Inflow Performance

Evening ladies and gentlemen. I haven’t posted on here for years. I’m just enjoying a trip down memory lane.

Worried about the onset of winter? Join us today at midday for a webinar about thinking differently. Sarah Furness has got the 'force for good' team revved up again.

Sign up at www.wellbeitcoach.com and I'll see you later.

Hope you can make it.

Happy December. J

Exceptional people deserve exceptional coaching. Helping high functioning strong minded individuals to use their brain as a force for good.

Tomorrow is World Mental Health Awareness Day. As part of it Sarah Furness has got a team of coaches together to give a spin on their specialities. For some reason she wants me to talk about humour and the power of play. Come and join us:

Sarah Furness - Founder - Well Be It | LinkedIn View Sarah Furness’ profile on LinkedIn, the world's largest professional community. Sarah has 2 jobs listed on their profile. See the complete profile on LinkedIn and discover Sarah’s connections and jobs at similar companies.

The last three questions on Lainy Russell's LI page: What small things that I'm grateful for? Everything, in their own way. Each little pixel or thread in the tapestry of life adds colour and definition to the world.
What friend or family am I grateful for? I'm a Libran. I hate to make a decision if I don't have to. And the reason family and friends are important to me are because they all enrich my life. Even when some do things that upset me or show them to be less than perfect it reminds me that everyone has a little mix of the things I love and the things I find difficult. If people important to me have the capacity to upset me then complete strangers have the capacity to make me happy. Everyone is doing the best they can.
What talent am I grateful for? I shy away from the word talent. Too often the word is used as a label that keeps 'those with no talent' firmly believing they'll always underachieve. Talent is 10,000 hours practice and the luck to find the right environment and conditions. I'm lucky enough to have been given the chance to explore perspectives to find the links between seemingly random experiences.

What small thing do you use daily? A pen. They say it's mightier than the sword. I prefer the idea that it's like a paint brush. When you're feeling gloomy or happy write about it, not on a computer but with a pen. Every letter is its own little drawing. And doing things is one of the most therapeutic activities you can take part in. Also, you'll be surprised at how your brain joins in and all sorts of ideas start to flow through your hand onto the page in front of you.

I'm loving Lainy Russell's "30 days in April" post over on LinkedIn. Today she asked 'what challenge are you grateful for'. For what it's worth here is my reply:
Golly, just about every challenge. The human givens decides that one of the 'needs' we have is a sense of stretch. Every challenge is something that the inner chimp recoils from but actually 'getting up off your arse' and having a go is very healthy. I think it comes from when we were even more primitive than we are now. We'd have to go out foraging. Mostly we'd come home empty handed but we had to get some sort of 'hit' from the act of hunting and foraging otherwise we'd give up and die. So many modern 'conveniences' are designed to pander to the lazy inner chimp: notice how many adverts are for food and groceries delivered to your door, films and entertainment on the click of a button. You don't even have to get up off the sofa. Every day presents challenges. It's worth embracing as many as you can.

Safety and leadership are intertwined. I've just finished reading Todd Concklin's excellent book 5 Principles of Human Factors. Recommended to me by my good friend and colleague Mark Soden of CLEARTRACK PERFORMANCE to read it. Mark's team deliver some fantastic leadership and human performance training to some very enlightened companies.
I've been involved in human factors training for many years. It feels like most sessions end with everyone fired up ready to make changes. I wonder, though, how long those good intentions last. I've noticed people all get on the good intentions bus but as soon as it doesn't seem to be going their way, they get off.
Imagine the bus is following a great circle: the shortest route between two points on the earth. Unless that line is a line of longitude or the equator the magnetic heading will change. If you plot a line on a flat map of the world it appears you can measure a constant angle. Occasionally, in the heat of battle, leaders get anxious and check their own compasses. If the bus doesn't appear to be following the bearing they think they should be following they get off. Human factors training is about reminding people why they got on in the first place and encouraging them to stay the journey.
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My friend Lainy Russell is has an on-going post is asking a question about what you're grateful for every day in April. Today's was: "What knowledge are you grateful for?" My reply was: I’m grateful for the knowledge that people are people and they’re probably doing the best they think they can. We approach life with so many mental blocks and templates that we often treat others with undeserved reverence or revulsion and apply unhelpful labels to others. But people’s behaviours are shaped by their experiences and intellectual processes; their perceptions, motivation and actions may not be as helpful as they could be. It helps for me to remember that so I can treat them with compassion and understanding and maybe offer help if it’s appropriate, but above all to listen and be curious.

