partnership with government setting the time, budget and scope and business providing the cake and party?

Answers please.

TEDX AND CICHANGE AT TECH FAIR 6 -7 NOVEMBER 2015

TEDx and ciChange will be at the Tech Fair 6 -7 November 2015

Part of the Tech Fair will be about start-ups, innovation and new ideas . The intention is to run an informal [un]conference style discussion with some flip charts and a white board so that the whole thing is organic and interactive.

Tim Rogers (Curator) will explain what TED Talks and TEDx are about, and give an insight to set-up of TEDxStHelier (speakers, sponsors, supporters, set-up) , and the opportunities for Jersey in 2016 as a result of being invited to the TED Global conference in Geneva in December 2016.

However this isn’t all about TEDx, but is about getting started; having an idea and making it happen.

The idea of an [un]conference is that there is no fixed agenda but instead a collection of ideas and anyone who comes to participate can contribute and steer the discussion. We hope to have participation from Chamber of Commerce, Jersey Business, Digital Jersey and extend an open invitation to anyone interested in start-ups.

We hope to have some of the local TEDxStHelier speakers also attend, so that they can share their ideas, what has motivated them, and what they have gone on to achieve having “gone global” via TEDx.

Exact timing for the [un]conference part of the Tech Fair is to be agreed - ironic because the idea is to be unstructured and without rules! However if you don’t know where and when you’ll not be able to participate. More information to follow, but come along, bring your ideas and challenges, questions and experience and let’s see what we can do together.
More Information at Tech Fair http://www.techfair.org.je/


ABOUT TEDX

TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event.
You can find out about TED Talks here http://www.youtube.com/user/TEDxTalks


ABOUT TEDXSTHELIER

We’ve run TEDxStHelier 2014, TEDxStHelier 2015 and are now planning TEDxStHelier 2016TEDxStHelier Videos on-Line at https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=tedxsthelier


CONTACT

If you are interested in being involved in TEDxStHelier in 2016 please contact tim@tedxsthelier.com.

Tim HJ Rogers
Curator TEDxStHelier
Email: Tim@TEDxStHelier.com
Mob: 07797762051
Twitter: @TEDxStHelier
Instagram: TEDxStHelier Website: http://www.TEDxStHelier.Com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TEDxStHelier?ref=hl
Linked-In: https://www.linkedin.com/grp/home?gid=5135958

Overcoming Procrastination to achieve change and reform

WHAT IS PROCRASTINATION

Procrastination makes easy things hard, hard things harder. (Mason Cooley)

I have previously written about Procrastination in a blog “Procrastination is like a credit card: it's a lot of fun until you get the bill.” (See link below) so I was very interested when I found this formula for Procrastination.

PROCRASTINATION FORMULA

Procrastination is a function of our self-confidence (do we feel we can do this) and value of completing (the pay-off). If both are high we are less likely to procrastinate.

However on the down-side procrastination is a function of our distractibility (oh look at that other shiny thing) and the time to completing. These are likely to drag us toward quick-wins (often low impact and short-term) and distract us from what is big, challenging and important, and more demanding of our time.

Furthermore the delay in gratification is also likely to create procrastination.

So if you are confident and likely to get big thanks, soon after you have done the task you are likely to do it. If the opposite is true you are unlikely to progress. Additionally if there are other tasks, priorities and demands to distract you, your short on time, and you’re not likely to be thanked any time soon your are likely to procrastinate.

PUBLIC SECTOR REFORM

I note Reform to make States more efficient is “painfully slow” (See link below)

I wonder if some of what neuroscience tells us about procrastination can be applied to help organisational change?

Procrastination = ([time to complete task] x [distractibility] x [delay]) / ([self-confidence] x [task value] )

WHAT MUST WE DO

Improve people’s competence, capacity, capability to do the task(s).
Make the rewards fit the challenge, sufficient that the pay-off motivates action.
Remove the clutter of other tasks or demands that distract from what is truly important.
Make the thanks and recognition significant enough for commitment and self esteem.
Phase the challenge so that milestones are not a marathon distance away in terms of time or effort.

