I often think we are like flies caught in mindsets that are self-inflicted Venus Fly Traps.   Knowing that you have a self-limiting belief and being able to do something about it are two different things. Often clients are very well aware of their particular negative mindset, but it entices them in with whispers of safety and suddenly, they are stuck.  People might compliment them on looking attractive - whilst their mindset says: ‘No you’re not!’; colleagues might see them as being very organised, but of course they know they are not.  So our mindsets hold us stuck.  We lie there, seemingly alive but inwardly writhing until the life-blood gets drained out of us…..arrgh!

Carol Dweck has produced some very interesting research about the importance of a ‘growth’ mindset is to our success.  It’s great to believe in your talents and attributes, but Dweck’s work shows that far more important is your belief that you can grow and learn.  This means that once you become aware of a negative mindset, you can overcome it if you believe that you can gradually change it. Dweck is talking here about mindsets related to intelligence, but you can see how it could relate to  any mindset. With a growth mindset, we are more likely to keep trying, to learn more about the skill, to seek feedback, learn from failure and eventually get free of our own  Fly Trap.

So through practice and constructive reflection, you can learn how to value the attractive parts of your appearance, or the semblance of organisation that you create.  Maybe whilst your choice of clothes might not get you on the front cover of Vogue, it could be good enough for people to be interested in you.  Probably, whilst you might not win a time and motion study award, your organisational ability might be good enough to get the job done well!

This isn’t about immediately turning that mindset completely around.  It is about believing that eventually we can alter it, working out how to do it, learning from when we fail. If you have a negative mindset, say about being disorganised, you could learn more about where you get that mindset from, work out when you actually feel organised, what you could do to help feel more organised more of the time.. and so on. There are enough flytraps around without creating our own.  Or have is that just a negative mindset?!

The author, Laura Helmuth, states categorically that there is very little difference between male and female brains, the few differences are minor and do not affect any ability. In fact she describes the ‘Men are from Mars’ view as: “Some of the sloppiest, shoddiest, most biased, least reproducible, worst designed and most over-interpreted research in the history of science…”  Now that’s telling us! And she’s no slouch – senior editor for the Smithsonian Magazine with a PhD in cognitive neuroscience from UCLA, Berkley.

Helmuth says that the research about gender differences of the ‘Men are from Mars’ variety are strongly influenced by the beliefs of the test subjects. So all that handy stuff around spatial ability, empathy, who talks most and  judging people’s emotions , does not relate to gender. Presumably socialisation has a big impact, but any gender differences are not due to the brain’s make-up.

When we are thinking about a communication challenge, don’t make excuses for the brain!  Here’s a link if you want to think about this similarity in the context of your love life. You can expect yourself to be able to  pick up on emotions plus shut up and listen – regardless of your gender.  Now where’s something else to blame?

The other nine myths?

• We only use 10% of our brain:  WRONG
• Snapshot memories are accurate: WRONG
• Its all downhill as we age: WRONG
• We have five senses: WRONG ( she mentions two other senses)
• The brain is hard wired and can’t be altered: WRONG
• A blow to the head can cause amnesia:WRONG
• We know what will make us happy: WRONG
• We see the world accurately:WRONG

From the depths of huffing and puffing, here are my thoughts:

1. Whilst your goal can seem totally daunting when you gaze up at it, once you really set out  it is never quite as hard as it look.
2. You may be slow, but when you have committed to the goal, it really is a matter of just keeping on doing what you have to do until you get there.
3. Take all the advice you can get – you never know what small thing can make a big difference.
4. Find some spectators to offer encouragement – they help enormously.
5. When you finally make it to the top, take the time to look back down where you came from – wow what a feeling of satisfaction!

Well actually it’s number 4 as I had to repeat the 2nd one due to ‘technical’ hitches. Only half of the participants were able to hear me which sort of defeats the purpose

So now I am feeling like I can pass on some of my tips and findings. I realise that 3 doesn’t make me an expert  however there has been some problems which we have overcome…and I’m sure you will find your own.

Tip number 1: Get organised well before you start. You need your water as you will get dry and if possible a ‘helper’ to pass the messages to you as they can come in thick and fast

Tip number 2:Rehearse out loud preferably with someone else.  They can do the timing  and give you feedback on whether you are getting your message across or not

Tip number 3:Be careful with colloquialisms. It’s quite difficult to explain when you have a short time to get through the material and you may be holding up the other participants.

