heartharmony.com.au

A few weeks back I talked about lessons from the Great Depression – and how the times of greatest challenge are also the times where the greatest fortunes can be made and the biggest lessons learnt in life.

Humans are not programmed to grow when things are all going along smoothly. We grow the most in times of challenge. And it is times of challenge that we begin to see who the real leaders are.  The best and most effective leaders don’t sugar-coat what is happening, but they give a clear vision of a way out. The communicate and then communicate some more – always explaining what they are doing, what is the next step and the next beyond that. They don’t hide their feelings, but they also don’t wallow in self pity or self-righteous anger. They give hope when others have lost their own.

Yes, the stock market has had a hiccup. It’s what it does. There are always peaks and there are always valleys. But most of the variation in the market has more to do with psychology than anything tangible. It is how people “feel” about situations – do they feel confident or do they feel scared? When people are confident, the stock market is bouyant. When they are scared, the stock market sinks. I like to imagine the stock market as a massive confidence and happiness indicator.

Right now -  people are indicating they are scared. So for a moment, I want you to imagine that your child tells you they are frightened. What do you do? Do you tell them that the Boogey monster is in fact real – and not only that, it will munch up them, their family and the family dog. Or do you take the time to calm their fears, help them to look at what is real and what is imagined, and help them work out a plan of attack?

Right now – each of us in our businesses are being called to step up to true leadership. Our role is to be “calm and carry on” – to create a strong and positive vision for our team and customers, and to inspire confidence.

This is not the time to be wasting time gossiping with other businesses about how bad things are. And it is not the time to be nervously tracking results to confirm your fears that sales are down.  It’s the time to reboot our mental hard-drives and re-focus on where we want to head.

We can join the doom and gloom merchants, or we can look for new opportunities for growth. I can tell you where my mind is focussed – bring on the growth! After all, there’s literally no better time in the world.

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Brisbane Copywriter

Have you ever noticed that life runs in themes? That you get a run of a particular client or a particular problem? That you never get just one thing by itself – you get a whole bunch of somethings?

Well, that’s been particularly obvious to me this week. The theme for many of my clients and potential clients was “how to avoid having a hard conversation“.  They were trying to use emails, letters, marketing campaigns to solve things that would be much more effective through a single conversation.

Whether it was dealing with an employee who had stormed out of a workplace slamming the door behind them, to the search for new alliance partners for a business – it was all about avoiding the conversation. Yes, there were great justifications as to why they wanted to put words on a page. Yes, there was a lot of talking and trying to convince me of the rightness of not talking directly but sending a letter. And yes, there was final grudging acceptance of their fear in having the chat, and acceptance of strategies to actually have the hard conversations.

And what happened? Well at last count, most had screwed their courage to the sticking post and actually phoned or had the chat with the people they were worried about. And yes, it worked for them. They found the fear was always worse than the conversation they had. They got their desired outcomes.

And yes, I did do myself out of a pile of writing income. But … I also know that my job really is about getting results for my clients and we achieved that without the need to go into print.

So – next time you find yourself trying to justify sending an email or drowning someone in paper, ask yourself what you may be really afraid of.  Then have that hard conversation.

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Brisbane Copywriter

Last year I joined the bi-focal brigade (or graduated lenses as they are euphemistically called). Yes, my years of peering into the depths of a flickering computer screen finally took their toll on my eyesight, and I needed different glasses. Now, theoretically I am supposed to be able to use the same glasses to see from close up to distance, yet what happened during the first few weeks of wearing them was that I looked like a bird with a nervous tic, as I bobbed my head around trying to find out the right position to see things at.

As the weeks progressed, I worked out where to hold my head and position my eyes for the regular things that I do, yet I found that I couldn’t use the lenses for close-up work such as threading needles or trying to assemble furniture from Ikea … when there is always at least one errant screw needing the position of an advanced yoga practitioner to tighten.

In those cases, it is too close for comfort, so I need to drop the glasses, readjust my eyes and take another look. When all else fails, I call on my kids and borrow their viewpoint (who then invariably point out an easier way of reaching that errant screw and knock over in 2 minutes something I had been struggling with for the odd hour or so).

Sort of like business really. When we start in business we bob around all over the place until we get into a comfort zone. Every now and then situations get in your face that force you to take a different perspective. At times you can find your own new perspective and at other times you need another set of eyes. Yet, how many of us stop and ask for that other set of eyes?

Who do you call on when you need another perspective of your business? Who do you talk with when you want to find other options?  At what point do you give up and ask someone for help? I’d love to hear what you do.

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Brisbane Copywriter

Queensland has just been hit by it’s second major natural disaster in the space of just over a month. First there were the devastating floods that affected 3/4 of the state, and then Cyclone Yasi , as big as Hurricane Katrina,  hit the north of the state last night.

