Welcome to How I Work, a show about the tactics used by the world's most successful people to get so much out of their day. I'm your host, doctor Amantha Imber. I'm an organizational psychologist, the founder of behavioral science consultancy Inventium, and I'm obsessed with finding ways to optimize my work. Date. Before we get into today's show, I wanted to do a little plug for another podcast that I have very
recently launched called how to Date. This is a podcast that started off as a little passion project with my closest girlfriend, Monique. We are both kind of new ishy single, being about a year out of our marriages, and we are immersed in the world of dating, and we thought wouldn't it be great to learn how to get better at dating? So we started a podcast called how to Date where we interview experts to help us get better
at dating. We speak to all sorts of people, from psychologists to incites, people at bumble, to professors that specialize in dating, through to sex workers, and we get all sorts of interesting advice. So, if you are single, or maybe you know someone that is and could do with some advice, or maybe you're just curious about the wonderful world of dating. Then search for how to Date wherever you get your podcasts, and there's also a link to it in the show notes. And if you do have
a listen, I'd love to know what you think. Drop me a note. It's a project that I'm very excited about putting out into the world. Okay, let's get on with today's show, which is a special recording of something I did at the end of July, which was an ask Me Anything webinar which I recorded with my he made,
Charlotte Rush at Inventium. So it's it wasn't asked Me Anything event that we put on for free at the end of July when Melbourne was heading into very harsh Stage four lockdowns and we just kind of wanted to do our bit to help and answer questions that people had on their mind. So, even though it was recorded a couple of months ago, I still think that there's so much relevant stuff in here. It was recorded live, so the sound quality is a little more rough than
I normally have on how I work. And as I said, I was interviewed for this by Charlotte Rush, who was an organizational psychologist and a wonderful member of my team at Inventium, someone that I worked with for about four years. So we had hundreds of people email in questions and we cover a bunch of different topics and this ask me anything from productivity to well being, to motivation, innovation, creativity, energy,
all sorts of things. And also, if you want to be notified of future ask Me anythings that I do, go to the Inventium website that's inventium dot com dot are you and just sign up to receive our newsletter and you'll be notified about future ask Me Anything.
So on that.
Note, let's head over to be Ask Me Anything event with me.
All right, so everyone, welcome along. So we've got you for the next hour. And essentially what's happening is that you have submitted hundreds of questions. We've gone through those questions and tried to pick the questions where we're seeing the most common themes. We've broken those questions down into a few different areas and we'll be going through those questions. So I will be asking your questions to Amantha. So
I will ask you first a question, Amantha. I just would love to get you to share, like how you are and how you're finding is two point zero in Melbourne.
I'm finding it not too bad or things considered, like, I do love working from home and I've also got my daughter Frankie with me half the time, so that's really fun.
Homeschooling not as fun.
But for those that are homeschooling in Melbourne, I can empathize because it's bloody nightmare, let's face it. And yeah, I think I think that I'm missing most is just like having friends around, Like it'll be really exciting when they just ease that particular guideline of having been able to visit friends and stuff and all the playdates.
But otherwise, all things considered, I'm not too bad.
I think it's interesting you always want that next thing, do you, because in Sydney we're still allowed to have friends over. But now I know I'm missing the actual events that I could go. Do not have that many events birthday parties, for example. I think that people plan which norm wants to plan through.
COVID, Oh my god, events.
I don't even remember what events feel like, and I don't even remember what an airport feels like. I was saying this to someone else like a couple of days ago, who also travels a lot.
I'm like, I haven't been in an airport for five months. It used to be in them every week. It's really really weird.
Alright, awesome, And so I guess I wanted to check in with you in terms of what you would love for people to walk away from today with. I mean, what is what's your intention for this session?
Look, we're going to cover quite a lot of different ground in this session, So Sharon, I look through all the questions and thank you so much to everyone that took the time to send in a question or two or three. I've tried to pick ones where I feel like, you know, I see like I can add some value back.
Like my hope would be everyone walks away with.
At least just one thing, if not several things that they can try to do differently and maybe pass on to other people in their lives that might be struggling with stuff as well.
Awesome, Okay, cool. So I want to share with you just a quick summary of those things that we're going to be covering off. So we've got a few different things. We're going to talk about motivation and so thinking about energy levels, and you know, I think that there's been this sense of groundhog day where it feels like every day feels the same, and so how do you maintain a sense of motivation around general life but also work.
