All posts by Ruth Henderson

Sometimes the Flavour of the Month is Chocolate. And It’s Good.

February 5, 2016Blog, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

flavour2

If you work for anyone other than yourself, you have probably lived this phrase in some way:

“Ugh – this new initiative is nothing other than the new flavour of the month. It’ll never stick and next year they’ll roll out something else.”

Sound familiar? These words have probably assaulted your ears (or crossed your lips), when the organization is trying with best intentions to make a change or an improvement. The person who is responsible for the change is excited about the initiative, and is frustrated beyond believe with this blasé response from the team.

So why do people say it?

First, a little Change Management theory for you – we know from Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross‘ work that people experience grief in an emotional roller coaster. When Kubler-Ross pioneered the concept of the 5 Stages of Grief, people became aware that grief impacts us all the same way and yet differently too.

In other words, we all go through the stages of Grief (Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance), but we may go through them differently. Some may linger in one stage or another, and some may fly through a stage so quickly as to appear to bypass it. The way in which we go through these stages is greatly impacted by our personal resilience, the amount of stress we are dealing with at the moment, and our experiences with grief in the past.

The same is true with change. In fact, Kubler-Ross’ model has been adapted to create the Change Curve, used by Change Management experts, teachers, and coaches. There are several different variations of the curve itself, and we like this one the best:

change curve

You can see the similarity to the 5 Stages of Grief – in this model we have Denial, Anger, Exploration, and Acceptance.

Imagine then, an employee who is not only experiencing change at work, but also at home (spouse has been demoted, child has moved out, parent is ill). This employee, we’ll call him Rob, has been a good worker and has been around for about 15 years. You are Rob’s manager, and very excited about a new program to create a more efficient process for doing the work of Rob and the entire team. When you meet to discuss it, Rob breaks open the “Flavour of the Month” remark, and the team snickers.

This is because Rob has been around for a couple of business cycles. He’s seen change implemented, re-implemented, de-implemented, and implemented again. He’s tired and his resilience is low – he feels that change is a pendulum, and that people should just make up their damn minds and stick with something.

Well, here’s the thing…

The United States’ National Bureau of Economic Research states that since 1945 the average business cycle has been just less than six years. That length of time may also be impacted by your industry, budget issues, technology advancement, and general business trends.

So in other words, every few years the business world changes. And in order to be relevant in that world, an organization must change with it. The change the organization is implementing is probably the right thing, for right now. In a few years it may no longer be the right thing. So yeah. It might well be the flavour of the month, and there’s nothing wrong with that (unless an organization is making change for change’s sake – and that’s a whole different discussion.)

The trick is to implement the “new flavour” carefully, using change management best practices from the outset and communicating the “why and why now” message in the most effective way for the team.

If that’s all done correctly, then the answer to Rob is as easy as, “Yes Rob, it IS the flavour of the month. It’s chocolate. And it’s good.”

Until next time,

Ruth.

 

The Same Only Different

January 22, 2016Blog, , , , , , , , , ,

imp vs

Have you ever heard people use terms interchangeably that are really quite different? Does it make you cringe inside?

It’s like nails on a chalkboard when I hear people say “performance management” or “mentoring” when they mean “coaching.” Or when they say they need someone to “facilitate” when they actually mean they need someone to “train.” And one of my favourites: “leading” vs. “managing.”

Another, and the topic of today’s blog, is Innovation vs. Improvement. This mix-up, while seemingly innocuous, can lead to real organizational design issues, confused roles & responsibilities, and broken down processes.

Potato Po-tah-to?

The thing is, these groups of terms aren’t the same at all (although they can be related,) and yet people seem to use them as if they are synonyms. I’m not sure why, although I suspect it has to do with business culture that loves to invent words (incent, for instance), create catch phrases and buzz words (like Dashboard or Viewability), and even completely misuse words (like Key Performance Indicator for every single metric in an organization. Ummm… “Key” means “most important,” not “all encompassing.”)

In our course The Process of Coaching, we spend some time discussing what it means to coach vs. mentor. I hear the two phrases used jointly all the time:

  • “You need some coaching and mentoring.”
  • “Do you have a coach or mentor?”
  • “Let’s set up a coaching/mentoring program.”

