Kick Start 2012 with these Tips

My gift of Tips and Strategies for 2012

Thank you for your continuing interest and feedback on my thoughts, tips and stories in using our knowledge about the human brain to develop better leaders.

The more we learn and discover about The Almond Effect and other neuroscience, the better we will become at developing and being change leaders.

In appreciation, here is an e-book full of tips and strategies from over 30 experts on how to make 2012 your best year ever.

Click here to download your copy. I hope you enjoy it.

I wish you and the ones you love a wonderful 2012.

PS If you prefer Facebook for CLUES and a whole lot more including discussion and ideas from other contributors, go to Anne Riches on Facebook and Like the page

Do you work with someone with Depression? Would you employ someone with depression?

Statistically the chances are that you are working with a person who is coping with a mood disorder such as Depression or Bipolar Disorder or that you have recruited someone with this challenge. It may be that you are the one with the mood disorder or have a family member who is.

Recent research published in BMC Medicine tells us that 15% of the population in high income countries are likely to experience depression in their lifetime, with 5.5% experiencing depression last year. In low to middle income countries, this number is 11%. You can read the full text of the research here.

The experience of a Major Depressive Episode (MDE) is higher (over 30%) in USA, France and the Netherlands, and lowest in China (12%). The incidence of MDE was very high in India (over 36%) though the Indian Health Ministry is unhappy with that finding.

So potentially, 1 in 6 of your employees, your team leaders, your managers, your customer service representatives, your salespeople, your number crunchers, your lawyers (actually it's statistically much higher for lawyers), your safety staff in fact anyone in any occupation may be clinically depressed at work at any time.

Depression is prevalent in the best countries to live

In Australia the most often cited statistic is that 1 in 6 women and 1 in 4 men will experience Depression in their lifetime, an average of 1 in 5.

This is worrying given that the 2011 United Nations Human Development Index rates the five best places to live as Norway, Australia, the Netherlands, the US and New Zealand and the World Health Organisation suggests that by the year 2020, Depression will be the world's second global burden of disease. It already is for men and women between 15 and 44 years of age.

Do you have workmates who are depressed?

The symptoms of depression include poor concentration, lack of motivation, little interest in anything, low energy and disturbed sleep. Just getting out of bed, showering and getting to work can be a major achievement.

What is the impact of these conditions on the quality and quantity of work of your employees ?

Productivity, quality, safety and engagement

It is not simply a challenging health issue, it is a productivity, safety and indeed, an engagement issue.

Why engagement? Because Depression (and Bipolar Disorder) don't pick and choose where to land. They are prevalent. And may be impacting your best performers.

What you do to support them and the people around them, may be a critical factor in choices that your employees make to remain with you or move on.


How do you support depressed employees?

There is a range of alternatives available that can bring relief. They include the 'talking' therapies, i.e. counselling, working with a psychologist, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Dialectical Behaviour Therapy and so on.

Exercise is a powerful tool with research showing that 30 minutes of exercise a day is the equivalent of a dose of Prozac.

Mindfulness mediation is also being shown to be amazingly valuable.

But given that most people with jobs spend most of their waking hours at work, we have to think about the role of the manager and of colleagues and team mates – does what you do help or hinder recovery?

It’s nothing to do with me

If you don't think it's anything to do with you, think in hard terms of the bottom line. Ignoring it or even inadvertently making it worst, will impact your goals and the morale in your organisation.

In my experience, there are two main barriers.

First there is still such stigma attached to Depression that people don't admit to it. And if they do, people around them simply don't know what to do or say so they either do and say nothing or say things like 'just move on, get over it, don't bring it to work, there are 'plenty more fish in the sea', you'll find someone else, pull your socks up, it's not my problem, go and get a coffee, just take a few days off, take my advice and....' etc.

Underlying those thoughts is the notion that the person is just malingering.

But people don't choose to be depressed. It is an awful place to be. It is not something you can just 'snap out of' just like you can't just snap out of cancer or heart disease.

It is a medical condition. It is real but it is manageable.