Then we're going to talk about collaboration, meetings and communication. We'll also talk about managing stress and anxiety, and so obviously going into ISO two point zero from Melbourne and as well maintaining everything that's been happening for the last few months with COVID around Australia in general. You know that stress is really starting to build and so how
do we deal with that. We are also going to talk about innovation and creativity and productivity and distractions, so two areas that we really help a lot of clients and organizations with, so we're going to jump into that and then finally a little bit of managing energy. So it's just a little bit of a summary if you are wondering where we're headed. We're going to be covering off a range of questions in those sorts of areas.
So let's get start with motivation. And so the first question that I've got to ask you, Omantha is this is a pretty broad question, but there were lots of questions about this. How do you keep motivated during lockdown and how do you motivate yourself to get out of bed on a chilly winter morning?
Great questions is so many about motivation.
One of my favorite theories in psychology is self determination theory, and Shara and I have actually been doing a lot of work and research around this theory for a project that we're working on at the moment. And one way of thinking about this is that they're based on this theory.
There are three ingredients.
To feeling like really driven and excited to start your work day. So the first thing is autonomy. So I know, for me and my role, because Inventing is the business that I started, I don't have a boss and haven't had a boss for fourteen years, so obviously I've got
a lot of autonomy. But it's something that I really do think about with the team, and I know Mish, our CEO, thinks about a lot just in terms of how we structure things, Like we run a holocracy in Inventing, which means there no one's got a formal manager, so everyone has a great deal of autonomy. Everyone sees the company goals, and then everyone takes responsibility for setting their own individual goals.
So if you are a leader, thinking about how can you give.
People more autonomy and also for yourself, what can you do in your situation, whether you have a boss or not, to think about how can you find or create more autonomy and freedom to work on the things that you want to work on, or.
Alternatively or can currently decide.
How you approach the tasks and projects that you're working on. So it's the first thing. Second thing is mastery. So having a role where you can learn and feel yourself getting better, acquiring new skills, becoming a master at those skills, that sort of stuff is super important. So I know, for example, for Shara and I, we happen to be working a lot together at the moment quite intensively on one particularly being project, but also one up and coming project.
And I know for me and I don't know like for you.
Sha, like I'm getting that motivation through that project, Like we're both learning so much about all this new research and creating new frameworks and IP and I'm finding that super exciting. You know, it's distinct from like working with old ipeak, which we also do a lot as well. I'm imagining Shaw you're probably getting the same buzz that I am.
From that, yes, agree, yeah, yeah, to.
Have those moments where you're really getting deep into something and feeling that sense of developing over time as opposed to just rehashing things. It just kind of puts you in this sense where you're actually looking for those new opportunities because you're learning so much, and so then you're looking for those ways to apply those learnings as well.
Yeah, exactly, so autonomy, mastery, and the final one is connection. So the other thing that is really important to motivation is feeling that human connection and feeling like you're in a team in a workplace where you belong super important, but also, like you know, if you're struggling to find the connection with your team, it might also be looking for points of connection outside of your team or even
your organization. So for me, I feel very connected with my team, and I think almost every day, if not every day, I would have one on one chats or group meetings with people in my team. But what I'm also mindful of is also having that connection outside of work.
So I will plan.
Even just mini breaks where I'll go for a walk obviously.
Wearing a mask now, and I will like plan that.
Time to check in with friends, like particularly my closest girlfriends, and we speak every day, if not multiple times a day. So it's just really nice having that connection points. So they're the three key ingredients to think about with motivation. If any one of those is missing, not great. If all three of those are missing, you're probably really struggling.
To get out of bed right now.
So think about how can you create one of at least one of those three aspects.
I think it's a really good way to look at it in terms of self diagnosing and asking yourself what am I missing today or what did I not have yesterday, which is influencing how easy or not it is for me to get out of bed this morning, because it's not like you go to bed and it just resets.
Yeah, exactly, and yeah it doesn't like and these are things that are sustained over time as well. It's not like, oh, today I might try to just get some connection in my life. It's like, no, how can you try to get this in a sustained way for the next few months at least?
All Right, So the next question is related to this in the sense of working from home full time, and the novelty is definitely something to wear off. It's getting harder and harder to motivate myself some days because my couch and heater looks so inviting, and I feel like I'm more reactive rather than proactive. What are your tips to shake this off?
Yeah, when I get into bad productivity habits, I can definitely relate and I feel that reactivity. And whenever I feel like I've had a few days or even a week or two of filling my days are more reactive than proactive, I feel like I need to do a
bit of a reset. And I spoke about this on how I work actually flip the microphone so to speak, and interviewed myself last week on the podcast, and I go into a lot of this stuff, but more briefly, what I've done lately and what I'm trying is that at Inventum, we have a six month rhythm for goal setting where we use OKAYRS, objectives and key results. A.
Intel and Google have.