The same is true of Innovation and Improvement.

  • “We have a great Innovation and Improvement department.”
  • “What we need to do to at this company is improve and innovate.”
  • “I’m the Innovation/Improvement manager.”

My Dad had a great phrase, and I think it helps here:

“ All crows are blackbirds, but not all blackbirds are crows.”

So all (or almost all) Innovation is Improvement, but not all Improvement is Innovation. The following diagram shows what I mean more clearly:

imp

Why is this important?

Some of you may be thinking, “Oh come on. It’s just semantics.” Well, actually, no. It’s not.

Lets take a look at what makes these terms different:

  • Improvement, or process improvement, refers to looking at how something is done – the steps, roles, and materials used – and making it more effective and efficient (Side note: effective and efficient are two more terms that are often used interchangeably. Effective means doing something with high quality. Efficient means doing something in a way that makes the best use of required resources – either the company’s or the customer’s.) This could be something like boarding planes by zone instead of rows, bankers lines instead of individual lines, or even something simple like improved signage in busy places.
  • Innovation means doing or creating something that is new in order to grow, keep up with competition, or be groundbreaking industry leaders. It can be a new process (for instance, the ability to tap your credit card at many stores), a new product that changes the way we live (smart phones), or a new business model that changes the way we interact with organizations (online shopping). You can see that the new process of paying by tap is also an improvement to how you pay today, whereas online shopping was an entirely new model, never conceived of before. Does it improve things? Some would debate that! But it certainly changes things.

In “Coaching for Improved Work Performance,” Ferdinand Fournies said that the biggest reason for people not doing what they are supposed to do is that they don’t know what they are supposed to do.

Sounds so simple!

If we fail to distinguish between Innovation and Improvement, we fail to be clear in our message of expectations to our employees. Is an Innovation & Improvement team supposed to increase efficiency or lead groundbreaking change? A manager with skills and background that is heavier in one area than another could influence the direction of the team greatly.

In fact, the two goals are different enough that they could be at odds if not managed correctly. Imagine asking for project approval – which one gets higher priority in the budget? Or, think about what would happen if you hired a bunch of Process Improvement experts and asked them to be creative and innovative as well? I would argue these are very different (although not mutually exclusive) skillsets.

If you want both Innovation and Improvement, make sure that the team or teams are clear in what their goals and responsibilities are. And if both Innovation and Improvement are under the accountability of the same person, make sure he or she has a clear and balanced plan for each.

It’s not just semantics. It’s important.

Until next time,

Ruth.

What Gets Measured Gets Done. Or Does It?

April 9, 2015Blog, , , , , , , , , ,

measured

It’s an old cliché: “What gets measured gets done.” The origin of the statement is up for debate (click here if you want to geek out a bit on that – some say it goes back to Rheticus in the 1500’s!), and it seems that the original phrase was actually “If you can measure it, you can manage it.”

Regardless of the origin or the wording, the message is clear: measuring something gives you the information you need in order to make sure you actually achieve what you set out to do.

But what does that mean, exactly? How does measuring weight ensure weight loss? How does tracking monthly revenue actually bring in the money?

Two Ways Measurement Leads to Goal Achievement

  1. How often have you heard (or said) “it’s not on my performance objectives, so it’s not a priority for me.” For many people, the simple act of measurement increases motivation to perform. The term “eustress” refers to “good stress,” or the opposite of distress, and captures that healthy response to stress we have when something is attainable, but almost too far out of research. Research shows that the desire to win is heightened when rivalry and time pressure coincide, and the simple act of measuring something sparks that sense of rivalry in many people. Of course that rivalry doesn’t need to be with others, it can be with one’s own self as a sort of “competition” to see whether you can beat a goal. Without a measure, there is no way to determine whether you have won, and therefore, less motivation to get something done.
  2. There’s a small matter of accountability. When we set goals and measure performance against that goal we have the ability to hold ourselves (and others) accountable for the resulting success or failure. We actually have concrete data that shows us what we did or didn’t do, what the impact was, and what we need to do differently. Without accountability we can’t coach people towards success and growth, and we have a heck of a time meeting our overall targets.

So is that all we have to do? Measure something and it will magically happen?