Tip number4: Sound enthusiastic.It’s quite a challenge being excited in front of your laptop but it does sound a whole lot better that reading drone like from a script.

I think I’ve passed the first hurdles and can now discard my ‘training’ wheels and start to enjoy this new way (to me) of working with participants throughout the country

Years ago when we started Communicate Consultants we made sure our workshops were interactive with the learning taking place through discussion ,experiential exercises , practical work and not much lecture.

The key was face to face communication over a period of time usually one day. And it still is today.

However I am now embarking on an entirely new (to me ) way of running workshops. Webinars.

Talk about stepping outside your comfort zone and challenging your assumptions on how people can take in information.

Instead of reacting to the participants body language and facial expressions and adjusting the programme accordingly by stopping,asking questions and getting group involvement I am chatting to my laptop.

As much as I like my laptop it isn’t the most responsive of media and doesn’t get my jokes.

So I have had to adjust how I get the message across to the people on ‘the other side’.

It’s a bit like using your voice on the phone to sound excited,enthusiastic and engaging whilst seeing yourself on the camera (like Skype) and looking quite peculiar.

Questions pop up randomly which need answering but I can’t check they have understood or I’ve answered the question correctly.its a case of fingers crossed.

Tomorrow is my second webinar this time on Negotiations to IPENZ The Institute of Professional Engineers  www.ipenz.org.nz

So why do them?

The answer is its an efficient way to get a message across to people scattered over a large geographical area

Its quick -one hour to stimulate your participants to understand some principles and learn some new stuff

And for me it’s the chance to step outside my comfort zone and tackle a new skills-that’s got to be fun!

A  water bearer in China had two large pots hung on the ends of a pole which he carried across his neck. One of the pots had a crack in it, while the other pot was perfect. At the end of the long walk from the stream to the house, the perfect pot would always be full of water, but the cracked pot would arrive only half full. For two years, this went on every day, with the bearer delivering only one and a half pots of water to his house. Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments. But the poor and cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection and miserable that it was able to accomplish only half of what it had been made to do. After two years of perceived bitter failure, the cracked pot spoke to the water bearer one day by the stream. “I am ashamed of myself, because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house.” The bearer replied to the pot, “Did you notice that there are flowers on your side of the path, but not on the other pot’s side? That’s because I have always known about your flaw, so I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and everyday while we walk back, you water them. For two years, I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers. Without you being the way you are, there would not be this beauty and grace in this house.”

When I first read that legend, our son had suffered a very serious brain injury.  The story caused me to seek  positive ways of responding to what was so sad and confronting. Very slowly I learnt that drastic as it was, there was still a lot to value in the situation.

Every experience has its value and what is very difficult right now may enable you to create a richness in life that was unavailable before.  It’s what you do with what has happened that creates happiness.

If you feel you really need a regular fix on positivity right now, tap into the Positivity Blog

And they’re right in one sense – most people do have a problem giving negative feedback and therefore avoid giving it.  So one up to the strong-minded. There is however a difference between giving negative feedback and doing so effectively.

The reason for giving feedback is to create positive change in future behaviour – the feedback only has ‘no problem’ when the recipient has changed their behaviour in a positive direction. If the person on the receiving end feels bruised and battered or unfairly treated, the impact may be worse than no feedback at all.

So when you are giving feedback, focus on the future change required, rather than it becoming an argument  about who did what and when. Negative feedback should cause a positive adjustment in behaviour, not just provide an opportunity to let off steam.  The Top Ten Checklist for Giving Feedback provides some handy tips – ten of them in fact!

Remember successful feedback is about what happens in the targeted change, not just what leaves your bow.

Get ready to dig deeper.  The disjoint  probably means that the discussion is not focusing on the real cause of the problem. Uuntil the team member owns the real problem, the rest is just window dressing.

1. As you think about the issue, make sure you are focused on the right level.  Is there a deeper trend here that just shows up as a series of surface issues?
2. Ask a source question: Why is this pattern occurring? Have you faced similar issues in other roles in your life? As you pose that question to the team member, don’t be the next person to speak!
3. You can also state a neutral observation: ‘Even though you have suggested some changes you will make, I am getting the feeling that this isn’t going to improve the underlying problem’… and see what happens.

Remember there may be underlying issues you don’t know about.  This article suggests some possibilities.  The poor performance will be caused either by something to do with the staff member, or something to do with the system within the work team – or both.  If your goal is to create positive change, you may need to look around and look deeper.