INSIGHTS: No Safe Place B
Nigel Donovan
Executive Stress Management > Executive Leadership Coach > Emotional Intelligence Coach > Executive Coaching
In periods of high change or disruption, we tend to look for the ‘next safe spot’ to rest and regroup.
One of the foundations of our happiness relates to our confidence in the path ahead.? It contributes to our brains' sense of "orientation and control".
Our brain needs:
If you or your people get their sense of orientation and control from the predictability and unchanging nature of their world - and the world changes - then they are stuck!
Change management that looks to get from Safe Place A to Safe Place B quickly and painlessly runs into trouble in fast-changing, hyper-novel, complex and dynamic environments.
Once we’ve reached the magical "Point B" - there is already a need to get to "Point C" and "Point D".
When the landscape changes fast, it is harder to rely on it for the safety that comes from predictability and stability.??If we can get our sense of orientation and control through confidence in our ability to navigate, rather than "hold on tight" until we reach the next rest point, we will be calmer, more confident, and more flexible along the way.
Bear Grylls plans and thinks through his adventures in detail - but more importantly, he takes with him the skills and the confidence to solve problems along the way.? He gets a large chunk of his orientation and control from within.
Be more like Bear; if you are stuck and can’t see a path forward, book a quick brainstorm with me,?and together, we can map a way forward.
I’m running a how-to workshop later this month, for senior executives to help their leadership team level up their influencing skills.?
To move them from arguing and defensive to listening, resolving issues and making effective decisions. Faster.
Interested? Click on the event link to learn more, and register.
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Back in a sec*!
* "I'll be back in 9,192,631,770 oscillations of the electromagnetic radiation corresponding to a particular quantum change in the superfine energy level of the ground state of the cesium-133 atom.
Why does the average human care or need to think about life in terms of seconds? The 60th part of the 60th part of the 24th part of a day.
We've trained ourselves to dial into, obsess about, and 'not waste' the minutes and the seconds unproductively.
We've self-imposed a constraint that is largely meaningless and causes more stress than it generally solves.
For instance, we fill our calendar up, meeting, meeting, meeting, back-to-back.
The tight schedule means that 'in the meeting' we're so focused on …..keeping the meeting to time …..and to what happens after the meeting …..and to "getting through the meeting unscathed" that we don't listen, engage, or dial into the content of the meeting itself.
Our effort to be efficient ironically results in wasting, rather than saving, time.
Humans never used to think in these terms. If there was a job to do, it just took as long as it took, and then the next task.
We lament our shortening attention spans, whilst simultaneously strictly controlling our time to minimise the indulgence of open ‘unproductive’ space.
If you think 9,192,631,770 oscillations of the blah blah blah is meaningless to your life, that is because it is.
What if we spent less time measuring and marking off time, and more time experiencing and engaging with life?
Cheers,
Nigel