Tag: mindset

Detached, Distracted and Disillusioned? Regain Control Of Your Boundaries

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Image by 愚木混株 Cdd20

Detached, distracted and disillusioned.

There have been times in my life when my career was happening to me.

It seemed that the control over the direction, intensity and pace of teaching and leadership was out of my grasp. This lack of control and agency coincided with times when I suffered the most with poor mental health, and I was detached, distracted and disillusioned.

The change in my career — I became an education consultant and now run my own business — pushed me to develop boundaries around my work time.

These self-authored boundaries were (are) even more critical because I could work from anywhere, and it was easy to take the laptop into the kitchen and answer the email from the school excited to start a partnership.

Work did not have the same physical pattern as teaching, and it took on a different type of rhythm and cadence, unbound from a timetable.

Work did not have physical premises, and to this day, I have always worked from home. The lines and thresholds intertwined.

Looking back on my teaching life, I can see that the distinction of boundaries was just as blurry. I took work home, and there was always something more to do, weekends engulfed in planning and other spreadsheet related leadership responsibilities.

Do What You Love Until It Kills You

There is that phrase that you are lucky if you can do what you love because it doesn’t feel like work. The downside people don’t speak about is how boundless this can become.

A never-ending vista of possibility that excites terrifies and induces tension, in a heady mix of simultaneous endeavour.

We are victims of Parkinson’s Law: work expands to fill the time allotted for its completion.

To counter this, establish clear boundaries that give you cues to align with.

  • What is essential?
  • What are my priorities?
  • When am I overstepping the mark?

Here are some strategies that resonate with me you might have a go at adopting.

Strategies To Help You Regain Control Of Your Boundaries

Say No

This strategy has been a work in progress for me for a decade, but I improve all the time. The key is to understand the most fulfilling work to make a better decision when opportunities arise.

It is much harder to say ‘ no’ if you are unclear about your Northstar, how you have the most significant impact, or what you truly care about.

“You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage — pleasantly, smilingly, non-apologetically — to say ‘no’ to other things. And the way you do that is by having a bigger ‘yes’ burning inside.”

Stephen Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Shut The Door

One of the first pieces of advice about working from home after leaving the classroom was from serial educational entrepreneur Ben Barton.

“Find a place that allows you to shut the door on your work.”

We have all noticed the physical location as work has come home during these troubled times.

By creating a physical boundary at home, I could walk away, take a break, move to another place for a different activity and ultimately close the door on ‘work’ at the end of the day.

“No is a complete sentence.” — Anne Lamont

Image by 愚木混株 Cdd20

Control Your Calendar

I block out periods in my calendar for writing, research and sometimes for reflection after workshops or intense periods of client work. For this weekly email, I often block the time.

A difficult tactic for teachers and educational leaders to apply because there is so little scope for change in work patterns.

Once again, though, we can abstract a deeper insight about purposeful time and intentional work to help and instruct us. Try on some of these questions for size:

  • Which time of the day or week are you most open to new ideas and insights?
  • How do your disposition and mental energy change throughout the day?
  • For every face to face meeting, do you have an equivalent amount of time for reflection and to process the experience?
  • When do you get to create?
  • Look at the time you spend at home or work and consider the categories of activity. What proportion is operational, relational, creative, research, exploratory, learning, teaching, preparation etc.?

A critical insight I have learned is that we need to be intentional and proactive in organising our time.

Wrestle back control of your calendar.

Share Clear Expectations

You see this all the time with the email Out of Office reply — I will be slow to respond until I return if it is urgent.

The opportunity is to use the auto-reply email strategy when we are in the office to help set clear boundaries for focus and communication.

There is, of course, this strange assumption with email communication about the response time and what is deemed polite and acceptable. Our appetite for instant messaging does skew this expectation considerably.

One of the best examples I have seen with email expectations was in the signature line. It stated the times of day when the responder checks their inbox.

I only check my emails at 930am and 330pm

Whether it is in meetings, emails or how you speak with colleagues, setting clear expectations about what is appropriate for you is proactive — you control the pace and timing of your activity, not someone else.

Your Talking Points

  • What opportunities do you care about the most?
  • Reframe your situation to understand what you can control.
  • You cannot hold people to expectations that are not shared.
  • What are you saying no to, so you can say yes to what motivates you?