A read of what is It It's my bookshelf here somewhere Measure What Matters by John Dora. This is like the best book on goal setting you'll find at Google and Ittel.
I used to it quarterly.
We find six monthly works best for us, So then we've got our six month okayrs for the first half of the financial year. I then break that down into where do I need to be at the end of the quarter, Where do I need to be at the end of the month, Where do I need to be at the end of the week.
Then what I do.
Is I have a white board that I've set up just like a basic can band board, so to do doing done basic cam band board, I deliberately make an analogue and tag childs. For me, that's really important, and I basically every week I think what are the big things that I need to achieve this week to stay on track with my goals, and for me, that means
that my week is proactive from the start. I typically do planning on Thursday afternoon because we're not working Friday as an inventor, but we may or may not get into that a little bit later with our four day week that we're trialing at the moment, and I find that I feel a huge sense of progress from moving my post it notes along that can band board, and it just means that I know that I'm staying on top of things. So that's that's that would be my advice. Canban so c A so KA n B A M if.
You're looking to Google that it's like an agile tool.
And I think you make that good point in the sense that you are obviously someone who has really good habits, but those habits can slip, and those habits can change, and just sense checking with yourself in terms of when those habits slip and when you need to do a bit of a reset.
Yes, exactly.
All right, let's move into the next category of questions, which is all about collaboration and relationships. So this is obviously a big topic and there are a few questions that were kind of related. So if I just kind of go through some of those questions, I'm going to give you, like I guess, a mega question to answer. So, how can I ignite my team when lockdown two point zero happens and everyone is zoomed out already? So team
building on zoom isn't really that appealing anymore. How do we maintain good, strong collaboration and communication in the virtual environment when we don't have the water cooler chats? And then we've got another person who's just started a new role in the last few weeks, which has been bizarre whilst working remotely. I'm seeking your advice on how to build relationships and learn about a new team and role when I'm remote and don't get the benefit of learning biosmosis.
Yes, some really interesting questions there. My favorite researcher on this topic is Professor Jane Batton, who talks about this concept called high quality connections. So high quality connections, she defines them as been marked by mutual positive regard, trust, and active engagement on both sides. So when you have that high quality connection with someone, you feel more open, you feel more alive, more energize, those sorts of things. So I'll give three tips on how to form high
quality connections. The first, which seems very obvious but it really happens these days, is to be present, right, So just get rid of distractions, like, for example, if you're calling a coworker or on a zoom chat with a co worker, like, get rid of your distractions, shout like, put your phone upside down, put it on, do not disturb, close your emails, so Jane Dutton shak and type your name into the chat box if you want to google it. So, yeah, just be really present. Try not to let your mind
drift off on other things. That is the first second, which kind of follows on from being present, is to listen. So when I was researching with this, I found this interesting statistic that we can comprehend an average of six hundred spoken words per minute, but when we speak, we speak at about one hundred to one hundred and fifty.
Words per minute.
And so what that means is that people have a hard time listening because they're like, come on, come on, speak faster because I can process faster, and then our mind gets bored because we're waiting, and then we drift. So think about that the next time you're listening and wondering why is my mind feeling like drifting? And to be a good listener, be empathic, but also be an active listener paraphrase back to check that you've heard properly.
I'm halfway through a book called You're Not Listening, which is written by a journalist and is quite is quite an interesting book around why we're not good at listening and how to get better at listening. The third thing that I'll say, which shah run around, actually an activity in this for a team thing that we're doing Inventium is a really cool exercise which you can do to get to know someone that you don't really know that
well is find uncommon commonalities. And what shar did with our group, which he did, all know each other quite well, but she gave us sixty seconds where she broke us out into pairs in zoom and we had sixty seconds to find an uncommon commonality, which is something that you have in common with your pair, but is actually quite an unusual thing to have in common, Like, you know,
I've got a mum and a dad. That's not an uncommon commonality, but like I'm obsessed with Broadway musical theater, slightly uncommon.
And so with my pair, who was Katie.
I'm not sure if Katie, who's our organizational psychology placement student that we've got at the moment, who is awesome. I was paired with Katie, and within sixty seconds we both worked out that we went through an obsessive serial killer phase where we both had read, like I don't know, five ten books all about serial killers, which is kind of weird.
So there are a few things I.
Think what's interesting when Jane Dutton talks about high quality connections, it doesn't have to be someone that you know for a long amount of time. It's actually it can be something that happens in a really short space of time. I think she gives an example of how she was about to go into an interview with Adam Grant and she's sitting there in the office back in the days
when we went places physically. She's got a piece of paper and she's trying to write some notes, but her pen wasn't working, and the receptionist saw that and came over and without even Jane asking, brought her a pen and was like, is this going to help you? And Jane said that that was a moment of really feeling like she'd been seen and someone had recognized that she needed something, even though she hadn't had to voice it, And that was a high quality connection even though she
didn't even know this person. So this isn't something where you have to know people really, really deeply. You can form these really through short interactions.