REFERENCES

Procrastination is like a credit card: it's a lot of fun until you get the bill
http://projectspeoplechange.blogspot.com/2015/09/procrastination-is-like-credit-card-its.html


Reform to make States more efficient is “painfully slow” - report
http://www.bailiwickexpress.com/jsy/news/reform-make-states-more-efficient-painfully-slow-report/


I am currently reading, and strongly recommend The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload Hardcover – 19 Aug 2014 by Daniel J Levitin
http://www.amazon.es/The-Organized-Mind-Thinking-Information/dp/052595418X


THE AUTHOR

Tim Rogers is an experienced Project and Change Leader. He is founder of ciChange.org and curator for TEDxStHelier.Com . Roles have included Programme Manager for the incorporation of Ports and Jersey, and Jersey Post, as well as Operations Change and Sales Support for RBSI/NatWest. He is also Commonwealth Triathlete and World Championships Rower . He has a passion for learning and has been a Tutor/Mentor for the Chartered Management Institute. He is a Chartered Member of the British Computer Society, has an MBA (Management Consultancy) and is both a PRINCE2 and Change Management Practitioner.

Tim HJ Rogers
PRINCE2 - MBA (Consultancy) - APMG Change Practitioner
Http://www.timhjrogers.com | Twitter @timhjrogers | Skype @timhjrogers | Mobile: 07797762051 Curator TEDxStHelier (http://www. TEDxStHelier.com)
Founder ciChange (http://www. ciChange.org)

Multitasking is BAD – stop it now!

You may think you can do many things at once, but in fact what you are actually doing it switching between one task and another very quickly. What’s bad about this?

Well for one thing some complex tasks require getting up to speed and each time you go off task the process of warming-up to the problem need to recommence. That is a waste of time. The other problem is that each time you switch it consumes energy in the switch-process, which could have otherwise been put to completing the task.

As a project and programme manager I have often said it is better to do 1 thing 100% than 100 things each at 1%. A 1% improvement is just dissipating your effort and will hardly be discernable compared to something that gets your full commitment.

Reality is somewhere in between prioritising maybe 5 key tasks, or 5 projects and then dividing your time logically. I know some who advocate a day each week dedicated to one project and for that day they are exclusive about their focus.

You can do similar things by carving up your day and dedicating certain times for emails, meetings, thinking, sport etc. This logical, locational and time separation improves performance of all those tasks.

This isn’t just good time management, there is good neuroscience evidence that this works. Indeed if you have a separate PC and a separate office for each project you are likely to perform better on each task. This is because a million years of evolution means the brain is good at linking memory with location: where was that water, where was that tiger, where were those fruits. If you can have a separate location for each thing or theme then you can improve your recall and capacity around that theme.

This is obvious when you think about it: you don’t find all the books of the library all in one bucket, but nearly laid out in a way that makes it faster and easier to see themes and draw knowledge.

What may be less obvious is that students who study in a room, get far better results if they then take their exams in the same room! Location gives us context, and builds associations and patterns which help thinking in that context.

Neuroscience also tells us that if we multi-task we are likely to get our mental filing wrong and misplace thoughts and feelings in the wrong categories. Specifically if the “wrong” area of the brain is activated then the experience is logged there instead of where it should be; with the result being faulty, flawed or false memory. A study showed that doing homework whilst watching TV caused information to be stored as “procedures and skills” not “facts and ideas”.

The other issue is the energy costs of decision making and task switching. The brain consumes lots of glucose in this process and if bombarded with choices, decision and task switching the capacity to make good decisions pretty much nose-dives.

Interestingly the issue is not one of complexity: small decisions take the same mental energy as big decisions. So if you can get your staff, supporters, your secretary or others to take the easy decisions you can save your energy for the big issues. Highly successful people surround themselves with good people so that they can minimise the decisions they have to take, and maximise the time of which they can think about them.

My advice would be don’t multi-task, but instead separate out people, places and tasks to offer yourself more breadth of space and time for your thinking.

SOURCE

I am currently reading, and strongly recommend The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload Hardcover – 19 Aug 2014 by Daniel J Levitin (see link below)http://www.amazon.es/The-Organized-Mind-Thinking-Information/dp/052595418X


THE AUTHOR

Tim Rogers is an experienced Project and Change Leader. He is founder of ciChange.org and curator for TEDxStHelier.Com . Roles have included Programme Manager for the incorporation of Ports and Jersey, and Jersey Post, as well as Operations Change and Sales Support for RBSI/NatWest. He is also Commonwealth Triathlete and World Championships Rower . He has a passion for learning and has been a Tutor/Mentor for the Chartered Management Institute. He is a Chartered Member of the British Computer Society, has an MBA (Management Consultancy) and is both a PRINCE2 and Change Management Practitioner.

Tim HJ Rogers
PRINCE2 - MBA (Consultancy) - APMG Change Practitioner
Http://www.timhjrogers.com | Twitter @timhjrogers | Skype @timhjrogers | Mobile: 07797762051 Curator TEDxStHelier (http://www. TEDxStHelier.com)
Founder ciChange (http://www. ciChange.org)

Lessons from Mindfulness - so far so good.