White light is made up of a whole spectrum of colours. Being human is about being able to field a spectrum of emotions. It seems that to be able to deploy those emotions you need to be able to understand the situation and your place within it. You hear of people being able to laugh in the direst of situations; when my grandfather was dying many years ago my mother wrote to me saying how they were all laughing and crying together, experiencing the whole range of emotion.
It has struck me that those who can’t laugh in a situation don’t really understand it. I often assess others’ intellectual acuity by their ability to find the humour. dunn is one of the best pilots I have flown with. He takes his very big personality and sense of humour airborne. When it calls for seriousness he can focus like a laser but when the danger has passed he sits back again and relaxes. Many less jovial colleagues seem to think that there is no place for humour in flying.
That’s the same in all walks of life. Those who wear permanent seriousness because they think humour is inappropriate probably don’t fully understand the situation. Rather than bathing the world in light and coruscating colours they would rather wash everything through in shades of grey. ‘At this time’ (as the gloomy cliché goes) perhaps a little more humour would help. What would it look like to see a smile on Huw Edwards’ face?

How do you teach a boss or a parent to care about their subordinates or their offspring?

I was having a chat with a colleague of mine today who's a very perceptive thinker. We were talking about the lack of good leaders in the British military. As he pointed out you can furnish someone with all the right tools to 'talk the talk' but if they don't care for their subordinates then it shows in the way they treat others. Very quickly, he said, they'll show their true colours by only caring about their own superiors and trying to impress them.

It's the same with parenting. How many parents genuinely care about their offspring and their long term development. Very often you hear parents trying to discipline their children by making idle threats they have no intention of following through. They'll also justify their own risk aversion and controlling nature by telling everyone else how much they don't want their offspring to come to any harm. Most of us learn by making mistakes; it's part of a healthy upbringing to grow up in an environment that nurtures learning. Is the parent who 'doesn't want their child to come to any harm' merely thinking about their own well being and how they would feel if that child were to get hurt?

The sad conclusion my colleague came to was that 'you can't teach people to care'. (Well actually he said "you can't teach a father to love his kids" but I've come across a lot of mothers who go through the motions too). I really hope that's not the case. I've been trying for a long time to get people to care beyond their own selfish needs. Sometimes I see some progress but quite often it feels a bit like Sysiphus rolling the boulder up the hill. Every time he gives it a bit of a shove in the hopes it'll roll itself it rolls back and he has to start again.

I'm also reminded of the Aesop's fable of the sun and the wind arguing about who can get the traveller to take his cloak off. The wind tries forcing it off, the sun shines, smothers the traveller in warmth, until he takes it off of his own accord. Ever hopeful, I always try create the environment for people to show their own caring nature but it's not always successful. In fact I'm running an idea at the moment that on any given day 80% will default to their selfish inner chimp status. They have become in my mind 'the rump': neither deliberately bad nor willing to expand their horizons. A friend once said that I was destined to be disappointed if I expected people to treat me the way I treat them.

So back to my earlier question: does anyone have any top tips for teaching people to care?

Cycling seems to be quite divisive. Those who do it know the value of getting out in the fresh air - notice the plethora lycra-clad herds on the weekend roads - those who don't understand it moan or tut solicitously. It's a great way to unearth the pathologically ignorant.

I've recently returned to the fray cycling into the work. The courtesy of the drivers on the A53 nearly brought a tear to my eye: nearly every one moved right over to the other side of the road and no-one made me feel even vaguely uncomfortable. I waved my thanks at every one and was in danger of RSI from all the waving. Shropshire's drivers seem to be in general quite thoughtful.

The same can't be said for the numpties who design some of the cycle lanes around the area. At the work end of my journey someone had liberally spread white paint around creating cycle lanes on the pavements all of about 20 yards long between give way lines. Cyclist using them are clearly bottom of the pecking order and have to give way to cars and pedestrians. Anyone who knows anything about cycling will agree that, whilst a bicycle is one of the most efficient machines invented, it's poor at accelerating. So a cycle lane which requires cyclists to start and stop every 20yds is about as much use as a chocolate teapot. It's merely decorative, and,I guess, assuages someone's conscience.

At the other end of the ride there is a cycle lane on a pavement barely wide enough for two people to walk abreast. When it merged the two primary schools, the parish council thought it would be a good idea to create a cycle lane for pupils whose school was closing. Now, most people would forgive an 8-year-old cycling on a pavement (although enlightened parents will be encouraging their children onto the road as soon as possible) so there's no need for a cycle lane. I haven't actually encountered any children cycling, but I've met quite a few ignorant adults barreling down the pavement with a sense of entitlement. Quite a few are military. j

With my right arm still weary from thankful waving imagine my disappointment when I saw a military officer - supposedly the embodiment of courage and courtesy - unilaterally extend the kiddies' cycle lane onto the even narrower pavement next to the traffic lights. With this level of discourtesy and ignorance no wonder cycling causes such division.

Help wanted. Could those of you who know me give me a few words, a pithy phrase, to describe for those who don't know me what it is I bring to the party? My preferred way of operating is to find out where someone 'is' at present, help them identify where they want to 'go' and to walk with them whilst they make that journey. In an aircraft cockpit it's easy: if I can create the right environment they can do their own learning. Essentially I think I can help people and organizations to be the best they can be but will that wash in this world of buzz words and corporate jargon? Most coaches generate a niche and then sell that niche to the highest bidder: "Do you struggle with X? I can help you deal with X." But real coaching is helping someone through their own challenges.