Second, people are afraid to raise the issue. It's an example of what I call The Almond Effect. In this case, your amygdala warns you that by raising the issue you could be opening a Pandora's Box, that you haven't got time for it, that you might tip them over the edge, that they'll tell you that it's none of your business - all responses that you may not feel equipped to handle so we become fearful and don’t raise it.

But with 1 in 6 men and 1 in 4 women at risk, it is as significant a work issue as physical safety at work. It is not something that can be ignored.

What should you say or do?

One of the biggest fears is not knowing what to do or say.

I have given many presentations to CEO's, managers amd employees about the signs, symptoms, causes and treatments for Depression. Invariably these talks of themselves open up a significant channel for communication about an issue that remains stigmatised and troubling for employers and staff alike.

As a first step, provide your team with information and skills to work with colleagues with a mood disorder. I know that this will translate into increased productivity and engagement as people begin to understand the issues and how to help.

This is not just the right thing to do, it will produce tangible results on your bottom line. It gives real meaning and practical application to the words 'we care about our people'.

Tips:

* Don't ignore it

* You won't tip people over the edge if you ask them if they are ok

* If you don't know where to start, begin by simply asking them how they are feeling

* Go a little further by saying what you've noticed in their mood or behaviour and gently describing what that is

* Don't be judgemental

* Don't think or tell them they are weak. The strongest people I know are people with Depression - think what they have to manage each day to even get to work, let alone perform well

* Don't think you have to give advice – that’s not what they need

* Use all your best listening skills - use open ended questions and acknowledge that you are listening with your body language and eye contact

* Encourage them to seek help if they have not already

* Validate them. i.e. let them know that you understand that it is a real experience for them and that it’s OK to talk about feeling down

* Suggest they speak to their GP or to the workplace employee health services provider

What you should do next if this is an issue in your workplace


1. Invite me to give a free awareness raising session in your workplace

2. Contact me if you’d like more information

3. Visit the Black Dog Institute website for facts sheets and resources

Is technology dramatically changing the way our brains work?

Do you have a bigger brain because you have a lot of Friends on Facebook or is it the other way around? Have a look at this interesting research from University College London.

If neuroscientists discover that our grey matter increases the more social networking we do - that will raise some challenging questions for employers around the optimal use of time at work for employees, won't it!!!

My Tip for Procrastinators

I’m one of those people who love to get things done. Give me a big challenge or a difficult task to do, I’m on it!

But simple things like deciding what to get for dinner if my partner is home or what to wear? I can mess around for ages on those.

In my blogpost July 2008 I wrote about Procrastination and invited reader’s comments.

Could you live with this person?

Here is one person’s reply that made me think again about when and why I procrastinate.

“I have a close relationship with a person (my partner) however he procrastinates about everything.

If I ask what he would like for dinner he walks away pretending he didn't hear me asking him.

Anything that is in the "too hard" basket for him is left for later with some excuse.

There are broken things in the house that have been broken for years!

He was made redundant from his job a few years back and it took him nearly a year to finally pick a new job after many offers.

We have been together for over 30 years and initially I put this behaviour down to laziness and it was the cause of many disagreements in our relationship.

After a while I got to understand his reasons even though he won't discuss them.

It comes down to this. If he does some of this stuff and it is not right then he is most fearful that someone will criticise him, even though he might be criticised for not doing it.

I believe that some of this is due to the relationship my husband had with his father who was a controlling man - best intentions I am sure.

There was a constant battle of wits in that family, hiding "stuff" from dad so he would not know about it and therefore could not comment. I think this learned behaviour and fear is one of those things that have become part of his nature. He knows about it but can't get past the reliance on blaming his behaviour on his upbringing and what is the "norm".

I have come to terms that he needs gentle coaxing and encouragement and a pat on the back when he does accomplish something - after all we are all babies in big people's bodies!

Thanks for the opportunity to comment. I regularly receive your newsletters and I really do enjoy reading them.”

Fear and perfectionism – the (im)perfect match

Wow – she must be a saint! That behaviour would drive me crazy!

