Bend Me, Shape Me ...

I was reflecting the other day, lying on the massage table for some intense osteopathic treatment, that flexibility is a condition some of us find easier to attain and maintain  than others do.

Acute tendinitis of the Achilles has made me face the fact that if I don't get flexible, running might be a thing of the past.

This is a hard thing to contemplate. Having returned to running consistently only in the last four years, after teenage years of sprinting with an athletic club, I have become very attached to running increasing distances. It began with fun runs, at 10 km distance, then gradually worked up to half marathon and an ultra marathon.

Geordie, my osteopath, who really knows how to be cruel to be kind, finally got through to me that if I stretched more, massage would hurt less.

Revelation! I can avoid pain by learning flexibility.

There's plenty of reason to persevere. Fifteen years ago I tore my other Achilles tendon completely - and there's another blog post in that! Perhaps I should call this blog 'Lessons from the Body'.

While I tried to breathe through the pain of the treatment, it occurred to me that emotional psychological flexibility has similar features to physical flexibility. Aha! Material for a blog post.

I began to think about the rigidity of thinking we often show, both in our work and personal lives. There are managers I have worked with who get locked into particular ways of thinking. Inevitably this gets them into trouble, perhaps  being unable to respond to a particular situation or finding it hard to manage workplace relationships.

Rigidity leads to reaction, rather than response, when we are confronted with changing circumstances.  Sometimes reaction can mean freezing. For example, a  business leader may find it hard to change the business model when the old one no longer works – current protests over online business by storefront retailers are a case in point. And I often see managers who don’t know how to handle underperforming staff, or how to deal with warring team members.

At other times reaction can mean trying to impose rules, rather than understanding what is driving a situation and being prepared to be flexible. At best, this can mean a wasted, opportunity, for example, when a team member has a novel idea. At worst, it can mean the loss of a member or serious discord in the team.

On a larger scale, the current issue of global warning and climate change are a stark example of this failure to be flexible in our thinking and responses.

Faced with an overwhelming agreement between climate scientists that climate change is related to human activity, you would assume that humans would respond in an attempt to minimize or resolve the issue. Yet significant numbers of us have decided not to ‘believe’ in the science.

Could we imagine a business which did not ‘believe’ data, provided by experts in the field, about a vital aspect of their business?  Surely this would be a business in danger of sinking. In a well-known case, Beaconsfield Goldmine chose to ignore expert advice not to mine two neighbouring underground levels. The mine collapsed some days later. (The Australian, August  12, 2008).

Two psychological factors seem to drive this choice of ‘belief’ over evidence. The first is that humans are particularly bad at making long-term choices which negatively affect short-term rewards. The second is that, to a large extent, we are driven by fear.

The first we see evidence of daily. Witness the numbers of people, especially young people, who smoke despite increasingly dire health warnings. The second we can see in the mad up-and-down movement of the stock market, where a long-term view would argue for stability.

A combination of fear and a short-term view of the world can have serious, even catastrophic consequences for business and people generally.

So I’m going to face my fear of pain at the Osteopaths hands and stretch way beyond what I’m capable of now, so I can run that half-marathon again.

Who's Riding the Bike?

Achievements like Cadel Evans' win in the Tour de France inspire both nationalistic fervour and hyperbole.

It's hardly surprising that this is so. Cycling almost three and a half thousand kilometres in three weeks is an extraordinary achievement. To complete such a journey and to win the event takes superb physical ability. To start with, Evans' body's ability to make use of oxygen (VO2 max or aerobic capacity) is apparently the most efficient seen at the Australian Institute of Sport.


Simply having a body which is made for sport isn't enough, of course. Cadel's body has been trained over years both on the road and on the rollers to turn the wheels consistently for hundreds of kilometres a day, day after day.


Doing this year after year is an incredible feat.


Of course, it's not simply about a superbly conditioned body. My own very modest efforts on a bicycle are a reminder of what else is involved. As I struggled awake in the early hours of last Saturday morning, preparing to ride the 40 kilometres with the riding group, I decided sleep was my first priority, so I missed the morning ride.


An internal discussion started up.


'You should get up. You need to build aerobic fitness.'


A counter voice: 'You need sleep. You've been missing too much sleep.'


'You're just lazy! What are you planning to do? Sink into graceless old age?'


'It's winter. It's cold. Be sensible.'


And so on.


I wonder if Cadel's internal dialogue is anything like mine. Does he ever wake up ahead of a day of riding and decide he'd rather spend the time in bed? Surely he must. I would bet there's a part of him which says: 'You deserve a break. You can take the day off.'


Presumably he gives in to that voice far more rarely than I do.


Perhaps he has a critical part sending him negative messages. After all, he has had his share of disappointments in cycling, as well as triumphs. For most people, less-than-great performances lead to negative messages from our inner critic. Some of his defeats would be enough to stop most of us trying again.To achieve what he has, his journey must have included the ability to master the negative effects of this voice.


And what part of him - what voice - does he call on when his legs are burning from the effort? When the mountain stages make the legs long for respite? At these moments, who is making the decision to push on? Who is really riding the bike?


We would have to imagine that it is some part which simply refuses to give up. It must be this voice which plays its part and drives him through the many thousands of kilometres in training and in racing.


We are at our best when we are able to understand and manage the parts of us which allow us to achieve our goals.


Next morning training session I'll have a word with the part of me that would prefer to stay in bed. I'm sure I can bring the committed bike rider in me to the fore.

