Living life lightly

There are undoubtedly many ways and aspects to living life lightly. Some of us are lucky enough to be born that way – with an innate lightness of being – others may learn it somewhere along the way.

Many years ago, on a cold dark winter night with snow falling heavily in my home country of Switzerland, I attended an evening group course in ‘Spieltherapy’ - or in other words ‘play therapy’. Now, this was a course for adults. Ooh, not what you might be thinking. It was all quite proper. No nude stuff.

For the life of me I cannot remember what prompted me to sign up. Not my usual evening entertainment for sure, but I did. Not expecting much of anything, somewhat curious and chilled to the bone, I showed up. And, during the course of two hours, I learned one of the most profound life lessons to date - namely, to hold things lightly.

So, we were given the choice of a ‘toy’ or game. Some people chose hula hoops or the diavolo, juggling balls, or pins. I chose a saucer and a long stick. It seemed an apt choice, as I was - and still am - juggling many saucers on many sticks at the same time. So, the idea is to keep the saucer spinning on top of the stick without it falling to the ground and smashing to smithereens.

Predictably, the first few attempts with the toy ended in the saucer crashing to the ground. Wisely, the Spiel therapist had provided plastic saucers in anticipation of over eager participants. After many futile attempts at keeping the saucer spinning on the stick, the Spiel lady took pity on me and suggested I try relaxing my wrists and giving the stick light flicks instead. Now, I had been white-knuckling the stick, desperately trying to control the motion of the rotating saucer at the top end of my stick with an ever increasing sore wrist and rising levels of frustration. Finally, I gave her advise a try, and flicked my wrist lightly. Lo and behold! The saucer started smartly spinning on its stick! My wrist had relaxed and was rotating easily. My fingers were holding the stick loosely. That bloody saucer kept wheeling for minutes.

So, what had I learnt? That holding on very tightly is painful. Attempting to control the movement of an object on the opposite end of a long pole - through sheer force - doesn’t work. And that a light touch does the trick, and that keeping a saucer - that would rather make its way to the ground - up in the air, can feel next to effortless.

Of course this is an apt metaphor for life. Since doing the ‘Spieltherapie’, I have come to notice multiple times, and mostly in hindsight, when I’ve been clinging too tightly to stuff, when I’ve tried to control an outcome, and hence the things have not gone to plan. And, I’ve realised it was because I was trying too hard. I was wanting to force things. Needing to control things. So yes, holding things tightly is not the best approach. Holding things lightly, however, often works a lot better, it enables you to live your life with a bit more ease and grace, not worrying overly much about the exact outcomes and not clinging to pre-formed ideas and expectations. This is a good thing. It opens things up, it creates possibilities, it gives space for stuff to unfold, it makes the experience more fun, easier - and sometimes - near effortless.

Watering tall poppies

Australia appears to have a curious relationship with its tall poppies. Let me explain.

A tall poppy is a person who excels at something and thus pokes their head out of the mass of other people, like a poppy that is taller than most other flowers on the field. The interesting thing about tall poppies is that they tend to get chopped off and made smaller to fit in with the rest of the poppies. This phenomenon is otherwise known as "the tall poppy syndrome", and according to many sources - some more reputable than others - the syndrome is not only rife and well, but is considered our Aussie speciality. For anyone willing to contest this, just pop the term into Google Search, see what comes up, and decide for yourselves.

Apparently, this culture was borne out of the sense that everyone is created equal and everyone has the chance to have a fair go at things. Having a fair go, makes sense to me, and it is quintessentially Australian. However, are all of us really able to have a fair go? And, are we even meant to be equal? People are entitled to equal rights, opportunities, pay, and respect, yes. But are we not all inherently different, and unique in our own way? Are we perhaps confusing equality with equity? And if someone lives out their dreams, realises their talents and excels at whatever they put their heart and mind to, and this particular poppy shoots up above others, then 'Cheers!' to the tall poppy. No?

Let’s take the example of a health care professional or a carer, here. It may be much easier to be compassionate and forgiving towards persons who we may perceive as being in a more difficult, or ‘smaller’ position than we are. However, it may not be so easy to be patient and compassionate towards our successful colleague, beautiful neighbour, our demanding but brilliant boss, or someone else we see as being tall. Interestingly, experience shows me that it may even be most difficult to be compassionate towards ourselves. I believe that the reason we may become involved in topping tall poppies, is because we primarily do not have compassion, and acceptance for self, and hence cannot extend it towards others.