Yet her comments stung me. Why - because I can make decisions and do most things quickly except writing. That’s a whole different ballgame.

I’ll research, get readily sidetracked, distracted, busy, in fact anything except writing and then, well, there’s another day gone and I still haven’t done the writing I want to.

I don’t believe I’m lazy or inefficient. Yet ironically a task that is not that difficult for me once I get going, has me running in search of anything else to do rather than the thing I should be doing.

Lots of reasons for it but in a nutshell, it’s your amygdala

Some authors suggest that procrastination is a time management issue.

Others talk about it coming from fear of failure, fear of success, fear of loss of autonomy, fear of attachment. Whatever it is, there is one common thread, fear.

For me, it is fear of not being perfect. Isn’t that ridiculous? Yet my perfectionism has been (and still is) the biggest personal challenge in my life. it stops me doing things.

It’s The Almond Effect® again. My amygdala believes that somehow if what I do is not perfect, I am in someway a lesser person and won’t be successful. Seems like madness to some but the frustration of procrastination is real.

What to do about it

And just as my wonderful correspondent observed of her partner, my father had a huge role to play in setting up this state of mind for me.

So some of you will belong to the ‘Socks’ school of thought - just pull your socks up and get over it. Easy to say if you’re not a perfectionist!

If only it worked like that. Behaviours built up over decades don’t miraculously change overnight.

In my experience, the best way to deal with it is the Nike approach: Just do it. If your world doesn’t fall in and no one gets hurt, it’s probably safe.

Gentle coaxing and encouragement and a pat on the back

The strategy that struck me in my correspondents note was what seems like a statement of the obvious but often simply not done: coaxing, encouraging, supporting and acknowledgement.

This approach works for change leaders as well as in the family. Set up the opportunity and persuade resistors, recalcitrants, procrastinators to try out the new ways of doing things in the development stage and before you go live. It can work wonders.

And if you encourage, support, and recognize their achievements you often turn your most reluctant participants into advocates.

Just do it

But for me, this quote from a University of North Carolina article sums it up:

The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair 
— Mary Heaton Vorse

That’s just what I did to write this CLUES and I think that applies to everything we put off doing!

Daniel Goleman describes The Almond Effect

The August 2011 newsletter from Six Seconds reports how Daniel Goleman describes what I call The Almond Effect. Great description.

He describes the neurological response to stress, or a threat, as a pure survival mechanism designed to guide us through “a short-term emergency” which has evolved into “an ongoing hazard for performance.” This ongoing hazard is the neurological spiral of stress that has us trapped.

Goleman explains that our “attention narrows to focus on the cause of the stress, not the task at hand; our memory reshuffles to promote thoughts most relevant to what’s stressing us and we fall back on over learned habits. The brain’s executive centers – our neural circuitry for paying attention, comprehension and learning – are hijacked by our circuitry for handling stress.”

Thus, we’re stuck until we become aware of our own stress spiral. Those with more emotional awareness and stronger skills in managing feelings are able to turn this cycle around more quickly.

From a neurological standpoint Goleman notes, “people who can manage their emotions well are able to recover more quickly from stress arousal.” Once we recognize that we’re on a destructive path, we can actively work to retrieve the brain’s executive centers from the stress spiral and begin to make better decisions.

As Goleman describes it, our “attention becomes nimble and focused again, our mind flexible, and our bodies relaxed. And a state of relaxed alertness is optimal for performance.” Thus our stressful situation becomes more manageable and the bigger picture is once again visible.

If you are a regular reader of these posts, you will know that using my STAR approach Stop - Think - Act - Rewire develops the skills to be able to manage stressful situations (The Almond Effect) not only while they are happening but also to better handle future triggers. STAR builds self-awareness and confidence and an ability to deal with what life throws at you. That seemed to me to be the best reason to develop it!

I remember it like it happened yesterday...but you probably don’t!

“We’ve tried that before”

“Here we go again”

These two phrases torment every change implementer’s life. They usually signal negativity to the change that you want to instigate.