Of course not. In addition to things like  project planning, project management, and change management, there is this little matter of measuring the right things.

Business Intelligence, Not Barfing Numbers on a Page

Have you ever been the recipient of an Excel spreadsheet that is masquerading as a report of some kind? Columns and rows of data and boxes and percentages and bolded numbers and you have no idea where to look? Unless you are really familiar with the information, you’re probably going to file that report in some never-to-be-looked at folder in your inbox. Sadly, you won’t be able to refer to it later and sound super smart either.

There are a few things that you can do to make your reports interesting, helpful, and meaningful. If you are someone who is responsible for business analytics, consider the following:

  1. Understand the difference between a measure and a metric.
    • A measure is one quantitative number that counts something. e.g. We made $100,000 profit last quarter.
    • A metric gives you more information because it compares the measure to some other baseline. e.g. We made $100,000 profit last quarter, $50,000 more than the same quarter last year.
  2. Understand the difference between an Outcome metric and a Performance metric.
    • An outcome metric tells you the result of something. It’s a “lag measure,” because once you have the measure it’s done. Over. Too late to do anything with. e.g. We made $100,000 profit last quarter, $50,000 more than the same quarter last year.
    • A performance metric tells you how well the activities are performing that have been determined as the most likely to positively impact the outcome. These are “lead measures,” because they are driving the outcome in advance of the measurement of that outcome. e.g. For the last three weeks we have averaged 10 sales calls per week, which is above our target of 8 sales calls per week.
  3. Figure out what you want to know before you start measuring things. Often times reports are a dumping ground for all the data that’s available, whether it’s useful or not. These types of reports do NOT contain the motivational metrics and measures that create eustress and increase performance.
  4. Design your report to tell a story. Once the right data is measured and collected, the report should contain eye-catching information to lead the reader to the most important points. Make it visual, interesting, and helpful, and you will become the “go-to person” for people who want to know what’s going on.

We are teaching a course in Toronto on the basics of Performance Measurement. It’s a two-day course on May 26th and May 27th, and if you’re interested in knowing more about how to move your organization towards one of data-based decision-making, then click here and register today.

Until next time,

Ruth.

Happy Birthday to Us!

March 27, 2015Blog, , , , , , , , ,

3

That’s right, as of March 28th Whiteboard Consulting is 3 years old!

Both Nicole and I are breathing a sigh of relief that we made it out of the Terrible Two’s, which, though not truly “terrible,” did provide us with our fair share of lessons.

Three Things We Learned in Our Third Year

  1. We thought we would be doing all Process Improvement, all the time. We were wrong. Instead, we have been doing more and more training and facilitation as the months have gone by. Why is this? Two reasons: first, most organizations don’t know that they need process improvement. They don’t come to us, hat in hand, and say, “Please Ruth & Nicole, will you fix our processes?” Instead, they express concern over a symptom, or ask for information on how to improve a specific aspect of their business. This almost always leads to some kind of facilitated work and/or training, and sometimes also to true process improvement work. The second reason is that, without intending to boast, we are excellent trainers, and word gets around.
  2. Network. All the Time. In the first half of 2014 we were extremely busy, and spent little to no time networking and generating new business. It seemed natural for the work to come to us, so imagine our surprise when the pipeline dried up in late summer and it took several months to get it moving again.
  3. Do what you love. We love to train and write. Our courses for both the general public and our private sector clients, as well as the courses we teach for the Government of Ontario, are received with wonderful feedback, and our blogs are being picked up by the Huffington Post more and more frequently. (Look for them in Forbes soon if all goes well.) We really enjoy process improvement work, and when teaching and writing are thrown in, we are very happy campers.

In Our Fourth Year We Are…

  • the Queens of networking and business development, taking Whiteboard into a year of growth.
  • following Sean Covey’s Four Disciplines of Execution and taking a page out of our own book too – this means we are focused on the activities that act as lead measures and will drive our ultimate goal of revenue generation. We have weekly accountability meetings and have laser-focus on the activities we need to achieve to be successful.
  • finding ways to say yes. If clients ask us to do work that conflicts with something else in the schedule, we figure out a way to make it happen. If that means Nicole does one event and I do another, so be it. Hard for us to let go of each other’s apron strings, but that’s what it means when you’re a toddler instead of a two-year-old.
  • training. A lot. Our next two public courses are:
    1. Lean Six Sigma for Service Delivery, a 3-day course in May in Toronto. (Click here)
    2. Performance Measurement 101, a 2-day course in April and May in Toronto. (Click here)

Thank you for your engagement, your comments, your “Likes,” “Shares,” “Favourites,” and “Retweets.”  We look forward to even more of those in the coming year!