Here's why I believe the tall poppy syndrome is not useful to any of us; tall, medium, short poppies, or different flowers entirely. Holding someone back and stunting their growth is hardly a good thing, let alone chopping heads off!! In fact, this sort of behaviour is only testament to our own insecurities, our envy, and ultimately our sense of not being good (or tall) enough. By levelling others, we seemingly feel better about ourselves, but it is usually a short lived and hollow ‘success’. What really happens, is we end up holding everyone down, including ourselves. And, on a grander scale it leads to a celebration of sameness and mediocrity, when we are unique and meant to live a full life. We are here to discover our light, let it shine and stand tall. We all have the potential to flourish and grow taller than we are, if we are willing to face our fears and address our self-limiting beliefs. And we can draw inspiration by the tall poppies around us! If someone else can conquer their fears and live out their full potential, then gasp - maybe, just maybe we can, too!? Yes, there's hope and something to aspire to!! Tall poppies might even be able and willing to support us in doing the same, and help us realise our talents and unique strengths. So, would it not be wonderful if our field of flowers could collectively all grow a bit taller than we were before?

On a systemic level, we cannot become better as a society, nor be well equipped to face the challenges we have created for ourselves, if we all slap each other on the back for remaining in fear and darkness, remaining small, and joining ranks to pull those down who are trying to create a better way of being for themselves, and be a positive force in the world. Cultivating sameness and smallness is not helpful. We all have it in us to grow and be our best selves, and pursuing that is something to be proud of. So, I encourage you to celebrate yourself and your opportunities to grow. Celebrate the tall poppies around us, and let them inspire us to stretch our own boundaries, and come to stand a bit taller and turn our heads to the light, too!

Let's water the tall poppies.

My 2 cents worth on 'The upside to your dark side'

So, I am quoting the title of an excellent book “The upside to your dark side”. Interestingly, it is written by two positive psychology researchers, dudes who study happiness for a living. Strange, you may think. What is good about negative emotions such as anger, fear, guilt or sadness? Well, I encourage you to read their book if you’d like to find out. It’s a fun read, and time well spent. And in stead of being upset about being upset, or fearing fear, they explain how these emotions are necessary and even quite useful, because if harnessed well, they drive action.

As usual, I have my own thoughts after reading a book that I want to share. In a nutshell the book is about being whole, about striking a balance. Yes, the balance or perhaps even healthy tension that exists between one’s own positive and negative emotions. The yin and the yang, the light and the dark, rain & shine. And where there is tension, there is opportunity for change and growth and all of that goodness.

So why are two happiness researchers writing about the fear-based emotions? Whatever happened to joy, love, happiness, rainbows and unicorns? Have these guys gone back to the dark side? And more importantly, why is their book so important?

As stated in previous blogs; both psychology - and medicine for that matter - have been concerned for a very long time with looking for and understanding pathology. In other words, understanding what’s wrong, why it went wrong and what to do about it. The pendulum had swung completely to the dark side, and there it remained firmly wedged for a very long time. For far too long.

More recently, a movement in psychology started deliberately studying and testing what works well, why it works well, and how to do more of it. This was a direly needed approach to looking at the human condition. We are not just the sum of our problems, there surely is much more to us than that. Then, for a few decades or so, positive psychologists were somewhat frowned upon by the more serious researchers until public interest and the self-help industry jumped on the bandwagon and smiley faces were plastered all over book covers, well intended workshops and coaching interventions. This of course much to the chagrin of the seriously studious ‘dark’ side, who proceeded to deepen their frown and put off positive psychologists as a bunch of soft-in-the-head idealists. What had happened was - fuelled by the public ‘vote’ - the pendulum had swung too far to the other side.

Now, it would make sense that both light and dark are not only present, but in fact necessary and welcome for human functioning and evolvement, just as rain & shine is for the growth of plants.