And these words are not only used by change resistors at work, I’d guess many of you have heard them or even used them yourself at home!

Researchers such as Lila Davachi who study the way that memories are formed and later recalled, say that it is rare that we accurately recall exactly what happened in the first instance. This is because a memory is not a single function or brain system/network.

For example, even if you were close to and witnessed a powerful event like 9/11 or your colleagues made redundant in a restructure, your memory of it might not be as clear as you thought.

There’s a great illustration of this written by Greg Boustead in Scientific American How the brain remembers 9/11


It is an example of Davachi’s explanation at the NeuroLeadership Summit in the USA that memory is never an exact playback of the video of the experience. Rather it is a reconstruction of the event drawn from many different parts of the brain.

And because memories are not stored in a single location, when we ‘remember’ something, we may not remember or recall accurately all the elements of the event.

This topic was discussed at the World Science Festival 2011 in the session on The Unbearable Lightness of Memory

"One of the primary functions of memory is to be able to use our experience of the past to be able to act adaptively in the future" – Elizabeth Phelps

"When we remember an event from the past we are drawing on information that we've actually experienced BUT sometimes we're combining that incorrectly with other things that we may not have experienced. These mistakes can have important consequences, especially in the legal world." – Daniel L. Schacter

We increase the durability of a memory if it has an emotional connection

Some research has been done to show that memories formed in the presence of negative emotions are more likely to be recalled clearly.

Think about your holiday last year. You probably don’t recall the detail of the logistics that went well. But you will definitely recall where and when it went wrong.

For example, earlier this year I travelled in Europe and Africa. I can barely recall the details of the check-in counters in most airports but I can remember the one in Morocco.

I clearly recollect that the check in woman in Marrakesh said: Would you like me to check this through to Johannesburg for you?

And that was the last I saw of my bag for three and a half weeks!

I can easily bring to mind the emotion, the frustration I felt that my bag was lost. And the memory or the whole saga is triggered every time I see an Air France plane or advertisement – guess which airline I flew?

But it would be fascinating to see if my memory of the check-in woman’s words and how the situation was ultimately resolved is accurate.

Overcoming past memories of change

The job of the amygdala is to watch out for signals that might compromise our safety and survival. That’s what The Almond Effect® is: when the amygdalae confuse the actions and behaviours of others in a non-life threatening situation as a threat to our physical survival and cause us to act accordingly with one of the 4 F’s.

If you add this together to what is known about memory recall, then you have to have a plan for what can you do when you hear words of resistance based on perceived history.

Your goal is to reduce the fear, anxieties and stress being stirred up by past memories. Until you do that, the limbic system and especially the amygdala creates a smokescreen which logic and reason will find hard to get through.

As a first step, my suggestion is that you simply accept that their negativity is being triggered by memory whether it is accurate or not. It won’t help if you tell them they’ve got it all wrong. That’s an appeal to their logic at a time when their evolutionary survival instincts are on red alert.

Instead ask them and any others who were around at the time of the previous events, what happened previously or what recollections are triggering their views that it’s all been done before. Then check that against any known facts about the event.

Maybe they were right on the money but I’d bet that their recall of the event will reveal differences between what was happening in the past and what you are proposing now. If they were right then you’ve got some valuable information to work on to ensure that your change activity this time is different and won’t arouse the same negativity.

But if you can show them the difference and explain in positive terms why what is being proposed now is different to what they recall happened last time, you’ve enhanced your chances of change success.

Until a pill is marketed for eliminating particular remembrances that we’d prefer to forget, it’s worth operating on the premise that many of our recalled experiences are based on the feelings we had at that time, not necessarily the facts.

Learning how to deal with these emotions that accompany change will significantly enhance your ability as a change leader.

Getting People to Change

When would you give up your passion? How would you feel if someone told you that you had no choice?

This happened to a good friend recently. She was told that for health reasons she would have to stop scuba diving, at least in the short term, maybe forever.

It was heartbreaking for her. As a keen diver myself, the thought of not being able to explore below the ocean’s surface is simply awful.

