News – Page 2 – Bruce Thompson Coaching

20 December 20109 January 2011

Have A Positive Attitude To Change And Innovation

“Change is inevitable. Change is constant.” Benjamin Disraeli

How people respond to change affects their personal performance and the results they achieve. Similarly the way that organizations respond to change is a mark of their performance and success, and is often reflected in their bottom line.

When we resist change, we knowingly or unknowingly behave in ways that attempt to keep things as they are, and so put ourselves out of alignment with our environment. This is often either an unconscious desire to remain safe and secure, or a conscious desire to avoid the unknown. Either way the result is discomfort and tension. If our attitudes and actions are not aligned with the new direction then we are out of flow and less productive.

This phenomenon applies equally to organizations as to individuals; it is just that the dynamic is sometimes different. An organization may have plenty of people who are innovative and respond positively to change, but if the senior management is fearful and change resistant then the organization can suffer. Conversely, if the leadership is flexible and positive about change and innovation, but this is not effectively communicated to the organization, then resistance may manifest as unrest and unproductive behavior, or even open rebellion.

Regardless of the nature of the challenge, the way we respond to change affects our performance and the ultimate result. It is much easier to cope with change if we have a positive attitude to changes in general. This should reflect in the language we use both to ourselves, as self talk, and when talking to others, singly or in groups.

This doesn’t mean that we always have to agree with the circumstances or the details of the change, but we can still adapt to it in a constructive manner. The mark of an entrepreneur is the way that they respond to change and the innovation they bring to challenges. For this discussion innovation is defined broadly as bringing any new, problem solving idea into use. Having a positive orientation towards change involves:

knowing what we can and cannot control in a given situation
recognizing that disruptions are a natural response to change
being innovative and creative while looking for the opportunities that change creates
recognizing that there are a number of right ways to do things
utilizing all our personal resources and strengths to actively do the best we can

Taking these attitudes on board as individuals and organizations can improve performance and outcomes. If we respond positively to change we can grow as individuals. Organizations that respond positively to change and innovation from whatever source will also flourish and grow.

To put the earlier quote from Benjamin Disraeli into context here, it might be better to say that change is inevitable and constant, but growth is optional.

Install a Positive Attitude to Change and Innovation today and see how performance and results grow.

7 December 20109 January 2011

Celebrate As You Scrape The Frost Off The Car

While you are busy scraping the ice off the car and wishing you could remember where you left your other glove, spare a thought for those less fortunate than you, and consider how lucky you are.

Because you are out in the early morning, it means you have a car, or a friend with a car who is going to give you a lift. Some people do not have that human warmth, or that material possession, so celebrate what you have.

Because you are out doing that job, at that moment, it means you have somewhere that it is important to go. Be it to work, or the shops, on the school run, or to visit friends or relatives, you have somewhere that it is important to be. Some people do not have anywhere at all to go, and may feel that they have lost purpose. Celebrate that you have somewhere important to go, and a reason to make the journey.

Because you can scrape off the ice, even with one hand in your pocket, it means that you have a degree of manual dexterity and mobility. Some people lack one, or the other, and would love to have the ability to scrape ice off your car. So celebrate what you can do, and use those abilities to help others if you can.

Suddenly, temporary cold fingers while you scrape the frost off the car windscreen seems like something to celebrate, now doesn’t it?

Who can you help today?

6 December 201029 October 2011

Scurvy Elephants and Childhood Misconceptions

I am a great fan of Dr Wayne Dyer, the respected American self-help advocate, author, and lecturer, and once had the great privilege to listen to him speak at a luau next to his home in Maui, Hawaii. He is a master of recounting anecdotes from his family life, and uses his own experiences as a example. One of my favorite anecdotes from Wayne Dyer concerns his revelations about scurvy elephants, and goes something like this:

Wayne Dyer came home from school one day and asked his mum, “What’s a scurvy elephant?”. She told him she’d never heard of one and asked where he’d heard it. “From my teacher; he said I was a scurvy elephant.” Bewildered, his mother called the teacher and asked what he had meant. The teacher responded, “As usual Wayne got it wrong. I didn’t say he was a scurvy elephant; I said he was a disturbing element!”

I love this story because it reminds me of my childhood and the mistakes I used to make. How many times did I mishear something and jumped to a wrong conclusion. Sometimes I have constructed whole alternative explanations for things and incorporated them into my reality, only to learn much later that I have got it wrong, and the misconception has collapsed. It is part of growing up and reevaluating what is happening around you. You learn from your mistakes and grow as a person. However, I wonder how many other things I have misheard or misunderstood and built into a false reality, but not yet learned the error of my ways.

It also resonates with me as I have been called a Scurvy Elephant (and worse) many times because I haven’t always fitted in to other people’s model of the world. Who is to say who’s view is right and who’s is wrong? Sometimes you just have to have your own opinion and do what you know is right. Wayne Dyer is proud to be a Scurvy Elephant and I am pleased to join him.