I have volunteered for a research study Mindfulness for entrepreneurs course for 8 weeks from the 3rd October with Dr Alessio Agostinis. My life is pretty hectic: I do circa 16-20 hours a week training for triathlons, rowing, canoeing etc. I have a challenging job (which I love) and a lot of interests, including ciChange and TEDx. I read non-fiction, mostly about business, teams and psychology and have number of roles with various clubs and associations. I’m not good at stretching, relaxing, meditation or anything like that, so Mindfulness will be a challenge!

My motivation is partly because I read about business, teams and psychology and neuroscience does talk a lot about the mind, mindfulness, focus and day-dreaming, as well as sleep, relaxation and other related matters as being essential for high performance (see link 1 below).

Week 1 was a bit of a fail. My flights from Mallorca was late and when I got home very late I found the house has been flooded and the ceilings collapsed. I’d missed the inaugural session and the day was not one of tranquillity. Nonetheless I am resilient and despite a lack of food and sleep I bashed my way around the marathon course the next day before returning to sort out the chaos.

Week 2 I found that circa 50% of the people had missed the first week. Maybe there is something about entrepreneurs? I won’t go into too much detail of the course or the attendees since it is a research study and I am mindful of confidentiality and privacy.

I was really interested in feedback from one of the exercises. Some were “zoned out”, some almost asleep, others had day-dreams whilst a few appeared to stay on-task and be mindful of their bodies and the sensory activity around them. I found myself analysing the whole process: what was being said, how, why and the consequential reactions. It is interesting the mix of people who can relax and those that whose minds list, calculate, predict and judge continuously. The idea of not thinking and just “being” is very hard for me. A bit like not thinking of a BLUE ELEPHANT, the more you try the harder it is.

What I am better at is crowding out thinking by doing. I love climbing, cycling and canoeing and my sports generally consume me to the point that I am only thinking of what I am doing and not full of thoughts about work or projects. But I’m not sure that this is the same thing. Mindfulness does appear to be about bodies and the sensory activity and climbing for example demands that focus.

I am also interested in the pros and cons of day-dreaming. Mindfulness appears to be about internal focus, not mental rehearsals of things to do, people to see, problems to solve. And yet both sleep and day-dreaming are essential tools to mental house-keeping and key to memory and creative thinking. In these modes I am not blank, my day-dreaming and sleep are explorations and discoveries. They are novel, new, weird and sometimes insightful.

This week I have some skills to practice and a diary to maintain. I have to admit staying still for 25 minutes is very, very hard. I am finding it better to be mindful of myself when I am doing something so I’ve taken to doing some stretching exercises after my rowing sessions. This kills two birds with one stone: reducing the pain and tension of very tough training and allowing me to focus on myself without the distraction of work, projects, people or problems. I’m not entirely sure that Mindfulness embraces this type of multi-tasking, but it’s the best that I can do at this stage of my learning.

LINKS
http://www.amazon.es/The-Organized-Mind-Thinking-Information/dp/052595418X


THE AUTHOR

Tim Rogers is an experienced Project and Change Leader. He is founder of ciChange.org and curator for TEDxStHelier.Com . Roles have included Programme Manager for the incorporation of Ports and Jersey, and Jersey Post, as well as Operations Change and Sales Support for RBSI/NatWest. He is also Commonwealth Triathlete and World Championships Rower . He has a passion for learning and has been a Tutor/Mentor for the Chartered Management Institute. He is a Chartered Member of the British Computer Society, has an MBA (Management Consultancy) and is both a PRINCE2 and Change Management Practitioner.

Tim HJ Rogers
PRINCE2 - MBA (Consultancy) - APMG Change Practitioner
Http://www.timhjrogers.com | Twitter @timhjrogers | Skype @timhjrogers | Mobile: 07797762051 Curator TEDxStHelier (http://www. TEDxStHelier.com)
Founder ciChange (http://www. ciChange.org)

The merits (or otherwise) of breadth or depth of thinking

FOCUS IS EVERYTHING – OR IS IT?

General business thinking is that focus is essential to success. Focus on what is important; focus on customers; focus on quality; focus on profitability. You cannot be successful without focus, but apparently that focus has to be on everything! In a small Island like Jersey is specialism the key to success, or with a limited talent pool is broader skill set more useful to achieving success?

NEUROSCIENCE AND BEING ORGANISED

I am currently reading, and strongly recommend The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload Hardcover – 19 Aug 2014 by Daniel J Levitin (see link below)

Overwhelmed by demands on your time? Baffled by the sheer volume of data? You're not alone: modern society is in a state of information overload. The Organized Mind investigates this phenomenon and the effect it has on us, analysing how and why our brains are struggling to keep up with the demands of the digital age.

