Category: Self-Insight

More about Space and More about Time

A couple of weeks ago I offered a playful connection between physics and communication. In this post, I intend to offer some insight into how to use Space and Time to improve the quality of our communication.

Before I do, though, it’s worth mentioning that this is tsp-uk’s one hundredth blog. In little over 18 months this community has produced a phenomenal range of content and insight. From the philosophical to the highly practical this space continues to be a dynamic and exciting forum to share ideas. Here’s to the next 100!

Now back to the topic in hand. My intention is not to give a class here, or offer some “top tips” but to explain how these concepts relate to my work and a couple of the ways I apply them in my practise.

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Are you really successful?

I want to give you hope so you can get right back up and achieve it, what is that? GENUINE SUCCESS!

“If the success you achieve has been at the expense of your health, your family or a negative change in your personality or character, is not really a success”

I DECIDED that: “No matter how high I grew in my professional life, I would always pray to remain as truthful to myself as I’ve always been. I don’t want to change to the extent of losing myself, forgetting who I am and where I come from”.  My decision has a lot to do with the upbringing I received from my parents and is based on the respect for all, without distinction.

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The Communication Continuum

How space and time can transform our communication

What is it that gives other people confidence in you?

What is it that defines you as a credible, confident, authoritative communicator of ideas and vision? Gives you gravitas? Says to people that they should take you seriously?

It’s pretty simple really. It’s all about space and time.

In (not quite) the same way physics brings space and time together to form the space-time continuum, so it is that how we bring together our personal relationship to space and time will define our impact as communicators. A Communication Continuum, if you like. 

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Five things no one likes to hear and why

In my youngsters days I felt uncomfortable when someone told me one of these five phrases. I’ve now learned how to act upon them.

In my youngsters days, at some point, I felt uncomfortable when someone told me one of these phrases, and even though I’ve learned how to act upon them, these for me are the top 5 things no one enjoys listening to and I want to share them with you. I’m pretty sure you will even agree with me on the reasons why.

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Commitment Pays Off!

A committed individual contributor is constantly asking how he/she can support management in succeeding on the overall business strategy. A committed peer focus on the team overall goal and collective success. A committed manager works actively and genuinely in unison with management to bring outstanding results for the business, develop its people and help others to succeed too. A committed business partner thinks Win-win.

I like to share stories in my posts and on today’s post I start by telling a short one about a constructor called Lucas.

Lucas worked for several years on a company specialized into building houses. After a decade within the organization he reached management level. In different dialogues with the owner of the business, he expressed his desire to grow, earn more and to take higher responsibility.

Different opportunities appeared and he was not selected. The owner explained that he was not ready for some of them and that took a toll on him. Lucas didn’t cope well with setback. At some point, disappointed, Lucas decided to leave the company and explore new pastures.

Lucas then approached the owner and resigned.  Continue reading “Commitment Pays Off!”

Those (negative) thoughts…

We apparently born with two fears. Fear of height and loud sound. The rest we develop in throughout our lives. Such fears drain confidence and one of them is the fear of failure. The bad ‘news’ is that ‘If you’re not prepared to be wrong (or to fail), you will never come up with anything original.’

Imagine you are driving your car on a road for hours and haven’t seen any car for hours and your GPS, or whatever app you use, shows the nearest gas station is several driving hours far in any direction – you are literally in the middle of nowhere. Then you get a flat Tyre. You stop and open your trunk. You don’t have a jack.

Sunset is approaching quickly, you lock your car and start walking. After around 2 hours, you spot a house. Walking towards the house you start thinking – how should I approach the house? do they have a hostile dog? What if the people living there are not friendly? Will they help me or attack me? All those doubts and negative thoughts keep hammering your head; you feel uneasy and scared, but you carry on.

You get to the house, knock on the door. Someone opens the door with a surprising but very sweet smile. You explain what happened and the person not only has a jack but invite you for a bowl of soup, drives you back, helps you changing the tyre and you follow your journey…

Does it resonate with you? These are the negative thoughts which come to drain confidence, create doubts and prevent you from reaching your goals!

Continue reading “Those (negative) thoughts…”

Leading in the Training Room

Leaders have to be prepared to tread the path for others to walk on, not just plan the route.

Leaders and followers training together

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve spent some time working with a regular client. They are an innovative and creative mid-sized company based over three countries.

While the training was very much focused on how they engage with their clients, one thing in particular struck me about what a great company they are. the range of people on the course.

The small group consisted of one person with “Executive” at the end of their job title, who had been in the organisation for ten months, as well as someone with “C” at the beginning of the theirs and who had been there for many years.

While the training wasn’t designed for a specific management level, I was surprised when I learned how senior that one participant was. The training itself was incredibly successful and the dynamics within the group open, free and courageous. The C-level employee told me how she had pushed to get on the course. She was trying to balance her desire to learn and improve while not taking a valuable place on a small and intensive learning experience really aimed at lower levels.

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The worse blindness is the one when we ‘deliberately refuse to see’!

I (all of us) have seen people missing opportunities and I concede, looking back, I may have missed a few too. And why we see it? Because we are watching or looking from a different angle. Like on the Indian-mythology, we often fail to recognize them because we cannot see it. Sometimes they come disguised of something like hard work, as a tedious job (those nobody wants to do), sometimes our own attitude and you name it.

Last week I met a good friend who used to be my direct report. He recently got promoted as general manager and has always been a great sparring buddy. Besides the fact that I feel extremely proud to see him growing and pleased to be part of it, I also find our talks and engagement inspiring myself as he always add something to the conversations which makes me grow too.

Among different things we spoke about, reminiscing about the time we worked together, the adversities we had – how we surmounted them as well as his/our current challenges, we also spoke about long term ambition and discussed ‘why some people get ahead on their careers and others, even being extremely bright, don’t go so far.

“Opportunities come disguised as hard work.” By Bernardinho (Brazilian volleyball coach and former player).

Then he brought in a very interesting analogy from Indian mythology

Continue reading “The worse blindness is the one when we ‘deliberately refuse to see’!”

Life is Now

Our moment in life is now and we must take full responsibility of our decisions and the learning that comes from them.

I am a firm believer that we come into this world with an empty toolbox. As we walk along our path, we find tools along the way.  Sometimes the tools that we find are not useful immediately but one will always find a use for it down the road.  I always like to relate this to a TV series that I used to watch during my childhood called “McGyver”. It was about this very smart agent that collected several items during the episode and at the end he would save the day with a clever “gadget solution” made out of all the items he had collected.

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Small Gearings of a Big Engine!

What can a leader do to improve their gearing as part of the bigger organisational engine?

Today I would like to share some thoughts related to teamwork, cross-functional collaboration and accountability. Being in a small or big organization, all of us have at some point faced situations in which it was difficult to see the impact of the team or individuals to the overall business results. And that can give rise to frustrations or disappointment – especially when the team is manned by talented and high qualified people. Continue reading “Small Gearings of a Big Engine!”