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Brain Friendly Learning Tips from Kaizen
This tip comes to you from Steve Marriott of Kaizen Training
Entertaining some friends recently, we retired to the lounge where my son Daniel
was playing a video game. The game involved his character 'balancing' on a tightrope
and crossing a chasm between two buildings. His character was operated through a
'balance board' at his feet. As you can imagine, it wasn't long before the 'grown
ups' in the room eagerly stepped up to 'show' Dan how it should be done! What soon
followed was a series of disastrous attempts to cross the chasm, each with increasingly
elaborate 'explanations' and 'reasons' for our lack of success. Time after time,
each of us replicated exactly the same mistake -
"Every problem was once a solution to a previous problem."
That same evening the national news had the now familiar focus on economic doom and
gloom throughout the UK. Typically, the news article was followed by interviews with
people describing how they will need to work longer hours or get second jobs to make
ends meet. Seeing these stories reminded me of the tightrope walk. Hearing news of
economic hard times, people visualise the worst case scenario and over compensate.
We withdraw our money from financial institutions (further adding to the problem)
work longer hours (increasing stress levels and fatigue) and make radical cost savings
within our organisations (again adding to national statistics.) Think back a few
years to the first mention of fuel shortages. Petrol forecourts become inundated
with people panic buying precious fuel -
What's needed? Focus. This was the difference in success between the grown ups and my son. Our focus upon not falling off the rope lead us to overcompensate whilst, Dan's focus upon staying on the rope lead to an entirely different outcome. And truth be told, it wasn't the thought of falling off which most scared the grown ups, it was the thought of how falling off would make us feel which caused most anxiety. So, a couple of questions for you:
What are you focussing upon now?
Not losing your job?
Not having enough money/time/etc
Not having something/someone
in your life?
And is it a genuine fear of the event happening or the fear of how you might feel should that become reality?
For example, most of us would be concerned at least with the thought of redundancy. Ask yourself "Am I more scared of 'being made redundant' or of the feelings of inadequacy, failure or loss that redundancy may bring?"
Now in our current economic climate, cutbacks, longer hours and even redundancies
may be the answer, but before you head over that side of the rope, stop and ask yourself
how much of this is genuine intelligent focus, and how much is over-
Today's lesson from Daniel Marriott aged 5 ½:
Notice when things are out of balance for you.
Stop!
Regain your balance by realigning
with your outcomes
Move forward
Call to action
Regain your balance!
Make time today to focus and realign yourself. Re-
If you could redesign your life/career, what changes would you make?
What
could you do today, or better still what could you do RIGHT NOW to get you one step
closer to your vision?
Take action!
If you'd like more help in regaining balance between work and home, please feel free
to contact me at Steve@kaizen-
Feeling the squeeze?
Are you under pressure to reduce costs, increase sales, improve effectiveness, provide more added value to your customers?
Blending classical continuous improvement, LEAN thinking and Six Sigma tools with
cutting-
Whatever your unique challenge, we will work with you to design and implement the right solution for your business, engage with your people and help you realise sustainable improvements.
Contact us now on 01923 262278 or tips@kaizen-
Kaizen Training w: www.kaizen-