Until next week,

Ruth.

Why Managers Need to Understand “The Dress” Controversy

February 27, 2015Blog

The internet is a funny thing, as I’m sure you’ll agree. Lately it’s been buzzing on whether a dress is white & gold or blue & black, creating two firmly opposed teams, taunting each other with the ridiculousness of their “clearly incorrect” choice.

Here’s the image of the dress:

dress

At first I thought it was just a silly thing, and those saying blue & black were doing so just to be difficult and to feed the social media beast. I didn’t get it. It’s so obviously white and gold.

Then I did some research, and came across an interesting article from Wired.com. (It appears there is actually science to it!) Apparently, it is actually blue & black (!!), and the reason some people see it differently has to do with the context and the way their brain is wired to choose between the two by discounting “irrelevant” light. (You can read the full article here.)

So, in essence, it depends on your perspective, doesn’t it.

Isn’t that true of everything?

Why This Is Important to Managers

Yesterday I taught a course on The Essentials of Management for the Centre for Leadership & Learning in the Ontario Public Service. One of the things we talk about is the importance of perspective, or context, when managing people. Your job as a manager is to ensure that YOUR context is not incorrectly influencing the way that others will hear a message or interpret instructions.

Every manager has had that moment of shock when he/she realizes that they just said or did something that had the complete opposite effect from what was intended. They thought this “thing” was white & gold, and their team interpreted “blue & black.” The results were disastrous, and it took some finesse and time to recover.

There are a couple of basic areas that we all need to be highly sensitive to when trying to be most effective and impactful with our employees:

  • When communicating, remember that the words that come out of your mouth are highly influenced by your own personal context, or your experience, your cultural norms, your mood, and even your gender. The receiver, on the other hand, interprets those words based on THEIR experience, cultural norms, mood, and gender. As the communicator, it is your job to ensure that the differences in context are accounted for, and that the words clarify your intent. This is especially important in eMail when it is so easy to read tone when none was intended! Think about how your words might be mis-interpreted based on what you know about your audience, and clarify accordingly. If you don’t, you could say “white & gold,” and they might hear “blue & black.”communication
  • When introducing a change to your team, consider each individual’s perspective. You may think you’re about to announce the world’s most exciting change, and that everyone will love you for it. Perhaps most people will! There may also be a handful of people who with think the sky has fallen, because their context, or experience of change, is much different. They may have a lot of change impacting them at home that you don’t know about, or this specific change may introduce a world of complications for them. You think it’s all white & gold, and they will see it as blue & black. Your job is not to shove white & gold at them and talk about how awesome everything is, but to be aware that there will be contextual differences, and to allow people time to reflect, ask questions of you, and to get your support.

Finally, let’s not forget that the best teams are made up of all kinds of different contexts. If you see white & gold and some of your team sees blue & black, isn’t that a good thing? Surround yourself with those who are different, and embrace and discuss that diversity! Your contextual awareness will expand, your awareness will be richer, and you will be a better manager.

Until next time,

Ruth.

Manager, Coach Thyself

February 13, 2015Blog

physicianA very old proverb, “Physician heal thyself“, reminds us to attend to our own affairs rather than criticizing the affairs of others. It popped into my head recently when I was telling someone about the “self talk” going on in my head during a challenging meeting I had.

First, let me explain that “self talk” is more than just muttering to yourself now and again. It’s actually a conversation that you have with your subconscious and is considered a subset of thinking. Experts agree that the way in which we “talk to ourselves,” whether out loud or in our heads, has an enormous impact on our performance, our confidence, and our mood. (There’s a great article from The Wall Street Journal here.)