If you are not yet sure if you are a Scurvy Elephant and want to find out more, why not click here to visit Dr Wayne Dyer’s website

20 July 20109 January 2011

Do Something Different and be Even More Successful

Have you ever wondered how some people are in regular employment and struggling with mortgages, overdrafts and credit card debt, while others work for themselves as entrepreneurs, and seem to do very well out of it? How can someone who has dropped out of college or University go on to massive success, while generations of graduates struggle to pay off their tuition fees for years.

The answer is as simple as it is startling; that is the way “the system” is designed to work. Schools are designed to turn out people who have enough knowledge and education to be able to hold down a steady job, aspire to modest material wealth while conforming to the rules, until they retire with their gold watch to a minuscule pension. Universities provide an opportunity to aspire to higher earnings, while providing a drag anchor in the form of student loans, while their highest aspiration is to become an employee or a self-employee.

Another question: what do Bill Gates (Microsoft), Michael Dell (Dell Computers), Larry Page (Google), Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) and Larry Ellison (Oracle) all have in common? Apart from being incredibly wealthy, they all dropped out of high school or college. They got out before the education system could brain wash their minds, so they failed to become employees. They created their wealth and have grown their own companies by becoming business owners and investors.

This shows three things:

Education is no guarantee of Financial Success in your life
Lack of Formal education need not be a barrier to your success
The ability to create wealth is something that makes you different from the others

According to entrepreneur and blogger Seth Godin, as quoted by Penelope Trunk on her Brazen Careerist website:

“… generation Y is the last one that will be as totally brainwashed by the system, by the schools and by companies and by society to believe that the industrial age (and compliance) is their ticket to the carnival. The smart ones will see that and play a different game, and the sooner they realize how bad the scam is, the faster they’ll recover.”

Seth Godin is an entrepreneur and blogger who thinks about the marketing of ideas in the digital age. He has produced several critically acclaimed and attention-grabbing books, including Permission Marketing, All Marketers Are Liars, and Purple Cow. He was the founder of Squidoo, the popular publishing platform and community that makes it easy to create pages (or lenses as they are known) online. In a presentation on TED, he spells out why, in a world of too many options and too little time, when it comes to getting our attention, bad or bizarre ideas are more successful than boring ones.

When is now the right time to decide to do something different and be a success?

Click here to watch Seth Godin on standing out

If you are interested in performance coaching, boosting your marketing, or doing something different and being even more successful, click here to contact Bruce Thompson Coaching and learn more.

6 April 20109 January 2011

Take a PINK Lesson and Empower Your Future

Although we do not usually do featured blog posts on this site, sometimes you just can not help picking up a great idea from another site, and it fires your imagination.

This time the idea comes from our friend Eldonna Lewis Fernandez, retired USAF Master Sergeant, who took control of her own life, and set out to help others transform their lives too. She runs the Pink Biker Chic programs, which are aimed at helping women to “take control of the handlebars of their lives and steer themselves to a bright and successful future”. From the metaphor, and program name, you can tell that she is a biker!

She says that riding a bike is one of the best stress relievers on the planet, and invites women to partake in experiential and life changing Women’s Biker Empowerment Experience 4 Day Workshop.

The great idea, which we borrow and reproduce here, is the concept of PINK, which stands for Power, Integrity, Negotiation and Knowledge. According to Eldonna, you don’t have to wear pink to be PINK. PINK comes from within. When you embrace the Power of PINK and live life in the front seat, you are fulfilled from the inside out and those around you reap the rewards and benefits of being in the presence of a powerfully peaceful woman.

The advice which she gives is equally appropriate for men and women.

Replace negative self talk with powerful self talk
Release all resentment
Surround yourself with people who hold you to a higher standard not people who bring you down
Use powerful language for goal setting and take positive action toward achieving your goals

When you run yourself down, or allow others to talk down to you without challenge, that seven year old child that is your unconscious takes it in, and incorporates it into your reality. Remember that whatever you say, even to yourself, your unconscious is always listening. Always speak positively and aspirationaly about yourself and your goals, so that the reality you manifest is the one you want. Take a PINK Lesson and Empower Your Future!

To find out more about Eldonna Lewis Fernandez and her programs, click here to visit Pink Biker Chic

30 March 20109 January 2011

Coaching and Facilitating Associative Thinking

While checking out some postings on the blogosphere, concerning the postulation that “six sigma” efficiency cultures are antithetical to highly creative thinking, I came across the following observation on Coaching and Facilitating from a blog on WordPress.com Coaching and facilitating – two faces of a coin, and followed a link to Design Thinking.

Actually the diversion (or digression?) set me thinking about the way that ideas form and grow from apparently random interactions. Say you overhear a snippet of conversation in a crowd, and it means something to you. Using Visual, Auditory and Kinesthetic (VAK) predicates, it may cause a flash of inspiration, strike a chord in your mind, or give you an empowering feeling. Your internal filters and meta-programs kick in and sort, distort and generalize this new input and place it into the thought processes which are going on in your mind at the moment, down in your unconscious. Suddenly this is manifested in your conscious mind as a new idea, which may solve a problem you have been wrestling with, or take you off in a new business direction.

