Category: General

Tuesdays from 4:00- 5:00 pm.  In the car. While our middle child is in gymnastics, I have found that this hour of concentrated time in a concentrated space leads to some productive homework time with my oldest.  While his newborn brother snoozes in his car seat, we tackle third-grade homework. And there is a lot of it. 

Take our list for Tuesday of this past week: 

-A math worksheet due Wednesday

-At least 10 minutes of multiplication facts practice that has to be signed off on each day by a parent for a grade

-Practice for a vocabulary test on Thursday (this is our greatest challenge usually)

-Practice for a spelling test on Friday

-Reading for a READO (think BINGO) assignment that requires reading five books in five different genres and passing an AR test (80 or above) to “READO” for the grading period

Where do you start?  

I used to dictate how this list played out.  Sometimes I opted to start with the hardest thing to conquer on the list, or maybe the most time consuming or maybe depending on my mood, I’d choose the opposite route- easiest, longest, etc.

But, now, I’m letting the eight-year-old decide what he wants to start with, and it seems to help his motivation. His motivation seems to come from a lowered stress level given the little bit of control I give him over conquering the homework. 

And he’s not alone.  Giving people control, or autonomy, in the workplace, also impacts stress and performance.  Take a listen to Your Brain at Work: How Do Humans Fit into the Future of Work?  Guest of the podcast, Lynda Gratton, a professor at the London School of Business says this:

“A lot of places aren’t healthy and that seems to be a real focus right now.  And actually one of the variables that seem to impact healthy workplaces is the level of autonomy that people have…..if people have control over when and where they work, that’s a really good thing.” 

She relates the correlation of healthy workplaces and autonomy by a lowered stress level when autonomy is present.  Dr. David Rock goes on in the podcast to cite two studies about the impact of autonomy. One in the workplace were allowing workers to make simple choices about their workspace led to increased productivity. And, interestingly enough, in a retirement home where simple choices about décor led to increased wellbeing as seen in a reduction of the death rate!

Third-grade homework isn’t life and death. For us though, it is often a source of stress.  By allowing the person under stress a level of autonomy as to how the work gets done leads to better productivity and wellbeing.  

It isn’t so much the order of how it gets done. The order in which he wants to get it done changes with his mood too. It’s the simple fact that he gets to choose the order that leads to better results. 

Maybe next we will move on to allowing him control over where the work gets done.  For now, though, the controlled environment of the car seems to work well. 

Where do you allow for autonomy in how work gets done? 

 

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Note: This is the second of a two-part post on the value of abiding in patience in order to achieve the best kind of learning. The previous post focuses on the value of this practice, whereas this post focuses on how to actually do it. 

As leaders, we are often called to help others learn.  To grow people in ways that lead to positive outcomes for themselves and for those they impact is our job. Leaders make more leaders. 

And this need to facilitate learning is sometimes hard to figure out how to do because we often have a hard time engaging in it ourselves.  This challenge is often exasperated by the need to check the box of learning. Get it done, now you’ve learned. Check. 

But learning, or continuous learning, that actually leads to the best of results isn’t a check the box kind of thing. It isn’t a one and done activity.  

Once the desire or realization of the need to learn is established, some seemingly counter-intuitive things help our learning and are more often fueled through abiding in a patient process: 

 

1. First, set right expectations. 

I found this question from In His Image telling of this necessity: “Think of the person that is most likely to try your patience. What wrong expectations might be contributing to your lack of patience with him or her?”

When we are trying to help ourselves or others learn, often our lack of patience sets us up for failure due to unrealistic expectations about the time and commitment needed in order to effectively learn.   

When leading yourself or others in learning, discuss the expectations of time and commitment around that learning before beginning.  Write these down and refer back to them throughout the learning process. 

If you’ve read the previous post connected to this one, for example when reading with my son we establish before we start how much we are going to read (usually a chapter). He then goes and looks at the table of contents in the book to see how many pages there are.  He knows we won’t get up until that chapter is completed, lessening his frustration with unknown and or unclear expectations.

 

2. Establish routine practice of something that is novel, or you aren’t good at.

Setting up a routine to do something that needs to be learned by doing something hard (you don’t know how to do or you aren’t good at doing) can aid in learning not only in your chosen arena but in others.   

In keeping with my running example, this leads to my son alternating between reading something that is on the level he is reading currently (or even something slightly easier) and reading something that is above his reading level.  The challenge frustrates him, but novel vocabulary helps him in the long run. In addition, he is also charged with writing about the story he reads and using words (even if he misspells them). Writing is not yet easy or routine for him but helps his learning. 