While the human impact on lives and businesses are immeasurable, there are some very clear lessons that can be learnt from the exceptional communication that has occurring during both disasters.

Businesses should take lessons from how the disaster communication has been done. Your business may never be faced with the scale of disaster Queensland has seen, but the essence of disaster communication is the same no matter whether your business is faced with legal issues, staff issues or any other disaster that puts you in the media spotlight.

1. Have a nominated spokesperson of some stature. In these disasters the spokesperson has been Anna Bligh, Premier of the state, accompanied by the Police Commissioner and other emergency services personnel and Ministers as needed. Briefings have never been left to a media advisor – the leader has always been front and centre, fielding the questions, providing answers & keeping things calm. This also means your spokesperson needs to be easily contactable and ready to provide comment 24/7. If your spokesperson can’t make a briefing, then you need to explain where they are and how the stand-in spokesperson is of similar high stature. Get clear on who your media spokesperson is going to be in any crisis situation and make sure your team know how to contact them.
2. The spokesperson needs to have media skills. Every CEO/spokesperson needs media training – no if’s, but’s or maybe’s. They need to be able to present to the media in a clear, confident and calm fashion, and not get flustered.
3. Take questions. Allowing all questions helps to dispel concerns of people. Reading from a prepared statement and running suggests something to hide.
4. If you don’t know the answer – say so. The people who have briefed Anna Bligh have done a superb job, but no leader knows all of the answers. Where she didn’t know the answers, she said so and explained exactly when she would have the information and when she would tell people about it.
5. Keep the leadership team regularly updated. Every few hours the full disaster management team would meet, exchange information and plan next steps. Everyone that needed to be in the loop on what was happening, was kept in the loop – no exceptions.
6. Regularly communicate to the public. Every few hours Anna Bligh would hold a press conference that updated the public on information. Updates were regular, consistent, authoritative and the spacing did not allow rumours to spread to quickly.  Where there were rumours doing the rounds, she specifically addressed the rumours and gave the facts which served to stop their spread. The team always announced when the next briefing would be given to the media at the end of the previous briefing – it helped create certainty and instill calm. Outside of formal briefings, Anna Bligh was accessible to the regular media for exclusive interviews.
7. Repeat the key messages. Core messages for each disaster were communicated over and over (pretty much in each briefing). They were not said once and forgotten, but repeated and embedded.
8. Communicate in many different channels. One of the strengths for the team has been use of multiple communication channels – Facebook, Twitter, Websites, their own live broadcast channel on You Tube, traditional media releases and press conferences. They did not rely just on the media to pick up their story – they actively went out and communicated their messages themselves. And yes, this meant a team of people working tirelessly in the background. You need to work out who your communication team is going to be before any disaster hits.
9. Don’t downplay the bad news. If there is bad news or mistakes made, get the information out there as soon as possible. Don’t try to hide it or downplay it. People want the truth in disaster situations and fudging the answers only creates suspicion.
10. Be human. One of the real strengths of Anna Bligh and her team, has been the willingness to share their emotional pain while still getting the job done. They haven’t kept their emotions in a box – but have allowed people to see their fears, frustrations, sorrow as well as relief. This last point is the thing that people in Queensland are still talking about – they don’t often talk about the regularity of communication – just that Anna has “stepped up” and “been inspirational”.

Are there any other lessons that you have seen during this time?

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Freelance Copywriter

On the weekend I finished reading “The Winner’s Bible: Rewire Your Brain for Permanent Change” by Dr Kerry Spackman. It was one of the books I had taken with me on my holiday, and was one of three which remained unopened and unread in the bottom of my suitcase.  On Saturday, when I was recovering from another challenge with my breathing, I decided to finally get to my unread “holiday” books.

I have to say that as a whole the book was “yeah so what”.  It irritated me more than inspired me (I have this thing about books that tell you of the importance of goals and of having an unshakable belief in yourself and then only give trite answers on how to set goals & develop belief, but that is an aside).

However, there was one passage that really resonated with me. It was the chapter where Kerry was talking about his grandpa, Sir Trevor Henry. Sir Trevor was one of New Zealand’s top judges and was an unerringly good judge of character. When Kerry asked his grandpa how he was able to do this, he answered:

” Everyone you meet has a Big Story. They all have an image they want to project about who they are, what they do and why they are so special. Because this Big Story is important to them they put in a lot of effort and care to polish it to perfection. They make this Big Story interesting so we naturally pay a lot of attention to it. But while they are going about their lives, living and telling their Big Story, they are also leaking out Little Stories. Small subtleties in their behaviour that tell you what they are actually like inside. Of course, we don’t usually notice these Little Stories because they get completely swamped by the Big Story. But if you learn to listen to these Little Stories you’ll be able to see inside people’s souls. And the more you practice this Skill of listening to the Little Stories, the more you’ll see.”

