Lifting the Lid 2

Edition 2: 12th February

Welcome to the Northern Value Creators newsletter, where we lift the lid on a little neuroscience and coaching. Our hope is that we can help you navigate the complexities of working in teams, and share ideas to help you thrive at work.

Northern Value Creators, a team working hard to close the people skills gap in the Tech Industry.

Each week we share things from the week that got us thinking:

• thoughts and questions inspired by coaching clients
• coaching tools and neuroscience based tips

This edition, written by Amanda Cookson, includes: how to focus, how to have better meetings and the power of language.

If you like what we’ve written, please consider subscribing to our newsletter and sharing it with your Linkedin network

1: How to focus

I had thought that a lack of focus was my ‘kryptonite’. According to neuroscientists humans are more distracted than at any other time in our evolution. So I guess I am in good company.?

However, I’ve discovered I was working on 2 faulty assumptions:

1. focus is a bit like a light switch; it's either on or off: you are focussed and immersed in what you are doing or your mind is scattered in 1000 places.?
2. focussing is innate - something we either can or can’t do

What I have learned by studying the brain is that?

• focussing is complex
• focus is a teachable skill.

Focusing is complex

The brain’s ability to pay attention AKA ‘focus’ involves 5 brain networks and each of these perform a different function within the process of paying attention. The diagram below is taken from the neuroleadership institutes model on focus

Alerting:? our brain is constantly scanning our environment for things that might be important. Anything that is a potential threat or reward will arouse our attention. Mind wandering and distraction is a part of the attention process as we seek out what we want to pay attention to.

Orienting: there is so much stimuli around us that our brain needs to select what we will pay attention to and what we will ignore. Our brain will ‘let go’ of? and disengage from the things we don’t want to pay attention to and shift our focus to what we do want to attend to.?

Executive Focus: What you care about drives your focus and what you pay attention to.?We are rewards and goal centred, our brain uses working memory to command our focus in line with our changing goals.?

Making the invisible visible

One of the phrases used a lot by coaches about what coaching does is ‘making the invisible visible’. From a neuroscience perspective this is all about how our brain focuses. As humans we have ‘selective attention’ which means that our brain ignores and literally doesn’t see what is deemed as not relevant to us.

Watch the video below to understand more about this.?

Often the solution to our problem is right under our nose - but because of ‘selective attention’? it is invisible to us [like the things in the video]. Coaching helps by asking questions that encourage people to broaden their focus; and by holding up a mirror to the clients thinking so they can see what was previously invisible to them.

Focus is a teachable skill

There are two ways you can boost your focus

• Practise the attention skills you are weakest in
• Create a plan to help you focus more on your focus

Practise the attention skills you are weakest in

Practising different types of meditation can train the 5 different elements of attention & focus.

So, if you struggle to let go of thoughts and are focussing on what you don’t want, you are probably prone to ruminating. Try a visualisation exercise that strengthens your ability to let go - allowing each thought to pass like a cloud in the sky or float away like leaves floating down a stream.?

If you are looking for some fresh thinking, allow your brain to broaden its focus and mind wander.?

Create a plan to help you focus more on your focus

To create your plan, think about the key things that impact your focus. For me, it’s my physical environment; digital distractions; and daily habits.

In my map I have listed out what I know works for me [when I remember to do it!] and some key areas that need more attention. I also learned that the things that distract us from short term goals are not the same things that distract us from long term goals, so this needs consideration when you develop your plan.

A bit more about my plan:

I know that a good day for me starts the night before as if I am tired, I am less focussed. So my plan needs to consider my bedtime habits. I don’t sleep well if: I eat late, I work late; or allow myself to doom scroll/ watch more than one TV show in an evening. My day also seems to go sideways if I wake to a sink full of dishes and don’t make a morning walk the first thing I do before I get stuck into my working day.

I am better at short term goals than longer term goals; using my bullet journal helped me to make a list of things I want to achieve mid-term and then work backwards into monthly goals.

Action Step: have a go at mapping out a plan for improving your focus.

2: If everything happens through conversations: why are meetings so bad??

There seem to be a lot of things in my Linkedin feed about meetings. I have also noticed that with the move to more hybrid and online work the number of meetings per day has increased. One of my clients shared this week that they have 12+ meetings a day. Which meant they had no thinking or reflecting time, no time to communicate and share what has emerged from the meetings and definitely no time for action. They were feeling drained, frustrated and stuck.

If this sounds like you then the following questions might help:

• Why are you attending all these meetings?
• What are you avoiding?
• What would be a better use of your time?
• What value does this meeting have?
• Is there any other way you could get things done?

Here are some of my tips for better meetings

1. Share an agenda in advance
2. Create clear ground rules for how you will all communicate & behave in the meeting
3. Encourage equal participation
4. Provide an agenda/ advanced materials for reflective thinkers
5. Have a clear purpose and goal for the meeting
6. Include time for connection
7. Create a psychologically safe environment for people to share

What one thing could you do to improve the quality of the meetings you have?

3: Should

As a coach I listen carefully to the language that people use when they talk to me. From my experience our words reflect the way we have constructed our reality

For example, how many times have you heard yourself of others say:

“I should be doing this”

“It should be like that”

“They shouldn’t have done this?”

I was sitting with a coaching client thi week when they shared their frustration that ‘things were not as they should be’.?

Should for me is a word wrapped in guilt. It shames and blames ourselves or others for our/their failings.?

I can think of lots of things I should do:

“I should lose weight”

“I should go to bed earlier”

Am I actually going to do these things or just feel bad that I am not doing them?

When I hear clients talk about what they should do, I hear guilt but not compulsion.?‘Should’ is a disempowering word.

By changing out the word should to could, thinking shifts.

When I asked my client:?

“How could things be?”??

They had a flood of ideas, why? Because, I ‘could’ is the language of possibility. It is an invitation to explore and an opportunity to seek and find better ways.

Once you have spent some time exploring your issue from a ‘could’ mindset the next magic word is ‘will’.

I ‘will’ has intention. It means I have not only explored the options I could do, I have identified and decided what I will do.

So, knowing what you know now, what will you do?

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Thank you for reading

I look forward to seeing your comments