Business Coaching Tips and Thoughts

Performance Coaching Tools – Social Panorama

Our live is full of people; we are social animals. Many of our daily problems deal with how we relate to our environment. We unconsciously create an imaginary landscape of people around us: Our social panorama. It includes lovers, friends, colleagues, children, parents, other family members, strangers, foreigners; maybe the dead, spirits and gods.

Mental Space

The concept of mental space plays a mayor role in the social panorama work. It is in the space around them that people normally project the images of all who are relevant to them. The model of the social world is primarily a three dimensional model. It surrounds the self concept. Where other individuals are located in this landscape of social images decides about the emotional quality of the relationship. Intimate relations are held with people who’s images are kept close. Authorities are most often places high up somewhere.
As soon as somebody has a problem with someone else, we can check the locations where the self and the other is projected in the social panorama.
A very strong feature of the social panorama is the work with the self concept. It takes an experienced head to make these techniques work with complex issues, though.

Our Social Panoramas can be changed

One can learn to change the social panorama and by doing so interactions of those involved will most likely change too. This tool can be used in business environments as well. How do team member see their social panorama? What if alterations within their panorama would positively change their reaction towards colleagues? What if such a tool could change the group dynamics? Wouldn’t that make it interesting for the management of a business?

The social panorama is a coaching model developed by Lucas Derks, a Dutch psychologist. It is associated to NLP. For further information please see: http://www.socialpanorama.com/international/sociaalpanorama.asp

Human energy is worth considering when coaching businesses. Business are driven by human beings (managers, staff, directors, customers, suppliers etc.). Without energy no drive for business tasks.

So far three sources of energy have been identified in this mini series about human energy: physical, mental and emotional energy. The final part takes a look at the last source: Spiritual Energy.

Spiritual Energy From Meaningful Work

Have you ever been working on something intensively, forgetting time and the only exhaustion you felt was a satisfying one? Why? What happened? Where did you take that energy from? Faith maybe a source that makes people walk the extra mile. In any case it is something strong behind a core value.

Whatever it is, some higher ranking, inspirational idea is driving you. Obviously our energy does not only depend on what, where and how long we do something but also on why we are doing it. You are tapping into you Spiritual Energy Source.

It is well known that meaningful work is leading the priority list once a certain income is assured. Look at all the volunteers that do unpaid work after office hours! According to studies in Germany 92% of interviewed people stated that a meaningful job is of higher importance than good communication among colleagues and laud from their bosses.

Another study showed that those employees that considered their work just to be a source to pay the bills called sick more often than employees who felt well connected to their work and workplace.

People like being part of something useful, maybe even important.

Creation Of Meaning & Core Values

So for Spiritual Energy meaningfulness plays a big role. But where does meaning come from? Is it just happening?

There is no universal answer to it. It is up to us to create meaning. We have to align what we do with our core values as they are the representation of who we are. The more your core values match with your work or activities the better your mood most likely is. People with an excellent mood are looking more positive at the bigger picture.

However, meaning does not come from a positive mental perspective only; we need to be active as well. So actually doing what we want to do leads to satisfaction. It is not enough to know where the gasoline station is, you need to drive there and fill up the tank too.

Rituals & Goals

Yes, I know, it is hard to put our good intentions into practice. It needs a lot of self-control and discipline. To stick to a certain routine can be quite exhausting.

So what to do? We can learn from leading athletes here. They create rituals that are linked with certain activities. Ritualized acts such as eating, exercising, concentrating. These acts then are done automatically; one doesn’t have to think much about them any more. To create rituals same applies as for target setting.

Be precise! Your goal to exercise more during the week should be as clear as possible. On which days do you want to exercise? At what time exactly and for how long? What is it that makes you do it? (e.g. your sport shoes close to your bed remind you and you put them on first thing; a special song gets you into the activity mood etc). At the end you will only think about your ritual when you missed it. Try it out.

What Do You Think? Feedback Wanted!

This was the last source of human energy I wanted to talk about – Spiritual Energy.

Having looked at the four sources of human energy (physical, mental, emotional and spiritual) I now wonder what your preferred source is.

Is working out in nature a way to get your energy tank refilled? Or is the love of your wife and kids what’s gets you emotionally balanced and back on track? Is your mental strength always retrievable when you need and how much do you get from your spiritual part?