Let me explain; so the fear based emotions (the dark stuff) mainly function to balance the good stuff, so that we don’t become too bored, too complacent, too content and things start to stagnate, stop moving and eventually grind to a halt. Not useful for human growth and development. Fear based emotions, such as anger, also help activate us, energise us toward action. So, it is our responsibility to harness that power and use it deliberately towards actioning stuff that matters to us. Fear, for example, has an important protective role in keeping us safe, and as such is very useful and integral to our survival. Again, it is a matter of how much anger, or how much fear we feel and employ. Too much of the dark, and we become bogged down, avoidant, paralysed and perpetually stressed. And, our bodies start developing symptoms of stress under constant attack. Also, we tend to loose sight of the bigger picture which can be a problem. If we have too much of the love based emotions (the light) then, enter contentment, boredom, complacency. Too much of a good thing? (I don’t know. Personally, I think there is no such thing as too much love. But I am happy to be challenged on that one.) Now, if we don’t have enough of the light stuff… Well, I think you know what. Let me just say, that I think we could all use a bit more tipping of the scales toward the light, just don’t overdo it;)

So, let’s recap. We cannot live well in an either or situation. It needs to be an AND. We need to strike a balance between light and dark, between yin & yang, between rain & shine in order to create rainbows. We need to be looking at the bigger picture, the entire image. That’s how we manage to move forward, to grow, to thrive, to learn, to fail, to try again, to improve, to create. So, yes, both aspects and both movements have their very important place in driving forward and uplifting the human condition. It is about becoming whole.

Kashdan, T., & Biswas-Diener, R. (2014). The upside of your dark side: Why being your whole self--not just your" good" self--drives success and fulfillment. Penguin.

Human beings vs human doings?

Many wise people have concluded that we are 'human beings' not 'human doings'. And most of these wise people seem to have come to this realisation later in life, and inevitably wish they had learned this at a younger age. I certainly wish I had known this at an earlier stage in my life, and more importantly I wish I didn't keep forgetting it, either.

It seems many of us are more concerned with producing output rather than receiving input, perhaps even keeping (mindlessly) busy rather than becoming (mindfully) still.

We tend to define ourselves by what we do for a living, what we do for others, what we do to add value. After all, when talking to strangers the first question is 'What is your name'? The second is "And, what do you do (for a living)? Sure, our actions - what we do - are important, of course it matters how well certain jobs are done, what we do for ourselves and for others, and yet there is more to it. To quote the columnist Parker J. Palmer "Who we 'be' is far more important than what we do or how well we do it". This becomes really important when circumstance forces us away from doing what we think we must in order to define ourselves. If, for example we are faced with health issues, redundancy, retirement, the children move out, our relationships change, when we fail at something or when we need to reinvent ourselves. If then, we've attached our sense of self to what we do or did, and the ability 'for doing' changes, or our roles change, then what happens...? I think you can imagine…

Do we measure people who we are close to, by how good they are at something, what they can or can't do? Or do we place importance on who they are, and how we feel around them? What sort of vibes they emit? If they inspire us? If we enjoy spending time with them?

We could look at ourselves the same way, and not measure our worth according to how many things we achieve, how many jobs we get done, what particular role we fulfil. We could instead remind ourselves of who we really are - at the core - and what individual quirks we have to share with the world.

So, next time someone asks "What is your story"? I might just smile, refrain from telling what I do or don’t do, and give them a glimpse of who I ‘be’ :)

On being perfect...

Many strive for perfection and are guided by the response of others, doing more of what gets us praise and approval or doing less of what has us criticised. In her book ‘Kitchen table wisdom’, Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D. makes a mind-blowing point that both approval and criticism are opposite forms of judgement. Indeed, approval is a form of judgement, too. Approval, praise or lack thereof can just as easily shape behaviour and create feelings of being less than perfect as outright criticism can. Just remember the last time you did not receive a pat on the back for something you were anticipating it for? And, mind you, it need not be someone else who is doing the judging, either. Often, we are the ones judging ourselves. And, as such the quest for perfection is very closely tied to judgment.

So, what lies beyond judgment? Non-judgement and acceptance of what is (including the good, the bad, and the ugly). And, what happens when we fully accept ourselves and others? Then, we have permission to be just who we are (including the good, the bad and the not so pretty), we have permission to be whole. So, to quote Dr Remen; ‘wholeness lies beyond perfection’.

Now, when you really think about it, why would anybody choose perfection - a game we cannot win and one that is closely tied to judgment - over acceptance of our whole person, non reliant on anyone’s thumbs up? Striving for all-round perfection is surely not a very healthy or fulfilling way to live, it is draining and perhaps even a bit boring.

I’ll leave you to ponder this. As with anything self-related it can be a bit tricky to sort this stuff out on your own. So, find yourself a good person to help you nut it out.