Practised Non-Judgementalism

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Last year I spent time with Dr Neil Hopkin the Principal of The British International School in Shanghai.

Within a plethora of expertise, he has been coaching for decades and I got the chance to absorb some wisdom about his approach to coaching. This is an area of continued growth for me, as I start to wrap some solid ideas around years of experience.

Neil spoke about the imperative of “practised non-judgmentalism” and how a coach uses this as the basis for their disposition. This resonated strongly with me and has been a phrase I keep coming back to.

It is always a privilege to be in a coaching space with teams or individuals. The idea of practised non-judgmentalism signals to me the importance of taking an open disposition to what you might experience together.

If I were to pre-empt an idea or a course of action, or to offer a judgement too soon, that might close off a story or a trail of thought. There is a strong association between judgement and closure.

But if my demeanour and default disposition are non-judgmental than we remain open to potential ideas, we stay open to new pathways and we allow stories to be shared more freely.

Another benefit for the listener in taking this approach is clarity. It would be clear what I would have to do. I would sit with you and simply focus my effort on understanding and listening. My energy and thoughts are not taken up grappling with a judgement – as that imposes on your story.

I think this benefits from being intentional, explicitly stated and practised. Our brains will naturally drift to judgement if we don’t.

The reason non-judgment is used is because left alone, the brain will automatically judge things as good or bad, right or wrong, fair or unfair, important or unimportant, urgent or non-urgent and so on. This happens so fast that our experiences are automatically colored right when we get to them, so mindfulness is about being aware of that and taking a fresh perspective.

(Taken from What Is Non-Judgmental Awareness, Anyway? by Elisha Goldstein)

Another benefit is that this approach, practised non-judgmentalism, requires us to also practise being present. We cannot be drawn to other things, we focus on the interaction we are in and our own listening.

#28daysofwriting

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

Change your thinking, change your mindset

Mindset, ThinkingPublished onUpdated on3 Comments on Change your thinking, change your mindset

A maxim that I have been testing, applying and thinking about a great deal over the last few years is that “nothing changes unless mindset changes.” On reflection, admittedly it is a little extreme, however it does present an urgent (and often much needed) provocation regarding the way we are thinking about learning in schools and other organisations.

Einstein has become a veritable one man maxim generator as people mine his missives and printed articles for quotable quotes. His reference (in the image) to the need for changing our thinking, altering the routines and habits of thinking that were present in creating the problem, to perhaps solve it, makes a lot of sense to me.

Thinking Wild and Free

In fact it gives us license. Changing mindset takes time, for many it is a long process of practice change coupled with ongoing coaching and reflection binding it all together. We don’t just wake up in the morning with a new mindset. Those habits and dispositions are baked in. I read today how long it takes to create new learning habits, on average at least two months for new habits to become automatic behaviours.

Thinking routines and activities can be picked up and used more flexibly. Although someone may have a particular mindset or disposition, thinking routines can still be practised and activities used. Rinsed and repeated.

Changing our thinking might just change our mindset.

To underline the importance of mindset or disposition on the work we embark upon and the relationships we have Bill O’Brien, the late CEO of Hanover Insurance pointed out:

The success of an intervention depends on the interior condition of the intervenor.

Perhaps he is referring to the disposition or thinking condition of those present, their mindset. We can have all the plans or ideas we like, but unless the mindset is synchronised, nothing changes, or we are at least limiting our chances of success.

Otto Scharmer refers to the lack of awareness of this interior condition (mindset) as a leadership blindspot. Something to explore further, not simply how reflective we are as leaders, but also how well we know the influence of our own disposition, and those of others around us, on our projects and ideas,

Get Out of the Swamp

Another logical and confronting part of Albert Einstein’s challenge is the conclusion that we know more now than we did when the problem was generated. We need to change our thinking to adapt to this new information. Dr Terry Cutler piqued my interest with a reference to conventional wisdom being the enemy of an innovative culture:

William Blake reminded us – in chilling words – that the person who does not alter their opinion in the face of new knowledge is like a “stagnant pool which breeds reptiles of the mind”

So if times have changed, we need to ask ourselves some key questions:

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I recently asked my newsletter subscribers about their biggest challenges in changing other people’s thinking habits. One of the biggest obstacles was resistance to change, people actively choosing not to engage in new thinking routines, persisting in defence of a particular problem generating mindset.