That's such a cool story. I love that.
So the next question is I create a lot of opportunities by bumping into people in the corridor and kitchen, et cetera. Now that I work from home, my work is drying out. How can you recreate those encounters in a virtual world.
I'm finding I'm getting this question a lot, like in virtual keynotes and stuff that I'm delivering, Like how do you recreate those just those serendipitous moments, Like people talk about Steve Jobs when he was at Pixar. He made the kitchen and the toilets in a really central place so he can encourage people bumping into each other. And just those serendipitous ideas kind of came about that way, and I still think they can come about, but in different ways. Like an example that happened to me a
couple of months ago. So Micha CEO emailed me just this totally random email going.
Hey have you thought about blah?
And blah was like a potential opportunity but like really broad at that stage, and it just like planted a seed in my head. I thought about it for a couple of days, and then I replied and I said, Oh, what do you reckon about this?
This and this? And then Misch writes back and she's like, oh, I really like that. And then we got on the phone and we sort.
Of nutted it out a little bit and we're like, okay, so what would we need to do to actually get this off the ground. It wasn't necessarily something we had to experiment with. It was more like, oh, we've just identified this opportunity just through this serendipitous email. That's how it started, and then within two months it's now become like one of the biggest projects and we're launching it in a few weeks time that we're working on an inventium.
So you can find all sorts.
Of ways, And I kind of think, well, email worked for me, just like random thought sharing.
Who knows what will happen.
So DEA's got a question to follow up on that, which they've asked, how do you create those meaningful connections and make sure people feel seen when you can't see them?
And I'm assuming that like physically seen as opposed to metaphorically seen.
So I learned this from Adam.
Grant Vis, the organizational psychologist that Shah mentioned before as a professor at Wharton and on Work Life his podcast, he talks about the research suggests that we actually engage in better connections over the phone as opposed to zoom, and we're actually better at reading people's emotions when it's a phone call. There's also less impression management going on
with Zoom. What I mean by impression management is if you have not hidden yourself view when you're doing video conferencing, whatever platform you're using, then you are impression managing yourself visually. You're conscious of what you look like visually, and that requires quite a lot of brain power. And therefore, if you're using brain power on yourself and what you physically look like, you don't have enough brainpower then to be focusing on the connection. So phone really good.
And to follow up on that, I guess I would say that even if you can't see people physically, I guess it takes that extra empathy and caring of you know, putting yourself in other people's shoes and thinking about what are they facing and even though you can't see them and see, oh, they look kind of stressed today, I guess it takes that caring about your team, thinking what are they going through and reaching out to them even if you aren't physically with them. Let's get into the
next category of questions, which is around meetings. The joy of meetings, So is remote working and remote meetings more effective when everyone is remote? I feel like it is because when there was one or two people who are remote, they were often left out. Similarly, people would wait to see somebody in the office to solve a problem. However, I'd like to know if there is any evidence around this.
Yeah, So I think a really good example here is from Trello. So Trello they.
Create software like project management software, I guess it is, and they're about a five hundred person company and they have worked remote for many years, so completely remote workforce.
They do have a head office in New York.
They have a rule where if one person is remote, everyone's remote. So what that means and this is something we adopted in Inventium. So for our team meetings, most of us were in the Melbourne office and some of us were in New South Wales and so I.
Was in the Philippines. And so rather than all.
Of Melbourne getting in the same room and dialing in everyone else via zoom, which we used to do, which was an awful experience for everyone that wasn't in Melbourne because we'd have all this annoying banter going in Melbourne that would get lost in the sound. And so we then moved to the Trello model where if one person's remote, everyone's remote. So we'd all sit at our desks in Melbourne, even though we're practically side by side, and we'd all dial into Zoom. Now, obviously we all have to do
it that way. I interviewed Dom Price, who's head of R and D and the work futuristed at Lassian, and he said that Lassian adopted that Trello approach. They acquired Trello a couple of years ago. So, yes, if one person's remote, everyone should be a remote.
It's a good rule to have.
I personally have benefited from that. I've loved the fact that now everyone is joining on Zoom and I'm not feeling guilty that you're all sitting on top of each other, but having to log in remind me. Okay, So the next question is again, it's two kind of two questions that are related. I'm finding it difficult to maintain my professionalism during work interactions due to feeling more relaxed at home.