Burnout & Solutions in Health Care

A recent roundtable was had at NEJM Catalyst and the subject was physician burnout. This is a topic that affects us all, health care practitioners, patients, carers, policy makers and the public at large. Because our health is at risk, all of ours.

“Burnout is an indication of underlying organisational dysfunction. Effectively addressing burnout requires a comprehensive strategy that operates at the enterprise, departmental and individual levels.”

I’d like to share a short summary and add my thoughts, especially regarding burnout as a symptom and the role that individuals have to play in all this.

So yes, we have a symptom, now what do we do?

1.     You need to diagnose before you can cure. The first step the authors agree is measuring key indicators. And this is not a one-off exercise, you have to check in on a regular basis. Kind of like going to your GP. The roundtable suggests exploring manifestations, drivers and impact of burnout. As I see it, burnout is a symptom of an underlying disease. Burnt out, dropped out and suicidal doctors are merely the tip of the iceberg, or as Maslach aptly states ‘the canary in the coal mine’. Far from suggesting the individual canary is just not fit enough, I believe the only solution to the underlying disease – which undoubtedly is a systemic one – lies on an individual level. After all, the easiest, and equally the most difficult, yet the only thing you ever can change is yourself. Any meaningful change ever effected started with an individual, so yes, effecting systemic change starts with oneself. This is a call to action for all individuals that make up a system, in other words a call to all of us.

2.     The roundtable indicates that after having identified the situation and its barriers (or the symptoms and the underlying disease), the second step then is to address these findings by designing what they call a burnout mitigation plan (or shall we say a prevention & treatment plan). This plan is comprised of a multi-tiered approach: supporting physician wellness, changing the management system, and improving efficiency in care so as to enable healthcare professionals to focus on the patients. Which is what most of us probably set out to do in the first place.

So, I’d like to elaborate on each of these points:

·      Supporting physician wellness. This, I believe is a crucial point. Because everyone is equipped to address their own level of wellness and improve upon it. In fact, it is a responsibility we have towards ourselves to make sure we keep as well as we can. If we aren’t responsible then who is? Learning about stress, burnout, it’s causes and effects, and learning how to mitigate and protect ourselves from harm is paramount. Becoming more mindful of our own behaviours, thoughts, emotions, values and drivers is absolutely crucial to understanding and helping ourselves, let alone others. How can we fix things, if we can’t fix ourselves? I firmly believe we need to have our oxygen masks on first before we can help others put theirs on. And as seasoned campaigners in health care it is our responsibility to teach these principles to patients and to colleagues.

·      Changing the management system. Management is one aspect, the really important point, though, is leadership. Good leadership is called for. Good leaders, too, start with themselves, as they lead by example. They have self-awareness, courage, they show up, they speak up, they ensure they are heard, they listen, they are prepared to engage with the difficult and the unpleasant, they pick themselves up when they fall, they admit their shortcomings while giving blame and shame a rest, and they tolerate uncertainty in themselves and others. They collaborate, they encourage creativity and thinking outside the box, they give and receive feedback constructively, they’re willing to give other people the benefit of the doubt and let them try new ways of doing things. By leadership I mean people willing to have each other’s backs while we are collectively doing our best to work this out. Good leadership on all levels of an organisation will lead to benefits for the entire organisation. And in case you were wondering, leadership is not tied to a role, it is a mindset, a way of being.

·      Improving efficiency in care. The last point will undoubtedly include technology and the use of big data which is all very exciting. Examples of how to improve efficiency include digital solutions to streamline workflow management, design straightforward and user-friendly electronic health care records, facilitate timely and accurate communication, improve standardised sharing of knowledge, implement patient symptom tracking (devices) and integrate patient reported outcome measures & need assessments, as well as overall improvement of teamwork and care coordination. Interestingly, the NEJM Catalyst survey indicated that the top two suggestions for reducing burnout were delegation of clerical tasks and improved IT solutions. So, this appears a call to arms for the world of technology in service of health care.

3.     The third step that the roundtable participants proposed is to implement some sort of feedback cycle to make sure what was started stays on track (in medical terms ongoing follow-up care). A sound suggestion, that I believe is often not installed longer term. There are many models and variations of ‘the feedback loop’. Suffice to say, you develop a plan or goal, put it into action, check how it’s going and then adapt and improve as you go. And over and over and over and over, you get the gist... The exact ‘why, what, how, when, where and by whom’ aspects are best decided by the people directly involved.