Let’s not beat around the bush, these ‘reptiles of the mind” are very much part of the problem itself. This touches on some of the intricacies of the work of culture change and relationship centred development. Learning is a complex and wonderful thing and sometimes it is hard to discern how much influence people have on the conditions for learning (+/-).

Don’t Expect A Paradigm Shift

An example, just as a thought experiment, might be that a class of Year 6 children are poorly behaved during lessons with a particular teacher. The behaviour has formed a discernible pattern and seems to be associated with, and in reaction to a highly prescriptive and didactic approach to teaching from the teacher. There is a mindset at play here. The notion of planing creative learning activities, and spending less time talking at the kids is an alien one for the teacher. Something to be guarded against. “Why change?” comes the defensive play. What would you do to help the teacher and the class?

Start with empathy.

  • How much do we understand the mindset of those in this situation?
  • How can we move to a closer appreciation of the truth of this experience for those involved?
  • What situations are similar to this and how might we draw on those experiences to inform our decisions here?

Dig deeper. Complex problems like this one are rarely anything to do with the surface signals. 5 Whys is a great activity to explore to help dig deeper when used in support of other data gathering.

  1. Why are children behaving poorly? They are not engaged in the lessons.
  2. Why are they not engaged in the lessons? They are not doing enough thinking for themselves.
  3. Why are they not thinking for themselves? There is too much teacher talk.
  4. Why is there too much teacher talk? Lessons are imbalanced towards lots of a didactic teaching method and this is poorly differentiated
  5. Why is there this imbalance and poor differentiation? The teacher has been designing learning on their own for a long time and has not had the same chance to work collaboratively with others, and have their work critiqued and reviewed.

A couple of things to share about this scenario. First of all the disposition (of the teacher) is not suddenly going to change, we don’t get out of bed and suddenly all is reversed remember. So maybe we need to defer the paradigm shift expectation for one associated with the way we are thinking about the design of learning. Sure these overlap, but by changing the thinking routine, in this case through more collaborative planning, perhaps the situation will change.

Intentionally Creating Problems

My son pointed out that maybe when you create maths problems it is an exception to what Einstein is saying. This was affirmed by fully grown adults too on Twitter who shared a similar opinion. I wonder if it is something to do with how intentional the genesis of the problem was, along with the level of complexity the problem has.

Complex or wicked problems rarely involve single answers and are the product of a similarly complex, turbulent crucible of conditions. This would be true for coral bleaching as it is for poor collaboration in an organisation. In my book what Albert, let’s call him Albie, is referring to is the level of thinking needed for complex problem solving. Problems that are created in conditions defined by disparate and multiple dispositions pulling in different directions perhaps.

I wonder how much our intentions play a role here as well. We rarely intentionally create problems at work and at home (hopefully) and so it is with a lack of awareness that problem conditions set in. An increased awareness would be a good example of a change in thinking that might lead to a solution. For the teacher example above this may also be true, just increasing awareness of too much teacher talk may help to resolve things (in the short term at least).

Intentionally creating problems suggests a level of awareness of choice, causality and consequence. You might expect this awareness when solving such problems too. So maybe we need different types of thinking when we didn’t intend for the problem to occur.

—

If I return to my original reference, “nothing changes unless mindset changes”, through writing this post it has helped me explore the notion that changing our thinking in aggregate might change our mindset. It has been good to define those key questions for unpacking problem conditions which I hope you find useful.

How One Man Overcame Ridicule and Changed Rocket Science Forever

Creativity, SciencePublished onUpdated on30 Comments on How One Man Overcame Ridicule and Changed Rocket Science Forever

The New Horizons space probe has been on a decade long mission to reach the dwarf planet Pluto, and the imagery is amazing. It would seem that this is just the first waypoint. Next on the itinerary is a Kuiper Belt object, 1 billion miles away.

[UPDATE] “As of March 2019, New Horizons was about 4.1 billion miles (6.6 billion kilometres) from Earth, operating normally and speeding deeper into the Kuiper Belt at nearly 33,000 miles (53,000 kilometres) per hour.”

Imagine for a moment how complex the New Horizons project has been. Persisting for over a decade with such a specific purpose. But in many ways, the first part of the journey was the hardest. Leaving our Earth’s atmosphere is hard – gravity will do that for you.