Help before I send another inappropriate meme i'll regret. And the second one, I initially tried to hold up a certain style in online meetings, for example, wearing more elegant clothes and not slipping into my comfy mode. However, over time it seems like everyone has become very casual, even having meetings from their bed. I'm not sure about that much. Lais fair and my old fashioned or is this a good thing?
I mean, this is such a good thing, and I just like I can't get enough COVID meetings quite frankly, I feel like I'm probably responsible for half of the things that are shared in our Inventium chat group. But this is great, Like, it's great when people like have this, Like my pet hate is people that use a virtual zoom background that has company branding. Apologies if I've just offended anyone who might have set that policy for their company,
but it destroys the personal connection. And we know when we can kind of get this insight into people's personal lives, which you can through being more relaxed in how you dress or having the background of your bedroom or your kitchen or whatever in the background. Is like it leads to those higher quality connections that we just talked about
from Jane Dutton. So I think this is a brilliant thing that this is happening, and please do more of it rather than less of it, because you will also drive connection, circling back to what we first started talking about in terms of connection, mastery, and autonomy being the three critical ingredients for motivation.
All right, let's move into the next category, which is about communication. So the question is how do we manage those difficult or confrontational conversations in the virtual workplace that we previously would have said were better to have in person. Zoom somehow feels more impersonal than the phone.
Yeah, well this is kind of interesting. So what I said before about you know, we're better at reading emotions over the phone, counterintuitively, I'd actually recommend having these conversations over the phone.
It's easier because you can read people better, and as I said before, there's less impression management going on usually, so you'll probably get a more authentic discussion going on over the phone. Now, there's this great article that I read in HBr.
This is from a few years ago. A few things that this article recommended.
I love the title, it's how to have difficult conversations when you don't like conflict, which, you know, let's face it, it's probably all of us.
Just a few things from the article.
So begin from a place of curiosity and respect I find this very helpful because normally you're beginning from a place of fear, like you're scared about having this conversation if you're someone like me that doesn't like having conflict. But if you begin from a place of respecting the other person and being curious as to like, how can you find a resolution to what's going on, far better mind frame. Stop worrying about being liked again, that's a big reason why we hate conflict.
Most us have a very high need to be liked. That's not the point here.
The point is to you know, if it's a difficult conversation, possibly to deliver feedback for example, and also focus on what you're.
Hearing, not what you're saying.
We can get so caught up in preparing for difficult conversations where we're thinking about our script and practicing it. Forget about that, I mean prepare, but focus on what you're hearing. It's not about you, it's about them. And finally, expect a positive outcome. Don't go in kind of going, oh my god, this conversation is going to be awful. Actually expect it to be really productive and expect maybe to learn something from it.
Awesome and so The next question is around those casual online catch ups that think we've all been having with our teams, whether that's Friday afternoon, a happy hour, or you know, lunchtime meetings as well with the team. So one person's asked a question around them and saying that we've been having those casual learn catch ups with the team, but they're not hitting the spot. Suspect that it's a whole group thing and you missed the little one on
one moments. What can I do? I don't want to seem like a grumph for opting out because I really value my team.
Yeah, I can relate to this.
We're trialing something at the moment and inventia where we've got this Wednesday afternoon catch up. We used to have this Friday kind of I don't want to call it team building. It was just like games.
Really. Someone would bring along a game that we could play.
Virtually, like Pictionary or Wheel of Fortune or something like that.
And we'd play games.
And my number one strength according to our recent strength profiling activity is competitiveness. So that worked really well for me, even though I didn't win many weeks, but.
That was kind of fun.
But then we because we're doing the four day week, we're not working Fridays, and then Thursdays.
Is always like a pretty full unday.
So we're trying to get everything done so that we can have gift of the fifth with what we call it, so the gift of time. On Friday, it's not work, and so now we're like, oh, maybe Wednesday afternoon, let's hang out as a team and just hit chat.
And while it's I don't know, shah, you.
Found it and obviously like we need to debrief as a team because it's an experiment. So where we're running it for I think two or three wednesdays to see what we think about it. I don't know, I'm not quite sold on it.
What did you think of it? Chat?
Well, Amanda, especially when you say the mandatory team meeting, like like you must be there because we had an optional an optional lunch beforehand and no one opted in, which is telling some people opted in sometimes, but you wouldn't know who will when.
But to answer the question rather than to segue and possibly like dilute the experiment. Now that I've shared my opinion, I think just making time for those one on one catch ups is really important, Like I know for me. For example, Kez and I every Monday afternoon we have like a one on one check in, so Kez, she's kind of like my hand on quite a few things that I work on, and we never get straight to work.
We'll probably do like ten to fifteen minute.