If done well, over time these steps will lead to a culture change (eradication of the underlying disease) of the health care system. The thing about complex systems is that if you stay in a system long enough, one of two things will happen. Either the system changes you, or you change the system (Ashby, R.). So, if you choose to step up, become aware, change your behaviour, then engage others so they become aware and change their behaviour, and if enough people begin and keep on doing this well, then eventually the tipping point is reached, things start gaining momentum and the system begins to change. This is a multi-step process and it takes time, blood, sweat and tears, yet it is the only way anything ever has changed. And, I think our collective health is surely worth the ongoing effort. Lastly, if there is only one thing you take away from this, then let it be this. You may not always be directly responsible for what is, however you are part of a system and purposeful change always, always starts with YOU!

Find the full NEJM Catalyst roundtable report here.

How do you design your life well?

“A well-designed life is a life that is generative - it is constantly creative, productive, changing, evolving, and there is always the possibility of surprise”

— Bill Burnet & Dave Evans, Designing your Life

This is not my idea. Two design engineers at Stanford came up with this, and it is brilliant. If you want to learn more check out the two dudes quoted, and the wonderful work they do.

I will, however, share my own thoughts on this. So, designing your life well, finding your purpose, living up to your full potential, finding happiness, figuring out what to do when you grow up, these are all age-old quests. Questions, the answers to which have eluded many and continue to do so. And this is where that stops! We need not accept a life that's ho-hum. And to quote again:

“...the only failure is settling for a life that makes you unhappy...”

— Publishers Weekly review summarising the key message of Designing your Life

So how do we break the cycle, figure out what we want and get it? How do we design our life well? Depending on whose advise you take there are slight variations. Inevitably, there is a process involved (meaning you do it over and over, again and again), and it generally goes something like this:

• Awareness of what is. If you do not know what you are dealing with, you cannot do much about it. It's as simple as that. How do you become aware of your thoughts, emotions, beliefs, behaviours? Well there are a number of tools that can assist you; from mindfulness practice, meditation, observation, using a log book to chart what happens and when, to using clever apps and engaging the help of a professional coach. Basically, it is about being curious and paying attention to what goes on in your head and your life. And remember it is not good or bad, it just is. That's where acceptance comes in. Accepting that we have these thoughts, emotions, etc. does not mean not doing anything about them, though.
• Reframing your thinking, beliefs & behaviour. This means looking at the beliefs we hold and evaluating their usefulness. Again it is not about stuff being good or bad, of interest is its usefulness. How well are our beliefs serving us? Is our behaviour holding us back or is it enabling us. More often than not, we are the ones holding ourselves back because we hold on to unhelpful thoughts (or as psychologists say dysfunctional beliefs). Once we have recognised these thoughts as being unhelpful, we can start re-designing or re-framing them. For example 'I am too old to do...' into 'I can have an impact at any age' or 'I don't have enough time' into 'I am able to make time for what matters'. Often, unhelpful thoughts come in the disguise of excuses that we make to ourselves and others. Excuses that keep us 'safe' from having to put ourselves out there, take risks and possibly fail.
• Figuring out which direction to head. This I believe is the hardest part. There are a few ways of getting a clue. Look at what in life works well. What energises you, who energises you, which situations energise you, which activities energise you? When are you fully engaged and submersed in what you do, when are things in flow? What makes your heart sing? What do you live for? It is generally when we can use our individual strengths, when we collaborate with 'good' people. These all are pointers that give you an indication of where you could head. If you still have no clue, perhaps a more effective way is to try different routes and see which one you like. Read on...
• Generate ideas. This is the creative process, where you come up with different ideas or options to try. Generate at least three different approaches ranging from sensible to crazy. Make sure these ideas or paths align with your general blueprint or compass. In other words they need to align with your values, meaning what really matters to you in life and work. And then...
• Test drive your ideas. Try it on for size. This is where small experiments come in. Experiments that are safe to fail. It is about the experience, what an idea feels like in real life. No matter how much you think about it, mull it over in your head, you won't really know if it works, let alone if you like it, until you leave the drawing board. Give yourself a little taste of what it would be like without burning all the bridges just yet. You've got to put yourself out there and gather data on how it works for you and others.
• Decide which idea suits you best and action it. Once you've tested your best couple of ideas you will have data to work with, and you'll be able to make an informed (because tried and tested) decision. And as the dudes above would tell you, there is no one and only right choice, but there is a good decision making process. And making a decision means committing to one path, and closing the other doors.
• Monitor, re-evaluate & tweak. This is the classic QA cycle. Always testing, always gathering information to base you next decisions on. Just because you've made one decision does not mean it is automatically a good idea to stick with that for ever after. Evolution, adaptation & improvement are the key words here. Wash, rinse, repeat...hence the ongoing process.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is how it's done. In theory. If the practical part seems daunting, I can recommend reading the book & workbook 'Designing your Life', and / or perhaps better yet, getting yourself a good coach to help with the process.