Robert Goddard is now considered one of the founding fathers of modern rocket science. He was visionary. It is due to his discoveries and his own form of persistence that we even have interplanetary missions.

One of the reasons I share the story with you is that it wasn’t such a smooth ride for Robert Goddard. The number of doubters speaking out against him at times must have felt like a gravitational force he may never draw away from. The creative conflict in his story is intriguing. We may add his tale to many who were considered ahead of their time, but ostracised for their originality.

Inspiration and Support

Robert was captivated by the allure of space. This came primarily from reading The War of Worlds by HG Wells – he was hooked. Fast forward twenty years and he was making pioneering discoveries in rocket propulsion. His contemporaries did not understand him and he found it almost impossible to gain financial backing to continue his work. In 1915 he even considered abandoning his efforts in the face of such continued challenge and isolation.

The Assistant Secretary of The Smithsonian, Charles Greeley Abbot, did not hold the same opinion. After reviewing an application for support from Goddard he provided a grant of $5,000 in 1917 to accelerate his efforts. This proved pivotal to Robert Goddard, encouraging him to persist when so many around him were full of doubt.

Squashing Ideas

In 1919, the Smithsonian published Goddard’s classic treatise “A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes in the Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections” (Vol. 71, No. 2). This scientific report exacerbated the challenge and doubt from his peers. Goddard had outlined a proposal for a rocket leaving the Earth’s atmosphere. His proposed rocket flight to The Moon drew wider public ridicule from the press. Everyone doubted his theory, and the press made a mockery of his ideas.

This had a profound effect on Goddard’s perspective and disposition. He became more guarded and isolated in his work. The list of those he trusted with his thinking dwindled. At the time a peer at the Californian Institute of Technology highlighted the challenges of not collaborating:

The trouble with secrecy is that one can easily go in the wrong direction and never know it.

Despite this on March 16, 1926, Goddard constructed and successfully tested the first rocket using liquid fuel. A flight as significant to history as that of the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk.

He never got to see the fruit of his labours and died in 1945 from throat cancer. He was posthumously awarded over 200 patents for his discoveries and pioneering thinking in the field of rocket propulsion. Nowadays he is a celebrated creative scientist who paved the way for human exploration.

Creative Traits

In my opinion one of the most important traits of creative individuals is vision. It is clear that due to Goddard’s unique insight into the field he brought the horizon closer much more quickly than others. It is perhaps his Tenacity and Courage in the face of such widespread doubt that defines his creative spirit.

A further element that is clear within this story is the impact of the people around him. The negative voices were there from the start and they persisted. But it is the people that championed his ideas and said, “Yes!” that had the crucial impact. His wife continued to share and celebrate his work after his death, raising awareness and appreciation for his foresight. The support he received throughout his career from the Smithsonian in finances and belief is likely to be regarded as having the most impact. When others doubted, Charles Abbot believed. Mirroring the foresight that Goddard showed himself. In Goddard’s own words of appreciation to Abbot:

I am particularly grateful for your interest, encouragement, and far-sightedness. I feel that I cannot overestimate the value of your backing, at times when hardly anyone else in the world could see anything of importance in the undertaking.

Your Next Steps

Ideas do not exist in a vacuum and the story of Robert Goddard is as much about those who encouraged him. The open-mindedness to encourage and nurture nascent ideas is a critical dynamic as new thinking develops. Yes, we may need to show Courage and Tenacity when our ideas are out there, but new ideas rely on the courage of others too.

  • Something we can do, with our colleagues and students, when developing new creative ideas is to say “Yes“. It changes everything and signals openness to what might be next. It signals encouragement.
  • When we know that ideas are at an early phase we need to adjust our critique appropriately. In other words, when we hear new thinking we must be more delicate and encouraging as they take their first steps into the wild.
  • “Hold your ideas lightly“, is a good way to explain the mindset we need to have when sharing early ideas too. As the bearer of those new ideas, we have to be willing and open to others helping to make them better.

Just imagine the conversation fifteen, maybe twenty years ago:

“I think we should try and send a probe into the furthest reaches of our solar system. To Pluto.”

“That’s over 4.6 billion miles away.”