I won’t try to summarise the whole book, but would like to pick on theme with resonates with me. As a project and change manager I have always been a “jack of all trades” rather than a master of one. Instead I try and achieve success by understanding enough about a problem and the inter-relationship of issues sufficient to know who I need to include in the problem solving and solution delivery.

I often carry a notebook and pen and always make notes of people, ideas, events which may be useful. Comparing the human brain to a computer this is what Daniel J Levitin suggests is my off-line or external memory and useful for accurate research and recall, which is nigh on impossible to hold in mind all the time.

We can only remember a certain amount at any one stage, which is why we forget keys, birthdays, or the exact the wording of the first paragraph. Instead we generalise, blur, forget unless the issue is so significant, urgent or important that it trumps everything else. In those circumstances there a winner (the thing that comes to mind) and a loser (the other things that are crowded out).

Often when we recall we bring back to mind the emotions and bias, rather than the facts, creating imperfect or modified recollections.

THE WOOD FOR THE TREES

The problem with being too specialist is that the fixation on one issue may create focus on symptoms rather than causes, or fixation with the task (process) rather than the outcome (result). Moreover the deeper we analyse something the more we rely upon our experience, beliefs, bias and expectations to guide our interpretation.

Daniel J Levitin makes the good point that many of our best ideas are when we day-dream allowing the mind to wander and make new and novel connections. I recollect during my MBA a CEO in saying that they would intentionally mix teams of different disciplines to create random sparks, and different perspectives which may be the catalysts for new products and services. If nothing sparks within 6 months, they rotate again, constantly creating change on the edge of chaos with a view to encouraging creativity and innovation.

The problem with specialism is that “If the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem you come across becomes a nail”

So often in project and change management the issue presented is a smokescreen for a problem that is something else altogether. If you try to solve the apparent problem it’s like “trying to nail jelly to the wall” the solution simply evades you, despite your efforts.

In these circumstances understanding the mind of the people, and how they have rationalised and categorised the issues as they see them is key. Simply applying your logic, values, experience and will provoke conflict because although you may be looking at the same thing each of you may attached a completely different meaning, feeling and experience to it.

UNDERSTANDING THE INDEX

Simply starring at the place where you think the keys should have been placed will not make them materialise! Instead you need to put yourself in the shoes of the person arriving home late, in the dark as they open the door and the phone is ringing. They put down the shopping, stop the dog escaping and scramble for a pen and paper to note an important message.

Under those circumstances we are overloaded and our mind may remember the message, but at the expense of where we actually put the keys. TV Dramas like The Mentalist and Sherlock Holmes, as well as hypnotists and psychotherapists promote this type of mental replay as a means to understanding and unravelling problems that aren’t solved by pointing at the empty key rack and saying “it should be there!”

WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM THIS?

Being on holiday and riding my bike I have covered many miles of Mediterranean roads, in warm sunshine and cool breeze. Being switched-off from work allow the mind to wander and offers a different perspective on things. Reading and reflection offers new insights for the challenges that are held in my notebooks.

Perhaps a key to success is to spring clean our mental filing system, allowing us to examine old ideas in a new light and re-categorise them. And perhaps the best time to do that is when your critical focus is switched-off.

The point is that simply thinking harder, with more focus, may not be the solution. We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them. (Albert Einstein)

If a long bike-ride is not the thing for you, then maybe go for a run, or just sleep on it.

LINKS
http://www.amazon.es/The-Organized-Mind-Thinking-Information/dp/052595418X



THE AUTHOR

Tim Rogers is an experienced Project and Change Leader. He is founder of www.ciChange.org and curator for www.TEDxStHelier.Com . He was Programme Manager for the incorporation of Jersey Harbours and Jersey Airport, and previously Operations Change and Sales Support for RBSI/NatWest, and Project Manager for the incorporation of Jersey Post. He is also Commonwealth Triathlete and World Championships Rower with a passion for teaching and learning and is a Tutor/Mentor on the Chartered Management Institute courses. He is a Chartered Member of the British Computer Society, has an MBA (Management Consultancy) and is both a PRINCE2 and Change Management Practitioner.

Tim HJ Rogers
PRINCE2 - MBA (Consultancy) - APMG Change Practitioner
Http://www.timhjrogers.com | Twitter @timhjrogers | Skype @timhjrogers | Mobile: 07797762051 Curator TEDxStHelier (http://www. TEDxStHelier.com)
Founder ciChange (http://www. ciChange.org)