Alas, that's what coaches are, they are process & change specialists!

Team Psychology versus Team Medicine, score 1:0

Currently, I am involved in running a mindfulness & stress reduction workshop in the world of medicine. Around that a few interesting dialogues ensued regarding the way we think, teach and learn, and I have gained a few insights that I'd like to share. Oh, also the soccer world cup is on, so...

Medicine, much like psychology over the better part of last century, was very much enamoured with looking for flaws, looking for symptoms, stuff that wasn't working right and then fixing it. In doing so, the goal was to get a person back to normal functioning (however that may be defined). So, if normal were a horizontal line, psychology and medicine are largely concerned with what lies below that line. These specialities deal with disease or shall I say dis-ease.

Over the last 20+ years a bunch a psychologists started looking at what happens above the line, in other words what makes people thrive, excel, and rise above the norm. They decided that what makes human experience extraordinary or über-normal is just as important to understand, research, teach and support. Hence, positive psychology was born. A science concerned with what enables people to be at-ease, to flourish and be in the flow. Interestingly when your focus starts to shift from what is broken to what is working, from your shortcomings to your strengths, then strange things start to happen. Things begin to shift. Your spectrum of options starts to open up, you start seeing solutions where before there where only problems. You become more creative and flexible. Becoming aware of, and deliberately seeking out positive emotions breeds more positivity. Think going to see a funny movie as opposed to a drama, doing things that make you laugh, smile, be merry. Looking for the good moments throughout your day and relishing those. Deliberately putting yourself in the path of fun is actually a very worthwhile thing to do for your health. The cultivation of positive emotions not only breeds more positive emotions but also buffers against the negative ones (yes including stress, physiological stress response and subsequently disease). Now if this all sounds too simplistic, or simply too good to be true, rest assured that this is scientifically proven. There is evidence for this, even using physiological measures of stress (check out Barbara Fredrickson's work and her Broaden & Build Theory).

Sadly, Western medicine is a bit slow to catch on. So yes, 1:0 for Psychology! Luckily, however, there are services popping up in health care that take a more holistic view of providing care. It no longer is only about fixing things, but also about ensuring optimal wellbeing on top of the fixing of dis-ease. The focus is on enabling people to be as much at-ease as possible whatever their story. And of course, that makes sense. If something is malfunctioning it needs fixing. In addition though why would you not do your utmost to ensure that all other systems are in place to optimise overall well-being, sleep, nutrition, exercise, a mind at ease, emotional & social support, spiritual wellbeing and self-care & compassion.

And here lies the thought I really want to drive home. Why wait until you have dis-ease to start using these powerful tools? We all could use a bit more self-care, self-compassion and cultivation of the positive in our lives. So, I invite you to take a pen & paper and spend the next five minutes writing down what those tools are that help you thrive? And how and when you intend to use them?

Changing the culture of bad behaviour @ work

Bad behaviour in the workplace can run up high costs in terms of reduced productivity, wellbeing, mental health, missed days at work and loss of revenue. In other words, it affects the bottom line of business, not to mention perpetuating individual suffering. Therefore, it would seem organisations and industries would be well advised to address both ‘misbehaving’ individuals, and the broader issue of culture change, designed towards eradicating such behaviours as mobbing, bullying and some of the less obvious ones; i.e. selective exclusion of individuals from groups, stringing people along, or purposefully assigning tedious and meaningless tasks.

Recently, I’ve been involved in running immersive workshops on the subject of bullying, and developing strategies of how to manage a badly behaving colleague at work. Lively and often critical discussions arose amongst the participants; particularly, around the usefulness of the bullied person experimenting with and learning how to deal with a bully, versus having someone in the higher echelons come in, ‘sort out’ the bully and generally get bullies to behave better.