You may remember the SNL skit where Stuart Smalley talks to himself in the mirror. That’s a bit more over-the top than what I’m talking about, but it does illustrate the idea. Stuart Smalley’s Famous Self Talk

Coaching Yourself

We may coach others every day as part of our jobs. We help people understand how they could have done better in a challenging situation and/or what they did right and should do more of. But have we ever thought about the advantages of coaching ourselves, right in the moment?

Remember that coaching is all about asking the right questions, helping people come to their own self-realizations and truths that will resonate and take hold more than you just “telling” them what to do. Self talk can be the same. Research shows that we should actually talk to ourselves by using our names or saying “you” instead of I.

I would add, talk to yourself in a coaching style, asking yourself questions. It’s much more likely to stick and change your behaviour in the moment.

So back to my challenging meeting.

I had a networking session with someone in a similar line of business. I knew this person to be a tad passive aggressive, and I admit that one of the reasons I sought out the meeting was to bridge this awkwardness I felt every time we had an interaction. So, we sat down over coffee, and I started out as all good networkers do, by asking more about their work, how they fell into it, etc. (Read our blog on networking here.)

45 minutes into it, I realized not one question was directed my way. Not one. I started getting annoyed, and fortunately had enough self awareness to realize that this was likely showing up on my face. (I am cursed with a very expressive face. Many years ago a boss told me, “Ruth not only do we realize when you don’t like an idea, we can tell when you think someone is stupid.” OUCH!)

I began to coach myself using self talk, starting with Kindness & Curiosity (“Ruth, what kind of life is this person having, that they are so entirely focused on themselves?”) This person has A LOT of trials and tribulations going on. Does that make the self-centredness ok? No, but it makes it easier to react with kindness. Then I moved on to thinking about what I could actually learn, instead of being ticked off that it was a one-sided conversation. (“OK, so it’s annoying. Remember Ruth, there are things you can actually pick up and apply to your own business if you’d just listen. Stop wrinkling your forehead.)

I came away from the conversation much more relaxed than I might have. The self-talk helped me apply my own principles to my situation, and I picked up a few good pointers along the way.

What To Remember

  • You may coach others every day as part of your job. You also should coach yourself. Be aware of those situations in which you might over react or response from a place of frustration.
  • Always think of Kindness & Curiosity first. It helps you calm down and take personal responsibility out of the equation.
  • Use the questioning style of self-talk to remember your own coaching techniques.

It doesn’t really turn an annoying situation into a great one, but it does help you react with professionalism and grace. And that’s never a bad thing.

Until next time,

Ruth.

 

 

New Course: March 11, 2015

February 11, 2015Blog, Events, News

Are you someone who wants to be better at interacting with people at work? How are your networking skills? Do you take over conversations? Do you wish you could influence some of your peers or your boss more effectively? How do you handle feedback – both the giving and the getting?

Screen Shot 2015-02-11 at 5.17.54 PM

Can I Tell You Something?

We are excited to announce our newest workshop, entitled “Can I Tell You Something,” focused on influencing through questions and feedback in order to build stronger and more effective relationships at work.

You may be aware that we have a very popular “Process of Coaching” course, and this workshop builds off of that material. The difference is that this workshop is less “corporate,” and focuses less on Management skills and behaviours associated with coaching employees. Instead, it’s about you, the individual, at any level in any job, and how you can employ coaching techniques to improve your interactions with co-workers, bosses, heck – even your family and friends! (Shh! They won’t even know you’re doing it.)

We will spend the morning on theory, with a few quizzes and group exercises to get your brains firing. After lunch, an actor specialized in this type of simulation, will join us and play the role of a number of different types of people in different situations. You will get to interact with the actor and practice what you learned in the morning session.

Simulated learning is extremely effective. We wrote a blog about it here. It is also a lot of fun, and we promise you will take away a number of very helpful tools. Whether you learn by reading, listening, watching, or doing – our workshop has it all, and we believe you will find it of great value.

Details

Who Should Come?

If you, someone you work with, or someone you know wants to learn any of the following, then we would love to see you:

    • How to influence people through language that is inquisitive and open.
    • How to be a great (informal) mentor.
    • How to provide feedback to people in such a way that they actually figure out what you want to say before you say it.
    • How to accept feedback and act on it.
    • How to handle a confrontational situation more effectively.
    • How to be noticed and heard – in a good way!
    • How to be a better networker.