I love this. As I spent a bit of time deeply thinking back over my past year, I realised I had lost sight of the importance of  listening to the  Little Stories and been seduced by the Big Story on more than on occasion. As my grandma used to say “Unless you watch for straws in the wind, you are likely to be hit by the haystack“.

The other quote from the book that resonated with me was:

“You see, the richest people in the world aren’t those with the most assets, the most fame, the most success or even those who are the most popular. The people who possess the greatest treasure in the world are those who:

• are quality people leading their own authentic lives to the fullest
• are intimately connected with other people of equal quality who deeply care for them.”

This is a brilliant definition of richness and abundance. It is easy to get caught up with the Big Story told by people of zeros on a balance sheet, public fame and apparent worldly success – but the little stories can tell a different tale of richness.

So here’s to a life of authenticity, intimate connection, quality friends and family and of hearing the Little Stories that tell of joy, hope, inspiration, honesty and love!

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Freelance Copywriter

It is the 1st December, and for our household that means pulling out the many many plastic tubs of Christmas decorations from their home under the stairs, and starting to decorate the inside of our house. Our rituals also involve creating a mountain of tinsel on the lounge room floor and covering the kids  in the tinsel mountain while the cats leap in and out, chasing tinsel strands. We have done this since the kids could barely crawl and we still do it (even though the eldest is not too far off being 6ft tall now – we just use more tinsel).

We also take turns photographing each other putting the angel on the top of the tree. We have photos of the kids from being babies in arms holding the angel right the way through to being taller than the tree … and these are some of my most treasured photos.

Why? People crave rituals. We need rituals to mark the passage of time and significant events, otherwise our lives feel hollow. And people will create rituals even if you don’t formally acknowledge them – ranging from the boss always wearing a daggy Santa hat to the Christmas party through to Mary from accounts always getting drunk and disorderly on too much free booze.

Isn’t it better to create more positive rituals? Christmas is a great time to put in some new fun rituals at your workplace (yes, even those boring workplaces where everyone looks awkwardly and silently at each other over morning tea).

• Advent Calendars don’t have to be just for kids (grab one in your lunch break today). Put a roster up as to who gets to open each door.
• Make your next morning tea an office decorating tea where everyone has a hand in either decorating their space or making some decorations.
• Who says Christmas Lights are only be for houses?  I worked miracles with bent paperclips in the ceiling tile joins holding up LED fairy lights. Just put them on a timer so no one has to remember to turn them off at the end of the day.
• Every office can have a Christmas tree. Get everyone to add one decoration that represents them or see what magic you can create with office supplies (post it note covered tree anyone?)
• Stage your own version of the “Night Before Christmas” with different staff taking on the roles of reindeer, stockings, chimney etc

The thing is that we are serious for the rest of the year. Why can’t we allow our inner child out to play during Christmas? Why not create some fun rituals that you can do each year to celebrate the passing of another year?

And what is my personal favourite office ritual? Christmas Eve I wheel in the wheelie bin and go through the filing cabinet – shredding files that are no longer needed with a glass of champagne in hand.  I do the same with electronic files – deleting old sent emails no longer needed. I love it and haven’t missed a year for over a decade.

What is your Christmas office ritual?

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Freelance Copywriter

As mentioned in the previous blog post, the recently completed Blessingwhite study looked at employee engagement around the world. The results of three questions really caught my eye, as they show some specific things a manager can do to engage employees.

The questions?

• My manager encourages me to use my talents - 85% of engaged employees agreed with this statement while only 37% of disengaged employees agreed.

• My manager asks and acts on my input - 84% of engaged employees agreed, 42% of disengaged.

• My manager recognises and rewards my achievements - 88% of engaged employees agreed, 43% of disengaged.

Smart managers need to look at these three areas and ask – what can I do better to encourage, ask for input and recognise & reward my team. It doesn’t take a psychology degree to work out that people need to feel valued, listened to and stretched. These stats though should give you a little nudge along to act on your positive intentions.

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Freelance HR Writer

This morning I attended a breakfast briefing by Reg Polson at AIM Qld of a survey  that was released this week. The Blessingwhite study of over 10,000 people worldwide, looked at the engagement levels of employees around the world – where employees are both enthused and “in gear” in a workplace. This is not just about job satisfaction, but they wanted to look at something deeper.

Ok – this is where I put on the table my concerns about the validity of the sample selection which will of course generate “interesting” results, but putting that aside, the data makes for interesting reading. I will share some of the findings over a few blog posts – so you are not all drowned in data.