 

3. Do something that exercises another part of your brain different from where you are actually trying to learn. 

In general, the left side of the brain controls things that deal with logic and order.  Math and science processing, as well as language processing, take place on this side of the brain, but in different places within the left hemisphere. The right side of the brain controls things that have to do with creativity, emotion and artistic expression.  

Before or after doing an activity that taxes the left side of the brain, some research points to exercising the right side of the brain in some way in order to sensitize that learning, process any emotion that comes with it, and use it in a more holistic way. 

My son draws pictures a lot (we are currently on a kick of drawing houses) and he has started to label the picture with words to indicate things that are in the picture.  Like “roof”, “slide” (yes his houses have slides coming out of them), etc. I believe this helps him encode and use language learning. In addition, he rides his bike to and from his reading teachers house in the summer for reading lessons, and I think this act of movement helps him focus on his lessons better. 

 

4. Do “nothing”. 

I love this Winnie the Pooh quote: “Doing nothing often leads to the very best of something.”  

When we give our brain time to rest and reflect it leads to optimal synthesis of our learning.  

Getting enough sleep is a major part of this. Our brain forms neural connections while we sleep based on what we learned during the day so we can apply in other ways.  As our son’s neurologist explained to us in simple terms, if you learn the sounds in “cat” yesterday, your sleep helps you process that learning and today you wake up and are better able to connect that the same short “a” sound in cat is also the same in “bat”.  

If we don’t rest and reflect, we can’t maximize the benefits of learning efforts. 

 

How do you best maximize your learning? 

10 Quotes from Cy Wakeman at #SHRM19 on Ensuring Your Team is Ready for What’s Next

Our team attended the SHRM Annual Conference this year, and Cy Wakeman said 10 things that resonated with us. Read on for the Cy quotes, and follow along with The Point Blog for more insights from speakers and authors.

“Change isn’t as hard when we embrace it incrementally. One upgrade on your phone is easier than converting from a flip phone to the newest version.  Get people to a state of readiness.”

“A leader’s new role: Help employees eliminate emotional waste by facilitating good mental processes.”

“Not everything is a change initiative- most of it is just your daily job.”

“Unreadiness for change causes surprise, panic, and blame.”

“Change doesn’t hurt, resisting change is what hurts.  People don’t get hurt falling down, they hurt resisting the fall.”

“Your preference can’t trump the business case. Don’t favor preference over potential.”

“Stop trying to please everyone during change.”

“Standardize as much as you can in order to scale.”

“You’ve got work with the willing and activate them.”

“Too many people are asking to be empowered. But empowerment is really stepping into your own power.”

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” ― Howard Thurman

Watch this video from this week’s America’s Got Talent to see this quote in action. It will inspire you, I promise. 

Have you ever been around someone that waffled on everything?  Whether big or small, with each decision they go back and forth and back and forth until the decision, oftentimes, becomes null and void.  Also, oftentimes, they only worry about what others are thinking in making a decision instead of moving forward based on what is right and best for them personally.

By and large, leaders are decision makers.  Establishing personal leadership requires sound personal decision making and being confident in those decisions.  This is necessary before you can make decisions that impact others and/or an organization.  It is difficult to see how people who have trouble making personal decisions will be able to step into leadership roles where decision making is constant.

 Keys to sound personal decision making: 

1. Decide based on your mission and values. If you have your mission and values always at the forefront, decision making is much easier.  I saw a twitter post this morning from Tim Elmore that stated, “Roy Disney once said, ‘It’s not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are.’”
2. Get the facts.  What are the pros and cons of the decision that are factual, not emotional?
3. Weigh in with others who matter.   In personal decisions, make sure you’ve talked with those people who are important in your personal life, in which the decision will impact, before making a decision.  Get their input. Having a colleague to bounce possible pros and cons of different business decisions is valuable.  There may be different people you go to based on different decisions at hand
4. Don’t worry about what those that don’t matter think.  These are your decisions, not someone else’s. Personal leadership starts with knowing what is right for you.
5. Step back, but not too long.  If you are faced with making a potentially life altering or organization altering decision and you’ve gathered the facts and talked with others, step back for a bit.   Take time to focus your thoughts on other things, because if the decision is life altering, it has probably consumed you.   Focusing on other things may help bring clarity to the right path.  But don’t delay too long, this may end up begin worse than making the wrong decision.

What have you found to be most helpful to do when faced difficult decisions?