Where Is It?

This workshop will be held in the beautiful Toronto Room at the Verity Club. The address is 111d Queen Street East in Toronto, and is just east of Jarvis Street on the south side. (It’s an old chocolate factory!) Screen Shot 2015-02-11 at 4.35.41 PM

When Is It?

March 11, 2015, from 8:30am to 5pm.

How Much Is It?

$450 plus HST, including a light lunch and refreshments.

If you have any questions, please email us at info@whiteboardconsulting.ca/staging.

Click here to reserve your place.

Hope to see you there,

Nicole & Ruth

The Structure That Lets You Be Flexible

January 31, 2015Blog, , , , , , ,

structure

Last week I had a consultation meeting with a potential new client. They are a digital marketing agency, and are the epitome of funky, professional, fun, and creative. I very much enjoyed my conversation with them, as I always do when learning about a new (to me) industry.

Consultation discussions always start out casually with the usual small talk and commentary on what is going on around us (this group works in a shared creative work space, and the energy is palpable). As often happens with people who are interesting and interested, the conversation morphed naturally into questions and answers about what they do and where they want to grow and how Whiteboard can help.

This client came to us via a referral from a previous client. As such, they already knew a bit about what we do, and yet they still weren’t sure what we could or would do for them. They just knew they needed us. Why? Because they wanted to build the processes they needed before they needed them.

I thought this was genius, and through the course of our conversation a phrase came up that I’ve already reused a half dozen times since then. “We want to have fun,” they said. “Our clients have to see us having fun. So I guess we are afraid that processes will limit our ability to be flexible and have fun.” I responded, “so what you want is the structure that will let you have the fun.”

“YES!” they replied, smiling as if to say, “By George, I think she’s got it!”

This idea of flexible structure is an important one for all businesses of all sizes, and particularly those that are on the tipping point of growing to a new level.

What’s a Process Again?

First let’s revisit the concept of a business process. Essentially, everything that you do with some repeatability is a process. At a high level it may involve things like this:

  • Sales
  • Developing a quote or proposal
  • Establishing scope or business requirements
  • Project management
  • Customer service
  • Invoicing

You may not think you have a process. Perhaps you are a small or medium organization for which things happen organically. Maybe everyone does everything and does it their own way, and it’s working out just fine, thank you very much. But guess what? There is a process. There are many processes, and they are all different and they all accomplish the same thing slightly differently.

This is usually just fine for a while. Because it’s a small team, you can roll back your chair and shout down the hallway to your partner and solve issues easily. Customers know you all by name, and although things go wrong once in a while it’s no big deal because someone is always able to fix it.

But here’s the thing. Before you know it, this will NOT be ok. You will hit a tipping point in your growth, and suddenly things will be confusing and chaotic and you’ll be stepping on each other’s toes. You won’t be able to outsource anything because the roles and responsibilities you have defined (or not defined) are unclear and difficult to chunk out into trainable units. You won’t have clear expectations for outcomes, customers will start getting annoyed, and you will be limited in how fast you can grow because you simply can’t handle everything on your own anymore.

This is when the structure becomes important.

By taking the time before you hit that tipping point, you will set yourself up with just the right amount of structure to ensure you present yourself as clear and capable, while remaining flexible enough to grow, change your minds, and yes, have fun.

How to Define Your Structure

The structure I’m talking about does not involve your org chart, and does not require a huge amount of work. Rather, it involves three things:

  1. Goals and priorities: Take the time to define your Mission & Vision statements, and settle on your goals for the coming period. You may have this locked down in your own mind, and it’s just as important to ensure it’s documented and visible for others so they know what they are trying to impact.
  2. Roles & responsibilities: Document the various roles in your organization. This doesn’t mean write down what everyone does (e.g. Ruth handles the sales process). Rather, it means document the person-agnostic roles that are required to run the business well. (e.g. Business Development, Outside Sales, Project Manager, Customer Service) One person can of course do more than one role, but the roles must be distinct.
  3. Key Corporate Processes: Note the key processes that your organization needs, and that must be done in a certain way in order to achieve a quality outcome? This definition allows you to outsource and train new people to a given standard. It also allows you to modify and be flexible as needs require – a process is just written on paper. It can always be changed!