The model they adopted suggested there are 5 levels of employee engagement.

1. Fully engaged employees have both high contribution and high satisfaction rates
2. Almost engaged employees have medium-high contribution & satisfaction rates
3. Honeymooners & Hamsters – are either those new to the job who are happy but not contributing much yet, or who are busy being busy and like what they are doing (but not really making a difference)
4. Crash & Burners are the medium to high contributors but have low satisfaction
5. Disengaged are the the ones who have low to medium contribution and satisfaction.

Globally – 30% of all employees are fully engaged. In Australia the result is 37% (and a highly skewed rate – AIM members are 48% fully engaged – recruiters may want to take note and check for AIM membership as part of their process).

Yes, but who cares? The study then went on to look at things such as intention to leave a workplace, as well as quoted a pile of studies that looked at things such as share price value and engagement, as well as customer satisfaction and engagement. Bottom line – the more engaged your employees are – the better your business will do.

The interesting section of results for me is the “Almost engaged”. These are the people who have the potential to be your star performers and who are contributing well – but unless you manage carefully they are ripe for a smart headhunter to pick them off.  Globally this worked out at 27% of all employees and in Australia 23%. This means 23% of your workforce are sitting there with targets on them – but they are also the group the easiest to move to full engagement. I can tell you where I would be concentrating my engagement and retention efforts!

Again playing with stats – this means in Australia that 60% of all employees are either fully or almost fully engaged with their work. Does this ring true for your business?

If you want a copy of the summary of information, then either visit AIM Qld or Greg Polson’s site.  In the next post I will look at some of the more interesting stuff – what can managers personally do to influence how engaged their employees are.

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Freelance HR Writer

A friend recently gave me a fascinating book exploring the history & philosophy of science – explained through Terry Pratchett & the Discworld’s eyes. (The Science of Discworld – Pratchett, Stewart & Cohen). Quirky and darn funny, it makes you rethink science and the whole “logic” world.

And one of the lines got me thinking. “Every so often, you have to unlearn what you thought you already knew, and replace it by something more subtle”.

Think about it. We always like to think of lifelong learning as a wonderful logical linear path – we learn one piece of information, then another and then another. As humans we like to think this is truth because we crave order and believe that logical processes actually rule (yeah right!)

What really happens is a heck of a lot messier. When we need to learn something new, we first need to unpack what we already think we know or believe, and only then can we begin to add in the new stuff. But our brain is wired to avoid cognitive dissonance, so for as long as possible we force the information to fit our mental models of the world until breaking point is reached, and we deconstruct our mental models and build new ones.

And to make it more complex – no piece of information is ever stored without some emotion attached. Every piece of info has a feeling that goes along with it when you think about it – so unpacking information usually unpacks all sorts of emotions with it. Not linear or logical in any shape or form – just mess, rubble and rebuilding.

I have a mental image of my mind being like a massive series of filing cabinets tended by rather strange apes who scurry from file to file, finding stuff when I need it. All is perfect in my musty mental library until new stuff needs to come in. When this happens, I see an avalanche of sheets of paper, drawings and diagrams falling through a laundry shute like hole in the roof. This sends the apes into panic mode, madly trying to find the corresponding files – riffling through the contents and throwing out bits that are no longer relevant before adding in the new bits of paper. Paper and emotions fly through the air like confetti – some bits get filed, some bits get misfiled and an awful lot ends up in piles on the floor to be sorted through later. (Later is often a long time coming, so there are lots of dusty piles in my mental library.)

This made mental rearranging tends to only happen for “big things” for me – like when I first discovered the world of SEO & Internet marketing, relationships doing less than logical things and value-based fees, but I am sure it happens to a lesser degree with “small stuff” (I am just less aware of it).

Lovely – but what does this mean? Well, it helps explain why we make mistakes while we are learning, keeping on going back to the old ways. Our neural pathways have not yet formed to the new pattern – we haven’t yet unlearned and then learned. It helps explain the miss-steps we take and the resistance to change. It also explains why emotional “stuff” comes up when we are trying to make sometimes the simplest changes and learn something new.

So, for me, I like to ask myself the question – “what do I need to unlearn, unknow or unbelieve in order for this new information to be true“.

What about you? What do you need to unlearn right now?

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Freelance Copywriter

And we wonder why it is so hard to let go of beliefs, attitudes and relationships that no longer serve us!

Most people think of good ideas as lightbulb moments. Steven Johnson challenges this approach in his great Ted Talk.

Drawing his theory from 1600′s coffee shops and brain neural networks, this is a brilliant talk about where great ideas really come from and the true length of incubation of new ideas.  I like his language – “great ideas fade into view”.

What great ideas are fading into view for you?

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Freelance Copywriter