Category: Performance

6 ideas about setting goals in your organisation | Paul

11/9/2017

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Here are 6 thoughts about goals:

It’s unethical to hold people to goals that they have set, because much of what happens after you set a goal is unpredictable.
Watch out for when goals turn counter-productive. Like prescription drugs, they can have unwanted side-effects.
It’s important to give yourself permission not to stick to goals when circumstances change and you need your wits about you to deal with uncertainty.
Perhaps if goals are modest and short-term, they will not be so delusional.
A deadline by which you have to produce a piece of work can be very productive. I write here as a trained journalist.
If you work with others, instead of setting goals ask them what they would like to achieve. Then when you meet again, ask them what progress they have made.

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What’s the impact of visualisation on motivation?

24/7/2017

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A participant on a recent webinar cited a study he’d heard about, saying that visualising a goal can be counter-productive to one’s motivation. Apparently, there’s a danger of feeling that you’ve already accomplished your objective, so you put less effort into doing it ‘again’ for real.

For a solutions-focused practitioner, this seems more about the danger of extrapolating too much from a single research project than about the value of visualisation. There’s obvious value for an individual or a team in the clarity gained by visualising the goal. The depiction of the Future Perfect in detail also provides useful signs by which to measure progress. And it encourages reflecting on the benefits of the various aspects of the goal – which again will provoke and boost motivation. I’m not sure how you would gain those benefits without somehow visualising what’s wanted in glorious detail.

Nor is the Future Perfect visualisation the end of the typical coaching process. First, in a detailed articulation of a vision, we not only see it, we speak it, unearthing more and more detail. And then we also explore resources and consider the next small steps. Those additional elements should be more than enough to avoid any loss of motivation.

Have a look at all of our SF TOOLS on one page.

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The logical thread of better conversations

5/6/2017

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We are all familiar with tricky conversations in our organisations - the ones you put off for as long as possible or perhaps never have at all. But suppose you could handle these conversations in the best way imaginable, what difference would that make?

What difference would it make it to you, to your team and to your organisation? Each conversation has an impact on your ultimate results, as there is an inevitable logical thread between you, your team and your organisation’s performance.

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Are you positioning for impact with your change programme? | Paul

19/9/2016

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Something I learned while facilitating a three-day event for a 30-member team from various continents was that the impacts of a change programme can be slow to manifest. In itself that’s not an issue - unless your objectives include instant results.

Still, there’s plenty you can do in the meantime to ensure that the results turn out favourably. You can do a great deal to re-assure yourself, your clients, your funders, that you are on the right tracks. It’s called 'positioning for impact'.

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What can we learn from a crisis?

8/2/2016

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There is a common misconception that in Chinese, the sign for crisis is the same as for opportunity.

If not through these symbols, how can we create opportunities from our crises?

Well, we can learn more about our resources and resilience. And we can learn more from those than we can learn from our mistakes and failures.

Mistakes are events you would rather have not happened (at least at the time), because the intention was to do something different, and the immediate consequence is most often unfavourable.

I like this story of a crisis handled by Hans Zeinhofer, who I met at a conference where delegates were discussing the application of solutions-focused ideas in organisations.

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Top 10 tips for better performance conversations | Janine

1/8/2013

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These are the top 10.

1 Deal with it in a timely manner

If there’s something to talk about, act sooner rather than later. Don’t put off something that left unchecked could become a major issue. For example if somebody has a tendency to make minor numerical mistakes in reports, discuss it with them straight away, rather than waiting until they make a significant mistake that causes embarrassment and upset.

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6 ideas about setting goals in your organisation | Paul

What’s the impact of visualisation on motivation?

The logical thread of better conversations

Are you positioning for impact with your change programme? | Paul

What can we learn from a crisis?

Top 10 tips for better performance conversations | Janine

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