Please comment on this essay and share your experience. Thanks

Business performance coaching also deals with managers and leaders.  Their ability to lead depends on their communications skills. Their way to handle emotions has an impact on their performance.

Negative Emotions eat Energy

People in a good mood are better in taking decisions, have more creative ideas, process information more efficiently and therefore are more successful at work. Negative emotions are real energy eater and delimit our ability to think, decide and be innovative. Anger, rage, angst and despair therefore consume our energy reserves. Of course these emotions are effective in regards to creation of tension necessary to survive in dangerous situations (fight or flight) but they are counter productive if they last for too long.

I know from own experience how they can ruin your plan for the day. There is no way I can be creative and write a good blog if I am angry or unhappy with me or something else that ruined my work schedule.  So what to do?

TV is like fast food

One way out is to take a walk or change my emotions through any physical workout. Another is simply doing what I love doing, e.g. plunging into making music. Forget watching TV. It is like fast food; short term result with little or no nutritious effect. Finally good social contacts are one of the strongest tools to counter balance emotional exhaustion.

Human Energy sources complement each other

So far three sources of human energy have been looked at: Emotional, physical and mental. On a balanced level they complement each other. For example emotional energy can be the basis to keep up your daily physical discipline which will in return help you to gain mental strength. So now we have 3 sources to draw energy from. There is one more to take a closer look at. It is the one that let’s you forget that you are actually hard working. The one that delivers the motivation to go on doing something for hours: Spirituality. This will be the topic in or last part (part4).

In Performance Coaching the human being is the center part.

Managers, leaders or those on the way to take on such positions are still personalities with core values and belief systems. There performance also depends on their level of energy and their ability to source the right amount when needed.

Last time we looked at the physical energy as fuel source for us humans. Today we look at mental energy as a source of human energy.

Human Energy Source #2 – Mental Energy

Creativity is crucial for good work and the long time survival of companies depends on it. Creativity leads to the necessary innovation businesses need to stay ahead of their competitors or at least in good shape.

Reduce Multi Tasking – Increase Mental Energy

If you wish to have more mental energy you need to stop multi-tasking or task switching.

Yes, today’s technology enables us to do so but our brain has not been designed for this cognitive overload. It gets tired and we lose concentration which leads to those small mistakes we discover when we re-check what we have done some hours ago.

Anyway, you only think that you are doing things simultaneously. Your brain still processes the steps one after the other.

Why Multi Tasking Is Bad For You

Continuous task switching jeopardizes the quality of your work. Scientific tests have shown that the brain activity drops significantly if several tasks are handled at a time compared to concentration on one task only.

As you can guess, physical and mental energy are brothers in arms.

Regular meals, sufficient motion automatically lead to strong activities of your brain cells. If you then follow the biological cycles of about 90 minutes and have a break of 10 – 15 minutes before going for the next task you keep the system effective.

Creativity gains from these regular breaks. Ask your friends when they do get their best ideas. You might hear answers such as: Under the shower, while taking a walk or when listening to music etc.

What Is Next

We learned that we can draw human energy from a good physical state as well as a strong mental state. If we are in a good mood we are more creative, efficient and successful in what we do.

The human energy we draw from a positive state is the Emotional Energy. This is what we will talk about in the next post about Human Energy Sources.

Stay tuned!

Hello, I am back. I have been traveling, coaching and writing for future blogs but there was no time to publish anything. Anyway, I am back with interesting topics and thoughts.

Business Performance Coaching also includes looking at the probably most important ingredient of successful people: Energy.

Time, Motivation and Energy are essential ingredients to do a good job at work and at home. They will define the grade of personal efficiency as well as how well work-life balance is managed.

I have found an interesting article about human energy in the German magazine “Psychology Heute” and I therefore like to share their and my thoughts to this topic with you.

Let’s begin with the question: Where do we source human energy from? The article looks at four sources: Physical, emotional, mental and spiritual energy.

Human Energy Source #1: The physical source

Eat, sleep and take a break – the right mixture increases personal efficiency and contributes to a work-life balance.

Did you know that our brain consumes 20% of our human energy? This is quite a lot considering that it represents 2% of the body weight only.

Physical Human Energy Source #1 – Food

To keep our human energy balanced we need to eat something nutritious from time to time.

Glucose is the main fuel our body takes to produce energy. While the muscles have some sort of Glucose storage, the brain hasn’t and thus depends on continuous supply.