Debrief about our weekend, about the latest date that we've been, something like that, and it's just really nice. It's that moment of connection and I love my Monday chats with Kez and then we finally get onto work stuff. But I think I totally get that, and as an introvert, I much prefer one on one catch up, so I find them so much more enriching than big group things.
So hopefully that helped.
To help this person who's asked this question. Something that we do at in menting we obsess about is we literally experiment with everything, So we literally are constantly trying to find out what's going to add the most value and what's going to really solve problems. And so we treat every team meeting as like this is here for a reason, We're not just meeting for no reason, and is the way that we're doing this achieving that or solving that problem? And so we're constantly asking could we
do this better? And so maybe with those group meetings, it's actually asking everyone to share their feedback in terms of what is the purpose of this and are we actually achieving that purpose? Because if the purpose is to catch up and connect with people in a more meaningful way, maybe doing that in a group format is not achieving that, and maybe you need another format, or maybe you need
to throw out the old format. But maybe adopting that kind of experiment of mindset and asking your team to share some feedback in terms of what could we do to make this more impactful. All right, let's move into the next category, which is around managing stress and anxiety. One person has asked, I would love to explore how to best engage and support colleagues who are balancing competing demands so work, remote learning life during lockdown.
When I was thinking about this one, I think about and I think this quote comes originally from Voltare.
So Voltaire has said the best is.
The enemy of good, I think in more common vernacular and something I hear people say perfect is the enemy of good. So I would say, like, adjust your expectations, adjust your expectations for the colleagues that are balancing a whole lot of stuff, and also adjust the expectations you have on yourself right now. Aim to be good, don't
aim to be perfect. This is something that I am experiencing. Granted, like I do have help with homeschooling, but when I don't have help with homeschooling, when I'm trying to do invent him and be a teacher. Although I mean, my daughter Frankie's teachers are amazing, but she's six and a half. She's not sitting there like doing maths on her own. And I've heard this like because all the year one parents have a WhatsApp group, so we're constantly sharing strategies slash having a winge.
You know.
Someone on the WhatsApp group said, I just aim to do half a day of school. If we can get through to one o'clock and get Mass in English done, then that's a great day. And I thought, that's bloody awesome.
I love that.
And also I used to be incredibly st with screen time with Frankie. Frankie was allowed one.
Hour a week.
That changes in Lockdown one version one, the original, not the sequel, So Frankie's allowed like an hour a day, like granted, everything has to be done by then, and it's always in the afternoon, so she doesn't turn into a monster in the morning. Not that she turns into a monster, but she gets more screen time now because it's like, well, I got to do what I got to do, and if I've got a meeting at four o'clock, Frankie is not just going to entertain herself at that time.
So yeah, perfect is the enemy of good folks, and.
So adjusting your expectations, I guess for yourself as well as those people in your team that you're trying to support exactly, all right. So some more questions around managing stress and anxiety. One person said, I have roller coaster emotions. One day, I'm productive and positive, the next I'm eating ice cream for breakfast and want to crawl into a ball. Is this normal? Another person's asked, I have anxiety generally,
but now it is significantly heightened. What can I do to stop the negative thoughts railroad in my day?
Yeah, So I think that, like this is such a common experience, and you know, it's like it's so hard, Like I think, you know, if you're someone that is prone to feeling anxious or feeling stressed normally, like this situation is obviously going to like heighten that experience. I am a huge believer in actually getting external support, like actually seeing a professional to help manage these things.
I think that is absolutely critical.
I know myself as a psychologist, I think it's really important for me.
To more often than not be seeing a psychologist.
So I see a fantastic psychologist to help me be mentally healthier, I do think though. My favorite book that I've read around managing anxiety and stress is The Happiness Trap by Russ Harris. I read this years and years ago when it first came out, and it's probably the book that I would gift the most to people that are having a hard time in their lives. The book is basically a summary of ACT, which stands for Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. One strategy from ACT that I think
is really helpful is a strategy called cognitive diffusion. ACT is really all about untangling your thoughts and thinking of your thoughts as the reality as opposed to what they are, which is simply just words going on in your head. So cognitive diffusion involves, for example, instead of saying I'm going to fail which is probably a thought that you have if you know kind of a feeling anxious or stressed about something, say to yourself, I'm having the thought
that I'm going to fail. So actually creating distance between the thought and yourself. So creating that space. That's a very subtle difference, but it actually does make a difference because it makes you go, that's just a thought, like it's not the reality.
There's this fantastic quote to completely.
Bastardize it that says, all of the most stressful things that happened in my life never actually happened, I eate, they were just things that I thought about.