Who's Got Talent?

Working in the garden the other day offered me an opportunity to reflect on the usefulness of practice in developing a skill.

Next door, two of the neighbour children were practising their musical instruments. One was playing a guitar, the other a clarinet. I often hear them practice; in fact, I hear what seem to be spontaneous bursts of music and song. Both the instruments and the song are quite delightful to hear.

 Hearing these children (none of them yet teenagers), you might call them talented. Perhaps they are, yet what I notice is the hours of practice they put in.

We often think of people as 'talented'. No doubt talent exists, but practice makes for real excellence. Jimi Hendrix is universally acknowledged as one of the greatest guitarists of all time - number one on the Rolling Stone list. He may well have been talented, but as Eric Clapton (number 4 on the list), observed in an interview, he practised many for hours a day to get as good as he got.

It's an old idea - that genius is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration - but we often overlook this simple truth.

In order to become proficient and eventually master a skill, we need to make use of the brain's long-term memory system. Initially the working memory is used as we first pick out the notes on an instrument. This only holds a memory for 30 to 60 seconds. It takes many hours of practice to move what is now becoming a skill into the long-term memory.

The long-term memory is vital to skill acquisition. Also involved is the implicit memory system, where we don't have to consciously think about the skill to use it. If you're consciously (using the explicit memory system), trying to remember how to play a complex piece of music, it will probably sound terrible.

Coaching, whether in business, sport, or other performance areas often gets it wrong when it relies on telling someone what to do. The problem here is that what is told to the person is not processed in a way that puts it into the long-term memory. It also makes it difficult for it to be part of the implicit memory system, since this requires an emotional involvement with the skill or topic, rather than  an intellectual one.

Coaching works best when it challenges the person to grapple with an issue. By the skillful use of questions, rather than providing answers or instruction, it allows the person to engage emotionally. This drives the new skill into the implicit memory system, by combining the emotional input from wrestling with an issue and time spent on practice.

So as I come in from the garden and prepare to practise my guitar, I am encouraged by the children next door. While my brain is harder to train than their young ones, they remind me that frequent practice will help me develop my guitar playing. Given a few months, I may even be able to make my way reasonably proficiently through the 6 or so minutes of Hendrix's Little Wing. 

And that, dear reader, will be satisfaction indeed! 

Confusion and Uncertainty

Confusion and uncertainty usually get a pretty bad press. Few people in the business world – or life generally – want to confess to such a state of mind.

You can see their point. Confusion makes decision making a nightmare. Uncertainty in a leader can lead to mutiny in the ranks. In the performance arena confusion leaves an audience bewildered. In the Tour de France it can lead to spectacular crashes as riders become tentative and hit the brakes on a downhill run.

All right. So we don’t like the state of confusion. And we certainly don’t want to be up at the pointy end of things needing to take decisive action while in this state. This said, is there any reason to see confusion and uncertainty as positive?

Of course you know I’m going to say there is. 

The reason is simple: confusion and uncertainty allow us to engage the mind at its creative and flexible best. The wonderful plasticity of the brain can be used to its full extent, creating new neural pathways. Confusion and uncertainty are like the greenhouse that allows our vegetable seeds to germinate even in the depths of winter. 

Wonderful stuff.

Confusion and uncertainty are the playground of the coach and therapist alike. A good coach helps the client ride the wave of uncertainty and doubt, surfing skillfully for the ultimate ride, building resilience and skill in the process.

Coaches and therapists know that asking questions rather than giving answers adds to this creative confusion. Supplying answers shuts the process down.

Most of us want clarity and certainty. We want to be able to make decisions and lead.  At some point we need to be able to act on our plans. If we try to shortcut the process by avoiding the discomfort that confusion brings, we lose an opportunity for growth and make decisions we may find difficult to live with.

So let’s celebrate confusion! Let’s welcome uncertainty. At least until our minds have taken the lessons and realized more of their potential.

Who's Running Your Business?

Clients often struggle to be effective in their businesses. 

'I know I should be more organised/work harder/be more creative/ 

entrepreneurial... ' I hear these expressions of frustration frequently. If, like me you see business clients, you will have heard these too. So many of us can see how to be more successful in business, yet the path to effective action remains blocked. 

And it’s not just in business we have problems. Our personal lives fail to live up to our expectations, even when the steps to change are obvious. Whether in our personal or business lives, our response this is usually to reach for another 'how-to' - book, course or coach - in the hope that someone else has an answer.   

Judging by the proliferation of courses, books and coaches, answers are not in short supply. But how useful exactly are answers?

Underlying the hunt for the definitive answer to our problems is the belief that we are not up to the task. We too often buy the story that we're not that person; not creative enough, not an entrepreneur; not a manager ... We believe that who we are is fixed, immutable. Our shortcomings are locked in and won’t change. All we can do is try hard to follow the answers that someone else has given us.

Of course, following a template someone else has given us can be useful - up to a point. The ‘cookie cutter’ approach works well if all you need to do is repeat the same actions time after time. It works for fast food businesses and the like.

What is lacking is the flexibility and responsiveness of a truly engaged human being. If you want to be creative; if you want to respond to changing circumstances, you need something more.

The answer, of course, is within.

Most of us use a small fraction of our inner resources. Our minds are an inner world of possibility and resourcefulness that is often locked behind a wall of internal beliefs and rules.

Rather than asking someone else for answers, we need to ask ourselves: ‘Which parts of me can I engage to do this work?’