“Yes and the technology has not been invented yet and it will take us over a decade to get there.”

“Yes, great. We’ll call it the Decadal Survey. Let’s start.”

Goddard would have cherished the opportunity to see the images of our solar system and those from the New Horizons mission. I am certain he would have quietly approved of the tenacity and conviction of those who held the early theories and ideas. But also he would have recognised the value of those who showed similar “far-sightedness” in their unwavering support and encouragement.

References

“See New Horizons’ Entire Pluto Flyby in 23 Seconds.” 2015.
“Robert H. Goddard: American Rocket Pioneer | Smithsonian …” 2012.
“Robert H. Goddard – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.” 2011.
“NASA – Dr. Robert H. Goddard, American Rocketry Pioneer.” 2004.

Toolset, Skillset, Mindset

Design Thinking, FeaturedPublished onUpdated on8 Comments on Toolset, Skillset, Mindset

Over the last few years I have developed three different lenses through which to see any creative inquiry process. When we are facilitating or planning with clients, schools and teachers we explicitly talk about our Toolset, Skillset and our Mindset.

The design thinking process has distinct phases and although we may well be seeking to developing an overarching capacity it has always been helpful to be a little more specific about what this actually means. Sometimes it can seem a little fluffy around the edges. When we link Toolset, Skillset and Mindset to a particular phase of design thinking inquiry it becomes much clearer what is expected. This intentionality is wired into each of the different lenses helping to clarify to those involved what tools are involved, what skills are likely to be required and what mindset is needed.

Below is a good set of definitions which helped me better understand their relevance to my work with design thinking and creative inquiry:

Toolset (How you Get, Have, Use) – Means a set of widely accepted methods, techniques, models, approaches and frameworks that can create value in the chosen field.

Skillset (How you Do, Act, Behave) – Means a number of things like a person’s capabilities and abilities, knowledge and understanding, and motivation and ability to use these capabilities and knowledge. The level of expertise in a particular task determines the efficiency and effectiveness to perform that task.

Mindset (How you See, Perceive, View) – Means a set of beliefs, a way of thinking, a habitual mental attitude that determines somebody’s behaviour and outlook and how s/he will interpret and respond to situations. Without a change in mindset, the world cannot be viewed differently.

[In addition to these you may well consider a Knowledge set, something to activate and use or to continue to add to.]

For example during the Synthesis phase you might see the following explicitly shared with participants or students and dialogue to make the expectations clear:

Toolset: Patterns and grouping of physical artefacts, Hexagonal Thinking, P.O.I.N.T (Problems, Obstacles, Insights, Needs and Themes)

Skillset: Pattern recognition, categorisation, organisation, problem finding, prioritisation

Mindset: Convergent, combinatorial, relational

What we have found is that most people want to have a conversation about the Toolset. It is the most enduring memory of a workshop: the physical, tactile experience of the tools we used. All too often creative processes focus too heavily on simply the tools, moving from one thinking activity to another, from one framework or post-it note task to the next. Ideally we escalate the dialogue to the Skills we need to operate those creative thinking tools. The last step is to engage colleagues in a dialogue about what Mindset is needed or expected in order to be most successful.

You might consider having a conversation about these three elements before a lesson or period of learning with students: what are the tools we are going to use, the skills we will develop or need and the mindset we should take. This offers a much clearer way to talk about learning intentions or success criteria.

The Mindset at each stage of the design thinking process is much more constant and more persistent, whereas the Skillset and the Toolset can always change. We should be drawing from a range of tools to suit the part of the inquiry process – but regardless of the tools we use the Mindset remains relatively constant.

It would also be true to say that out of the three different lenses the Mindset is harder to observe, whereas the tactile Toolset is much more explicit. From Change to Constant, from Extrinsic to Intrinsic, from Toolset to Mindset.

Whereas it is easy to switch out and change a tool during a phase of the process, it is much harder to change a Mindset if it does not currently exist. An example we see most often is a convergent mindset – “I know what the problem is and I know what we should do” – when we are immersing ourselves in the area of development. This Immersion phase requires an open and divergent Mindset. You can change the activity to explore the topic but it is much harder to change the disposition.

Stick around for future posts exploring some of the design thinking inquiry Toolset and the activities we all enjoy. In addition we will explore the Skillset and the Mindset needed to make the most of them.