Studies suggest that people having breakfast in the morning are more awake and show higher levels of memory capacity compared to people who skip brekkie (Australian term for breakfast) to avoid gaining weight.

Hence especially in the morning one should increase the level of blood sugar and kick off metabolism. This is especially valuable to all the managers that need a high level of personal efficiency.

Physical Human Energy Source #2 – Sleep

Another way to keep the brain fit is sufficient sleep.

Whether we like it or not, an adult person usually needs at least an average of 8 hrs sleep.

Why? Repairing nerve cells and creating new connections is done by the brain during sleep. Unfortunately in today’s busy life people seem to think that sleep is some sort of unavoidable chore.

Even a little deficit of sleep can cause a decrease of our productivity and efficiency: The body’s ability to process Glucose decreases and the level of Cortisol (a stress hormone) increases.

Do I need to explain further? So, the harder you work so more recovery (and sleep) you need.

The Nana-Nap

Although we should know better we intend to ignore how our biological system actually works.

Brain activity, heart rate and muscle tension come in waves of approx. 1.5 – 2 hrs.
These ultradian rhythms have a strong impact on our performance. They make us feel hungry, make us moan and lose concentration; hence the need to take a break.

But it is rather the regularity than the length of the time we pause. Put sleep and break together and you get the Nana-Nap. Experiments have shown that 20 minute naps in the afternoon are more efficient than 20 minutes more sleep in the morning.

Successful athletes need both, physical fitness and mental strength. If your body is tired your mental strength will get you further then normal people doing sports but it will not take you to the top. Same is valid vice versa.

I will therefore explore the mental source for human energy in up coming part 2 of this essay.

In part 1 I wrote about the first 3 rules in regards to successfully setting  goals. If you haven’t read it check it out.

There are some more rules to setting goals.

Further Rules To Successfully Setting Goals

1. The goal must be achievable by oneself.
   If the dependence on others is strong then your goal achievements are in jeopardy and frustration most likely. As long as at least the core of the target can be reached by yourself, responsibility for success and failure remain with you.
   So make sure the definition is accordingly and that you cannot blame others if you miss the goal.
2. The goal should be ecological.
   Let’ use the sailing boat metaphor again.  If you choose a route that could harm your boat or someone else’ s health or life then you will need to change your goal accordingly.
   Or if your target is to move your business into a new fancy building but the costs of doing so jeopardizes the company’s finances then the achievement would not be ecological but in fact dangerous for management, employees and customers.
   But ecology here includes the well-being of the individual striving for achieving the goal as well.
   What is the price if I accomplish this or that? What is in it for me? Who really wants to put his customers  under pressure just to help his boss to achieve his quarterly target?
3. The goal achievement must be measurable.
   What are the parameters that prove that the goal has been reached? What is the time frame? By how much do you want to do something more or less? How do you exactly know when the goal is achieved? When is it partly achieved.
   If an employee’s bonus depends on it then it should be clear what the bonus will look like when for example 75%, 50% or 25% of the target have been reached.  Goals are a  motivational tool and not be used for punishment of yourself or your co-workers and employees. Goals should be for the better of a person (higher performance) and/or a business (improved business results).

Like many I also failed to accomplish my goals because they weren’t clearly defined,  ecologically sound and because I haven’t really visualized, experienced them. I also had many target setting meetings with staff and meetings giving feed back on performance to them (performance assessment). It is a core task of team leader and supervisors to avoid demotivation at least.

Using goal setting rules correctly will help to actually motivate staff. The business will benefit.

Setting goals seems to be a never ending topic. Traditionally people set themselves goals at the beginning of the year. Business leaders define goals and some employees are afraid of them as they fear ending up under performing or even losing their job. Often goals are missed and frustration is the result instead.  But why?

Successfully Setting Goals

It is not enough to set a target, have the will and then hope for the best. There are important rules or guidelines that help to avoid failure. We neglect them we will all most certainly miss or partly miss our targets. Here is what one needs to consider:

1. Goals need to be defined positively.
   Our brain does not function negatively, language does the trick.  So if you are fed up with eating unhealthy staff a target such as “I don’t wont to eat chips anymore” won’t be help full. Saying what you do not want does not lead to change when setting goals.
   You need to be clear what you actually want instead. Sometimes people find it unexpected  difficult to do just that.
2. The target must be sensory perceptive.
   This sounds a bit strange but it is very important. One needs to be able to experience how it feels once the goal has been achieved.  Why?
   You are giving your brain a chance to let you know when the goal has been reached. Words mean nothing until they are linked to an experience stored in our memory.
   If the concept of something  being hot is not yet existing then how will you know that you should not touch a hot plate. You need to some sort of encounter with something being hot before you understand. From then on the word” hot” is sufficient to trigger off careful behavior orders from you brain.
   How will you build a house, if you have no “idea” (image) how it is going to look like and how it feel when you live there? The sensory perception, the sensory experience will be the drivers that make you focus on and then achieve a goal.
3. The goal needs to be in a context.
   I like to take the sailing boat as metaphor. If your target is to sail from Sydney to Cape York you need to clarify a few things: The weather that allows you to sail, a time frame, will you sail alone or with a partner.  So the usual how, when, with whom etc.?

Part 2 will look at three more conditions to successfully setting goals. So stay tuned.

It’s Latin core “communicare” reads “sharing”. Another root is “communis” which means “together”. Hence communication stands for “sharing together”.

We humans always communicate, whether verbal or non-verbal. It is not possible not to communicate. Even if we don’t say a word we send a message. Our view of the world is represented by language. Mimic and posture tell about the state we are in.

There are no mistakes in communication but reactions only.  Our own map of the world steers our reaction. It is created by our own experiences and our “filter” systems (information, impulses we let in or keep out) and our values and beliefs. Our reactions are therefore often unconscious acts.

No wonder that even speaking the same language does not protect us from misunderstandings. Managers meet people with different perceptions and different ways to make their decision. They often just don’t understand each other and eye the other party as a barrier.
What are the chances to achieve goals, which are not understood and shared by those who are expected to achieve them? It’s all about communication and it needs training.

Who might want to learn about communication?

We at mind&motion® offer human communication workshops. Our business performance coaching activities run under the banner of our MindMoves section. So, if you for example are

• an enterprise that cannot afford a high fluctuation in staff
• a company with potential to reduce costs  due to ineffective communication
• self-employed understanding that communication with your customers is a key success factor for long term business development

then learning more about how communication works will be of benefit to you.

What could be gained?

Well, you could learn about:
•    the basics of communication
•    the way we pick up information and “digest” these (filter systems)
•    non verbal communication (body language, eye movements)
•    language pattern
•    what is it that drives people

Make sure that whatever you learn is not by listening only.

Information remains a rumor until it is in the muscle – this is what my NLP teacher once told me. It is so true. If one sits and listens only, all new knowledge ends up in a box file stowed away in your office somewhere.The expensive seminar may have resulted into a waste of money.

But if you allow your brain to pick the new input via all or several sensory channels then information becomes an experience that remains easily retrievable. So interactive workshops about communication – as offered by mind&motion® – is what you should be looking for.

Why would you need business performance coaching? Maybe because you want something more or different but do not know how to get it?

Business Performance Coaching is a growing service focusing on

• Clarity in regards to vision and goals
• Internal and external communication (incl. PR and marketing messages)
• Congruency regarding the above and its products and services offered to the market

Do We Need Performance Coaching?

More then ever before businesses – may they be small, medium size or big -  need to continuously improve cost effectiveness as well as productivity. They need to create innovations in order to survive  increasingly competitive markets, accelerating pace and demanding customers.

Any management needs to successfully connect with their employees  in such way that the business’ vision and goals are understood, hopefully shared too to have a corporate footprint in the market.

Why Business Performance Coaching?

Business Performance Coaching can help in case businesses are not competitive, offer the wrong products or services, lost customers or do not get of the ground.

The coaching process will lead to improvements of the following areas:

• Clarity of what shall be achieved
• Communication to get the business massage across to customers, staff and associate
• and many more

Characteristics Of Business Performance Coaching

Performance Coaching for businesses differs from consultancy and counseling (pls see coaching vs consulting and coaching vs counseling as well as coaching vs mentoring) and works with your existing but lost or undiscovered resources and competency.

From my point of view the main characteristics of business performance coaching are:

• Solution oriented – find solutions rather then deal with symptoms
• Time limits – short but effective
• Goal orientation – clear and positive target definitions
• Custom tailored – personalized alignment of the coaching process
• Close to work reality
• Considering the “web” (business and private environment)
• Change of limiting beliefs

Coaching activities  should be linked to your present reality and environment. If so,
Performance Coaching is a very cost effective way to improve business and personal performance.