Now, of course much depends on the person being bullied and their relationship with the perpetrator. And, please keep in mind that I am exclusively speaking of adults, here, not children. Admittedly, however, often there will be a power differential or dependence that facilitates bullying in the first place, which can make it all the more difficult to call out and put a stop to. So, far from suggesting the bullied person should just ‘take’ the behaviour and get some form of support, later, I do firmly believe we can only control our own behaviour, not someone else’s. And, I also firmly believe if our aim is culture change at large, misbehaviour needs to addressed at all levels - from the top to the bottom of the totem pole. Let me explain.

If the aim is to change a bad culture in the workplace, I believe we all must change our own behaviour first. Much as I wish this for myself sometimes, we cannot count on someone else to put a stop to unpleasant things for us. And once again I am talking about adults, here. I will also briefly mention a bright and little-known researcher and psychiatrist by the name of W. Ross Ashby (also see Requisite Variety and Cybernetics), who described way back in the 1960ies that if you can’t change the system; the system changes you. And, I reckon the same goes for culture.

So, I’ve come to the following conclusions:

1. Change our own behaviour we can, other’s behaviour we cannot.
2. We can learn to stand up for ourselves, and sometimes this might mean losing a battle to win the war.
3. We can respectfully insist on being treated by others with due respect.
4. We can set a good example by treating people with more respect and kindness than they perhaps deserve. I believe cutting others some slack and treating them respectfully breeds kindness and respect in return… You know, the whole yelling into, and echo coming out of the woods thing….
5. By all means, engage others such as colleagues, peers, trusted superiors, and friendly people at the HR department to assist in these matters. I am not suggesting this need be or should have to be shouldered alone, not at all.
6. We can choose to speak up for those who don’t, won’t or can’t speak for themselves.
7. Together we can continue the conversation, create awareness and speak to policy makers, CEO’s, directors, superiors and HR representatives, and thus start changing the culture - the system - which will in turn impact individual people within that system, both bullies and the bullied.

So, the workshops on dealing with bad behaviour in the workplace are not meant, nor could they ever be, the be all and end all, the one and only solution to this cultural and systemic issue. As all the workshops I run, they are meant to get people thinking, and talking to one another. They are meant to let people experiment with - in the safe workshop space - how they might choose to behave on an individual level when they find themselves in such a situation. And, perhaps most importantly these workshops are intended to challenge perspectives, to slightly rattle people to incentivise them to take action towards change. And, if we have only in a little part succeeded in doing that, then I would say ‘mission accomplished’.

If you are interested in learning more about these workshops please get in touch here for all workplaces and / or here for the health care sector. Thank you.

Performing at peak

Climbing Mount Everest is serious business - it is literally peak performance - and there is no doubt that Sir Edmund Hillary would not have made the ascent he did without Tensing Norgay.

Today, every peak-performing athlete has a whole host of people supporting them; a sports coach, a mental coach, a sports physician, a nutritionist, a physio, a massage therapist, a mentor, a spokesperson, a manager, an accountant, a legal counsel, and the list goes on... Yes, it truly takes a village for one person to excel! And lest we not forget, the champion is standing on the shoulders of everyone who came before them. They are continuously harnessing the collective learnings, development and trial and error of earlier sportspeople and the path blazed by them, to make that particular discipline what it is today.

And, the same goes for any peak performance. Let's take business for example, there is no such thing as a self made man or woman. None of us make it entirely on our own. And to think otherwise is quite frankly, foolish. We all benefit from collective resources, knowledge, technology, support and opportunities given us along the way by others.

You may be thinking, well, I am no high performing athlete, I am no highflying executive, no high profile entrepreneur, no brain surgeon, rocket scientist or high altitude mountaineer. Perhaps not, however, if you wish to excel at something, if you are operating in a high-stakes environment, if you want to make an important difference for others, it is useful to make sure you have the best chances at succeeding at what you do. Having the right tools, obtaining important information, getting the training, optimising processes, getting crucial feedback and tweaking as you go, are all aspects of ensuring optimal conditions for success.

So, does it not make sense then, that anyone wishing to up their game - whatever that particular game might be - would stand to benefit from supportive hands and minds along the way? Someone who is rooting for you? Someone who wants to see you succeed? Someone who picks up and notes the things you don't? Someone who occasionally holds up a mirror? Someone who is in it with you, and is equipped with extra knowledge, tools and experience? So, who makes up your village? Who is your Tensing Norgay?