I think that's so interesting because I think that that is you mentioned it. It's like subtle, but it is so important to recognize that what you're thinking is not real it is it is just thoughts. And so just getting that distance and like you said, diffusing or unhooking, you know, kind of detaching yourselfs something that's really resonated with me with that book and for anyone who's interested.
Russ Harris also does an online course where he teaches you about act and if any of you have colleagues who think are at risk of burnout or of feeling anxious. Then one thing you can do to help them is, just like a Mantha mentioned, gift them with a copy of this book. It's it's not a big book. It's it's really easy to read, and he's written it in a sense that you can do activity throughout it to
really help yourself get those immediate benefits. All right, let's move into the next topic, which is a bit of a gearshift. We're talking about innovation. So one of the questions is do you believe local businesses are generally capable and successful at innovating or do you recommend they reach out for expert help one.
Hundred percent they're capable of innovating. I think there's so many examples of this right now, particularly in hospitality. Yeah.
I mean, like literally every cafe and restaurant that has survived COVID thus far, they've pivoted their business model. They're now doing takeaway and home delivery if they won't. And likewise, you know so many local alcohol manufacturers producing hand sanitizer.
Like I think that there's there's so much innovation going on with local businesses, and I think it's like it's not a nice to have, Like if you're going to survive what is going on at the moment, and we'll probably continue to go on for quite a bit longer. It's happening all over the place, Like you absolutely have to do.
You need expert help.
Look, I mean, I think I want to reframe that as external help, you know, like you don't need to bring in you know, if you're a small business like big shot consultants. There's so many great books out there. Yes, in Bentium, you know, we do occasionally help small businesses, certainly through our online learning around innovation. So there's I think, just know that there's really structured and approaches to make
innovation a whole lot easier. So if you are running a small business and listening, I think that, yes, get help, because with help you can make it a whole lot easier for yourself. But yeah, innovation is not nice to have right now.
The next question is innovation. What is your view on that intercession and in the new normal in twenty twenty one?
Yes, really good questions.
So there's there's been quite a lot written about this, a lot of research done based on past recessions. You know, I think there's like what we're going through at the moment. It's very different on like a number of different variables. So one of the keys is having the right balance
of offense and defense. I think a lot of companies the trill inclination is to go into defense mode and risk aversion mode and just like cut costs and just kind of get really nervous about trying new things because yeah, that's that's kind of what we do when we're scared.
We don't want to try new things, we want to just stick with the same.
Then, you know, you also do get companies that are like, Okay, we're going to use this as an opportunity to innovate, and they're just like really gung ho and like pursuing opportunities but not actually doing anything to protect the business or defend or you know, make things more sustainable. So the optimal, the optimal thing to do is to find the right balance of doing both.
And it's not as simple as just do both. It's finding the right balance.
So the companies, based on past recessions that have come out most successfully financially, they have been very selective with their defensive moves. So, for example, they have cut costs by improving operational efficiency rather than just slashing head count, but they've also been very selective on their offensive moves as well in terms of where they've picked their opportunities.
Okay, and the next question is around idea generation and creativity, and so quite a few questions around this in terms of do you have any tips for increasing creativity and brainstorming while we're working from home? It seems like every meeting I have someone who's looking at a different screen or phone or otherwise distracted, which affects the group's ability to think creatively.
And Shah, I actually want to switch over to you to add this because you've been running.
So many ideation workshops and I have not, so I want to actually hear your tips in terms of what's been working well, because you're getting rave reviews from all our clients, So what's.
Been working for you?
Yeah, So we trialed out using some of those virtual whiteboard software apps, so Mirror for example, a mural, and I think that they're really helpful and really useful. What we've kind of landed on in terms of how we were doing this, if we think about logistically how we're managing this with our clients, is we're doing everything via Zoom using breakouts using editable PDFs or templates and Google
docs and things like that. So I guess what I would say is that you know, there's plenty of software out out there to help you, but in terms of how to really keep people engaged and how to make this work for you, firstly, I would say that you need to be really clear on the challenge that you're
trying to solve. So if people are distracted or they're not engaged, you know, really think about is this a worthwhile challenge for us to be solving and for these people who I've invited to be solving, and making sure you're framing that challenge in terms of a problem to be solved for a specific customer or group of customers, and really framing that in a really inspirational way in
terms of an opportunity. So making sure that you're starting with a good challenge and not just you know, approaching brainstorming or creativity with a really scattergun approach. It actually is a really rigorous process that you should be going through and not just defaulting to let's just get everyone together and just get a lot of jop down ideas, because we know that that is not the best way
to encourage good ideas or creative ideas. The second thing I want get you to think about is whether you need to do this at the same time, synchronously or asynchronously so you can still engage in creativity and get people to put their ideas forward when we're not live together. So you know, you might be getting people to do this offline and then submitting. But if you do decide to do it synchronously, so at the same time via zoom for example, I would be making sure that you're
capturing those ideas live. So we create a PowerPoint template. We've got a really simple news slash template we call it. It's just a really simple one page and when we get people to capt their ideas as they're going and we basically break people into break out group and have one scribe per group and then so that that's a really easy way to not only capture those ideas and share them afterwards. And then I guess the final thing is to make sure that you've really got that structure.