Once you’ve set out your goals, roles and process expectations, you’re ready to grow. Everyone knows what needs to happen and (perhaps more importantly) HOW it needs to happen. Standards are clear and timelines are defined. You have structure, and you also have the option of changing that structure as required. Why? Because good processes are flexible.

Until next time,

Ruth.

The Office Version of Vitamin D

January 16, 2015Blog, , , , , , ,

VITAMIN_D
As I write this, it is a rare sunny winter day in Toronto, with blue sky and small fluffy snowflakes floating from the few clouds I can see. And because of this, I have altered my working location from my comfortable but dark basement office to my bright dining room table.

Why? Because I need sunshine. As much as I also enjoy the winter months, I crave sunshine! It lifts my mood and my spirits and my outlook and just makes everything better.

It occurred to me this morning that many of you do not have the luxury of working in your sunny dining room, and instead are holed up in your windowless office or cubicle. You may or may not have the opportunity to get outside and hold your face up to that sunshine, and you’ll go home after it’s dark, counting the days until spring.

And we wonder why we feel grumpy, edgy, or anxious this time of year.

There’s a reason for it, actually. Research shows a strong link between exposure to the sun, Vitamin D levels, and the incidence of Seasonal Affective Disorder (or SAD). Just a few minutes a day of unprotected (i.e. no sunscreen) exposure to sunshine are enough to maintain adequate levels of Vitamin D, boost levels of the “happy hormones” seratonin and dopamine, and thus ward off the symptoms of SAD.

Sounds easy enough.

What if you can’t get natural sunlight?

If you live in climates with a lot of winter cloud, decreased daylight hours, and frigid temperatures, it can be a real challenge to get yourself outside and bask in what little sunlight there may be. So what do you do?

Well, aside from taking a Vitamin D supplement, there are other things you can do at work (and at home, for that matter) to trick your brain into increasing its production of those “happy hormones.”

And guess what? The tricks involve process improvement and leadership – YAY! Our favourite topics.

5 Ways to Get Your Office Version of Vitamin D

  1. Create some goals that will really make you happy to achieve, and then attack them in small bites. January is a great time for process improvement projects! When we achieve goals and cross things off a list, we create a little celebration in our brain that releases dopamine. The trick here is to make sure it’s a goal that will make you feel good, like fixing something you’ve always wanted to fix, and then actually celebrating, even if it’s just with a fancy latte or a glass of wine after work.
  2. Break your “To Do” list into little tasks that are easily crossed off so you can achieve #1 above! It’s a lot harder to cross off “Fix The Widget Process” than it is to cross these things off:       (and P.S. – the items below could be broken down even further)
    • Define improvement opportunity
    • Engage team
    • Collect data
    • Draw the current process
    • Brainstorm opportunities
    • Test ideas
    • Implement solution
  3. Think about continuous improvement vs. one-time improvement initiatives. If you know what your next goal is before you finish your current one, you can smooth out the dopamine “hits” into a flow.
  4. Recognize the accomplishments of your team (in the way they want to be recognized). As we teach in our leadership courses, people are very individualistic in the way they prefer to be recognized, and as long as you consider the individual, then each thing that you do – email, bonus, quick word of thanks – will give THEM a dopamine hit.
  5. Remember things that went well. Interestingly, the brain has trouble telling the difference between what you’re achieving now and what you’ve achieved in the past. In either case, it produces seratonin! So if you’re having a crappy day, or if one of your team members is feeling down, talk together about when things went well, and build on that.

So when you’re down because it’s another grey day and it feels like spring will never get here and you wish that those stupid ads for southern vacations would go away because you can’t take one this year and you just want to put your head down on your desk and take a nap…

Try making a list of little tasks and just crossing off a few. You’ll start to feel better in no time!

Until next time,

Ruth

 

Sources:

Happy Holidays to You!

December 19, 2014Blog

Screen Shot 2014-12-19 at 10.46.37 AM

The Holidays are officially here!

Whether it’s Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, none of the above or all of the above, we wish you a truly wonderful, warm and peaceful holiday season, and hope that 2015 finds you happy and prosperous.

Ho Ho Ho!

Nicole & Ruth

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