The overheard snippet may have nothing to do with the problem you have been unconsciously seeking to solve, or anything else in your life at the time; all it has to do is provide a bridge between the old state, and the new one. It is your own meta-programs which have shaped the new piece to fit the jigsaw. To take the jigsaw metaphor even further, it actually does not matter what fragment of picture is on the new piece, as long as it it fits in place; the picture is built from the resultant combination of the combined inputs. This process can also occur during sleep, as a dream, which may be interpreted in the waking state or simply ignored.

So what has this to do with the debate about Associative v Linear thinking? Well nothing and everything! Nothing, because drives for efficiency and refinement of process are linear, systemic and iterative, while shooting off on a mental tangent, or making an intuitive leap to a solution is non-linear, unpredictable and random, so would be excluded from any data set as background noise or spikes. Associative thinking is a holistic process that looks for relationships even though no causal link is apparent. This could also be seen to exclude intuition and divergent thought patterns.

However, it is the very random and unpredictable nature of the non-linear conclusion which may be germane to the debate; this could easily be the basis for an associative connection, made at an unconscious level. While this might be accepted by an Asian thinker as having a rational basis, this is inconceivable to western minds.

As noted in The Geography of Thinking by John Mole, author of Mind Your Manners, “The most striking difference is between Asian and Western ways of thinking. While western thinking strives for order, Asian thinking aspires to harmony. Rather than look for ways of reducing facts or premises into categories, eliminating what does not logically fit, it looks for ways of associating them into meaningful patterns which accommodate rather than resolve conflicting premises or facts. ”

So with this geographical component to the Associative v Linear debate, it is now appropriate to turn to the main challenge of Coaching and Facilitating Associative Thinking; If efficiency cultures are as far from highly creative thinking as it is possible to be, how can you promote and nurture the creativity in such a controlled and linear environment?

As Professor Krishnamurthy Prabhakar posted in the thread Productivity vs. creativity: Does the culture war impact social entrepreneurs?, “the six sigma process is based on linear thinking. It is applicable to simple systems that can be measured and controlled. On the other hand creativity is a non linear process”. He also points out that “Organizations today are not just simple input process and output feedback systems. They are complex and non linear. You need to change the mind set that six sigma is a cure for all ills. Six sigma is one tool, but not a theory to explain complex system behavior.”

This polarization between linear and non linear though processes is more than just a debate between creative and system oriented types. On the BBC World News program Virtual Revolution Dr Aleks Krotoski explores how the World Wide Web is reshaping almost every aspect of our lives, 20 years on from it’s invention. The Web is promoting a change in the way people search for and access information, and may be resulting in a change in the brains of users, prompting the title of the fourth Programme in the series, Homo Interneticus? Check out the cogitative processes of the Korean children who have been using the web to research answers as part of their school curriculum.

Business development professionals are clear that being able to ‘think out of the box’ provides a competitive edge, particularly in research and technology based industries, which value inspiration. One of the fundamental building blocks of ‘thinking out of the box’ is associative learning, although we really do not know how the associations and links in our brains function. While western culture ignores or marginalizes non-linear conclusions as aberrant or illogical, Asian thinking encompasses and encourages them to preserve harmony.

Once the dust has settled on this argument, the truth may be that linear thinkers are slipping into their sunset years, while the rising tendency towards associative thinking will mean more intuitive coaching is required. In this new world, Neuro-Linguistic Programming and the specialist techniques used by associative thinking coaches will become highly prized. It would be unfortunate if Asia was the only source of such specialist skills.

19 January 20109 January 2011

A Short Pitching Masterclass by Charles Harris

Some of you may know my friend Charles Harris as a writer and TV director, and the power behind Footloose Films. You should also know he is also a master at getting his point accross in a few sentences. Among his many skills, he runs runs Pitching Masterclasses, and has kindly agreed to list a few pointers here for people who are looking to succeed as a writer, director or producer in film or TV, or just preparing an elevator pitch.

If you want to get powerful at pitching, you need to put in the work. The professional pitch is best started with just a few words, so your pitch should be no more than two to three sentences. There are a few steps neded to hone your skills and grab the attention of industry professionals in just a few words. These are the basics that you should get to know first:

Pitching is like talking – think of it like a conversation
Keep it short – Two to three sentences
Know what you want
Know what they want
Get in the mood
Be clear – state what needs to be said up-front
Put in the work
Practice Makes Confident

As an experienced writer and director in TV, theatre and cinema, Charles Harris has worked with a number of the top names in cinema and TV, from James Stewart to Spike Milligan. A film editor for BBC and Channel Four, he moved on to direct TV and theatre, winning awards around the world.

To read the full article from which this short list was distilled, and to find out how to make your pitching even better click here to read Pitching with Power by Charles Harris

Click here to visit Charles’ blog
Click here to visit Footloose Films