So again, like I said, this is not just a free for all. Making sure that you've got a really tight agenda and you're not just saying to people, give us your best ideas, So using stimulus to really push people to think into new areas and using rounds to break people down into Okay, for this activity, we're going to do this. For this activity, we're going to do this.
So we've got lots of tools around that. And actually one of our colleagues, Zoe, she ran a webinar the other week where she put together a bit of a kit around running virtual brainstorming sessions. So if you're interested, we can share you the link for that. All right, so let's move into email and productivity and distractions. Maybe just one question here, So well, I'm.
Going to go I'm just going to go like rapid fire chat.
So if you want to like pick a few out, it's like going to be really time with my answers.
Okay, Email traffic in lockdown increases, making us actually less efficient your comments and strategies.
Okay, two things. Firstly, bat your email checking.
What bats your email checking is is just like get in your inbox maybe three or four times a day for like twenty minutes, go hard, then get out, like close it down. And also think about what your email workflow is, like what is your approach to actually checking emails? One of my favorite things that I've heard on the podcast was Laura May Martin, who's Google's executive productivity Advisors. She advises execs at Google's how to be more Productive. I'm going to post a link to this interview in
the chat box. She went through basically what the workflow she recommends is to spend less time in your inbox.
All right, another listener, I loves all the productivity tips and tricks that you share, but often struggles with momentum and slipping back into old ways. In short, how do I create good habits?
Firstly, I would say, is this actually a motivation issue, in which case.
Go back to the very beginning of this webinar, we've talked about motivation or is it about habits? So my favorite book on habit change would be Tiny Habits by Bjfog. The thing that bj Fog says that I really love is how to make a habit stick is to make sure that there's positive reinforcement coming out.
The other side.
So I think about, how can you create a little bit of a positive buzz in feeling and that will make you more likely more likely for a habit to be sticky. So, for example, which with my deep work sprint kind of habits that I've got at the moment, I feel really awesome at the end because I've achieved something and I can physically move that post it note across my kanban board columns, which feels really awesome, and that has made my current deeport habit really sticky.
I'm finding that by the end of the work week, I'm pooped like more than an only would how do you suggest staying energized with this endless working from home? And this is from the category of managing energy obviously.
Yes, so the final category. So look, I reckon this is all about breaks.
It's really easy to not take breaks because a lot of us are in back to back zoom meetings or whatever. Try to get into the habit of at least having speedy meetings, which is a setting in Google where you like all your meetings are like fifty minutes or twenty
five meetings. Research into breaks would suggest that rather than having one half hour break, our energy is so much higher if we actually have six five minute breaks and we go for a walk for that five minute period, so same amount of time thirty minutes, but just break it up into shorter breaks and get moving. That is the best way to take breaks, and breaks are critical for maintaining your energy right now.
And is there anything else that you wanted to just add before we wrap up a in terms of you wanted to cover today that you haven't had a chance to.
Yeah, Look, I think with distractions, because there were a lot of distraction type questions. One of my favorite books here is Indistractable by Near Ear, And I just think motivation, I think is often a root cause when we're looking at distractions and procrastinations, which I think is a big
issue for a lot of us right now. My favorite tip from near is a tip called surfing the wave, where if you're feeling like if you're trying to get work done, but you're like, oh, let me just check email because I'm feeling stuck or unmotivated or something negative, try to surf the wave, which.
Basically means just say to yourself, Okay.
I'm just gonna spend ten more minutes in this task that is really hard but important. And then if after ten minutes, I'm still craving, like you know, checking my email or making a cup of tea or whatever, then go for it.
Give in to it.
But chances are the feeling will have evaporated and you'll be back in the zone. So I really do love that tip from the book. And there was a question around how do your balance work in homeschooling. Perfect is the enemy of good folks. Just be good, just your expectations.
Awesome.
Thanks A, so thank you for coming along. It's been so great to have you. And thanks Samantha. Loved chatting with you again.
Thank the shower. That was awesome.
That is it for today's show. I hope you got some useful tactics and strategies from the range of topics that we covered in this episode.
And if you liked it, I.
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