Change is hard work whatever the situation

The mechanisms for changing what we love to do or are simply comfortable with, are the same in our personal lives and at work. We have to rewire our brain. We can do this because our brains have plasticity.

The nature and intensity of our motivation to change will differ in various circumstances but regardless of our reasons for wanting to change behaviours or thought patterns, we will have to create new neural pathways and then to use them in preference to the old ones.

Until the new patterns become the new default response, it is hard brain work. Think about when you are tired and how easy it is to default to established patterns.

The old patterns are seductive

For example, when we had our kitchen renovated last year, I still found myself looking in the old place where the cutlery was kept until I got used to the new location.

And recently I was driving back from a meeting in Sydney’s northern suburbs to another at Rushcutters Bay in the East. Coincidentally it’s the same route as if I was going home. I was so busy thinking about what I was going to say at the meeting that I was driving on auto-pilot. I missed the turn to the meeting and found myself on my way home!

(Then I experienced The Almond Effect® and became anxious about being late and the impression that my lateness might create.)

Some other examples: using your old phone’s commands on a new phone, using old keystroke patterns on new systems at work, using approaches that used to work with your our old boss on the new one!

And maybe there are some things that are so hard-wired that people can never change. I am thinking here of a friend from Scotland who has lived more than 40 years in Australia and still has a really strong Scottish accent!

When we have to change, and even if we are strongly motivated to do so, we need to stay actively focused on changing our behaviours.

If not, you may find yourself in a situation where the old behaviours are triggered automatically and the old behaviours reappear.

Our autopilot at work

Many managers seem to overlook this. They become frustrated and impatient with the time it takes for people to adopt change at work.

They get tired of answering questions like:

But what about…? What’s wrong with the existing way? We’ve tried this before, what makes you think it will work this time?

Many questions are rationally based, yet many more have an emotional basis.

As managers, getting commitment to change requires us to respond to those emotion-based concerns even though we are under time pressures and deadlines. It is false economy not to do so.

Successful change leaders know this.

Failure to address the emotionally based questions results in delayed or failed change efforts. After all, these questions are triggered by our amygdala which are concerned with anything that doesn’t fit the existing patterns we know are ‘safe.’

We still see more than 40% of change projects failing to realize the projected goals of the change.

IBM identified the most significant challenge to change as Changing Mindsets and Attitudes in its Global Study Making Change Work 2008.

In a 2009 survey of CEOs, IBM identified Complexity as the number one challenge for CEOs and leaders currently.

Here is one of their recommendations:

“How CEOs can capitalize on complexity:
The effects of rising complexity calls for CEOs and their teams to lead with bold creativity connect with customers in imaginative ways and design their operations for speed and flexibility to position their organisations for twenty-first century success”

So even if Complexity is the number one challenge for leaders, dealing with it may require changed mindsets. Many executives will have to change their own behaviour as well as the behaviours of others.

How do we change ourselves and others?

It’s worth remembering that:

• Humans are hard wired for survival above all else

• Our default thinking is habitual and self-perpetuating

• Everyone is the product of their own experiences with different motivations and unique memories

• Change can be frustratingly slow because it’s hard brain work to rewire – even if it is logical and in the best interests

So to create the optimum conditions, change leaders should:

• acknowledge past patterns were OK at that time

• fully explain the ‘why’ of the change, the WIFM and ‘what will happen ‘if we don’t’

• understand “once is not enough” and send consistent change messages in multiple ways through multiple channels on multiple occasions

• model change – and be congruent

• focus on the emotional side of change; don’t just ‘install’ the new system or process or procedure

• use reward and recognition continuously to embed new brain patterns and behaviour

People don’t change behaviours easily.

This is especially true in workplaces with cultures and histories that are slow and resistant to change. A structured approach and full understanding of how people change is essential for managers and other change agents in today’s fast-moving world where ironically slowing down to get people on board, might be the optimal way to speed up.

As Marilyn Ferguson said:
“No one can persuade another to change. Each of us guards a gate of change that can only be opened from the inside. We cannot open the gate of another, either by argument or emotional appeal.”