Link to Article on Mindfulness at Work

Photo by Nik Shuliahin on Unsplash

Feeling stressed, burnout, or wishing you could avoid work altogether? Your not alone. Or maybe it’s not you, your’re just concerned about a friend. :)

Ran across a good introductory article on mindfulness in the work environment . . . from Go Daddy of all places. Linked to it to share with leaders and consultants I am working with but since it is coming from an “unusual” source . . . not the Harvard Business Review or New York Times, for example . . . I’ll share it here as well.

The article is focused on entrepreneurs but applies to any work environment. I like it because it gives a concise, clear, definition of mindfulness. Explains the benefits of implementing mindfulness, and gives some practical beginner tools to implementing it in your work.

Here’s the link. Hope it helps!

It’s free. Get Bryan’s eBook, Engaging Your Team: A framework for leading “difficult” people.

When you task a graphic designer to keep notes . . .

We . . . Bryan, Keith, and Andrew . . . just returned from providing a training with a group of government employees. The training, which focuses on using an interactive game to help improve communication, understand the relationship of mistakes and learning, and be willing to take reasonable risks to add to their strengths and become better team members.

Bryan and Keith were co-facilitating the training while Andrew was along to expose him to the training—since he had not participated in our past trainings. I tasked Andrew with being our tech support and quality improvement observer. The first meaning using his knowledge of gaming to help the training flow smoothly and the second to think about the strengths of the training and what needs continued improvement.

He did both jobs well.

I will share, for the fun of it, what you get when you task a graphic designer to take notes. Take a look . . .

Andrew’s quality improvement notes . . . .

I flipped through my entire spiral-bound notebook. A notebook I loaned him to in which to make his own notes. Page after page, nearly 40, of my own sterile, austere, notes. Just notes. Not one illustration, squiggly line, or doodle. Boring.

The amazing thing to me, is that this kid--can I still call him a kid at 30?-who obviously shares a creative talent inherited from his mother . . . and not me, had some great insights. As a result, we will have a much stronger training product through implementing several of his ideas.

If you are developing your own products, don’t forget to include an observer who can help you refine your process—and it doesn’t hurt if their ways of processing are different than yours, in fact, it might open up your eyes to new opportunities for improvement!

Below, are pictures of a couple pages of our new Training Lesson Plan developed from one of Andrew’s suggestions. We will introduce this new tool during our free training on Sunday.

Broken shovels and new handles.

The poor old shovel . . . yellow fiber-glass handle finally gave out!

Sometimes you just gotta do it. I was replacing my mailbox post when it happened. The old shovel handle broke. I've been expecting it. This old, yellow, fiberglass handle was never the best. It quickly began to weaken; the digging becoming a maddening-test-of-stubborn-resistance as the handle flexed, twisted, and alternatively held it''s rigidity as a project progressed.

Now it was caput. Finished. Should I "pitch it" in joy of the cessation of the frustration and hold a wake to it's demise? No. I would replace the handle with a good, solid, wooden one. I grew up in that era. Don't through away things that still have value. Even if the time, the replacement parts, and ultimate finished product are less than ideal.

Changing that handle (see the finished product below) reminded me of the process of helping professionals with "old" skills upgrade to "new" ones. Learning to add contracting or consulting to their professional practice. The tools essentially remain unchanged but the experience is transformative.

Check out our no-coast, no obligation, webinar on Private Practice through Contracting!

Almost makes me look forward to digging.