Stuckness

Lifting the Lid 7: 28th May

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

Today’s edition was written by Amanda Cookson, NVC Co Founder.

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This week we are exploring:? Stuckness

The process of coaching and the change work we do at Northern Value Creators is all about moving people and organisations from where they are to where they want to be, so stuckness comes up a lot. In this week’s newsletter I will share 3 things that will help you and your teams get unstuck:

1. The will and the way of behaviour change
2. How understanding goal hierarchy can get you unstuck
3. The power of implementation intentions in achieving your goals

1. The will and the way

The neuroscience of goals could give us some insight on why we might personally be feeling stuck and unable to achieve our goals. It also gives insight into why, if we are leading a team or encouraging others to change, they may be stuck.

The SAN Lab researches why people succeed or fail at their goals. Their belief is that any failure to achieve a goal is caused by a failure to self-regulate. Self-regulation is the mental process by which we control our thoughts, emotions, impulses and behaviours.

This is logical as our brains use self-regulation to stop ourselves from taking goal inconsistent behaviours as well as adopting new goal supporting behaviours.

According to the SAN Lab self-regulation has two parts:?

The will, this covers our motivation, how much we want the goal/ or change and how rewarding having the outcome will be for us.

The way, this covers our cognitive understanding of how to get there.

Looking deeper at the will

The key to unlocking motivation in ourselves or others is in ‘self-relevance’.i.e. how relevant or how much value does this goal have to me. Those goals that have low or no relevance to me, my world and what I value, will not elicit much if any motivational force.

I recently read a case study about a culture change programme.?

The organisational leaders wanted to adopt a coaching culture but middle managers saw developing others as a ‘nice to have’ rather than vital aspect of their role and felt with all the other pressures in their role they had no time to dedicate to coaching and mentoring others.?

Everyone was stuck.?

The culture change programme became unstuck when managers were invited to small workshops to think about their own career pathways and development. Attendees were asked to reflect on who were the managers and leaders that made a significant difference to their careers, success at work or sense of self? Managers shared uplifting stories of being coached and mentored. They were then asked to reflect on their own legacy as managers and leaders; and the impact they were having on their colleagues and direct reports.?

By elevating the sense of ‘self-relevance’ managers became passionate about the importance of coaching and mentoring at work.

In other words they found their will.?

If you are struggling to motivate your team, remember people aren’t motivated to do any behaviour change until they have connected into the value for them.?

You can’t tell people what they should value.

By asking questions, you can help your team connect the dots and consider how benefits of the goal relate to what matters most for them.

Finding the way

Having a strong will isn’t enough to achieve any change. You also need to know how to achieve your goal.?If you are feeling stuck, you may be fully motivated to achieve the change you seek, but lack a clear pathway in how to achieve it.

Earlier in the week I shared a post about tackling the feelings of feeling stuck. In it I shared how our brain structures goals. Goals are conceptualised in our brains within a hierarchy. At the top of the hierarchy is our most abstract, big picture ‘Why’ thinking about the goal and at the bottom of our hierarchy are our most granular, practical, detailed thinking on how we might achieve our goal.

Neuroscientists have discovered that our brains are wired in such a way that we can’t think about our ‘how’ and our ‘why’ at the same time. The key to getting unstuck, is to take a step back, and relook at the situation first from a ‘why’ position and then from the perspective of ‘how’.

If you are stuck in the how and your brain can't find the answer to what's needed to change things and move forwards.

1st, think about your big picture.

By thinking about your big 'why' [e.g. What does having this bring me?] you can move up the goal hierarchy and out from any stuck thinking.

2nd, think about alternative pathways

From the elevated perspective of your big picture goal it is much easier to find alternative ways to achieve your goal.

The video below is taken from women's leadership group, where we explored stuckness. Grab a pen and paper and see if it helps you get unstuck.

Hopefully the trip in the hot air ballon has helped you generate some ideas, now you have some intentions, you can dramatically increase the likelihood of taking action by creating implementation intentions.

Implementation Intentions

These are a brain friendly way to combine the will [your intention] and the way [how to implement]. If you have not used implementation intentions before they work by:

1. making the behaviours you need to achieve your goal easier to do
2. enabling you to plan when and where you will take action
3. linking environmental cues to the habits you want to create

Implementation intentions are phrased around If-then or When-then statements:

E.g. If I feel/ see/ hear/ am in situation X then I will Y

I was listening to Neil Gaiman talk about his rule for writing. In the video he described his rule for writing as “I go down to my lovely little gazebo at the bottom of the garden and I give myself permission to do nothing or write”.?

Which is a perfect example of an implementation intention:

If I am in the gazebo then I will write or not write.

Neil Gaiman shares that doing nothing after a while gets really boring, which then brings in his second implementation intention.

If I am bored, in the gazebo, I will write.

The research around the impact of implemenation intentions shows that they have a massively positive impact on success rates.

Still stuck

What boosts self-regulation and enhances your ability to have great ideas?

A good night's sleep

This Yoga Nidra is my most favourite sleep aid

https://doyogawithme.bandcamp.com/track/yoga-nidra-for-sleep-2

Thank you for reading and I look forward to your comments.