Category: Articles

What you will get: Clarity on how to boost motivation using feedback.

 

Welcome to your brand new e-zine!

 

You know recently I’ve found myself bursting with thoughts, reflections and tools that I just want to share with you.

 

And as you may know, I’m passionate about helping you to become happier, more successful and create your ideal lifestyle.

 

So I’ve decided to start this weekly e-zine – where every Monday I will give you free’ advice, tools and ideas from my years of working with emotional intelligence, performance and leadership.

 

So let’s get started with edition 1!

 


“What can you learn from Lithuanian beggars and from children?”

 

I thought he was going to hit him.

 

There I was, enjoying a cool glass of Chardonnay and minding my own business when the beggar reacted.

 

I was sitting outside a regular watering hole, in the heart of Vilnius old town.
A place where beggars often approach you and ask for any small change you can spare.

 

I’d been observing this one beggar for about half an hour, during which time he made several unsuccessful attempts to get some money from punters.

 

But one tourist really triggered a reaction in the beggar.

 

You see…

 

He completely ignored him.
No eye contact.
No recognition.
No respect.

 

The more the beggar asked for some kind of acknowledgement that he existed, the more the tourist ignored him.

 

Until the point that the beggar’s blood was boiling – and he even lifted his arm to attack.

 

(thankfully the waitress jumped in at this point and he walked away)

 

So this got me thinking that beggars are no different to children.

 

And what’s more…

 

Children are no different to adults.

 

What am I talking about?

 

Feedback and respect.

 

You see, there are 3 types of attention we can give another human being:

 

Positive attention (Yes please)
Negative attention (Better than nothing)
No attention at all (No thanks)

 

So the beggar, when I politely refused his request for cash with direct eye contact and a warm smile, walked away with a reciprocal smile.

 

When other’s told him to go away in an aggressive tone, at least they recognized he existed.

 

But ignoring him as if he was “nothing”
Now that made him

 

And it’s just the same with kids.

 

Positive attention is their favourite, and if they can’t get that they get your attention my doing something they shouldn’t. That’s still better than being ignored.

 

How do you feel if people ignore you?

 

So how can this help you improve performance?

 

Well it’s all about feedback culture you see.
Time and time again people have told me that they hate working in a place where they get no feedback at all.

 

This is even worse than negative feedback.

 

So maybe it’s time to review and change your feedback culture and make sure you:

 

Give plenty of authentic, positive praise for who people are (“I love your enthusiasm”) and what they do “(That was a really great presentation”)
Give useful, clear, specific and constructive feedback for what people could improve (“I think the technical language in the first 2 pages could be simplified to help the reader”)
Never, ever give no feedback at all.

 

Give it a try and see what happens to your team’s motivation around you.

 

And one day it may just stop a Lithuanian beggar hitting you!

 

Your success partner

 

 

 

 

 

Steve Neale
“Europe’s Leading Expert on Personal and Professional Growth”

 

Want more time, less stress and better results?

 

The Limbic Performance System for Outstanding Leadership is here to help you – Steve Neale’s BRAND NEW online leadership programme.  Click here  to watch an exciting new video all about the LPS!

Try asking the average person on the street what their values are, and don’t be surprised if they struggle to answer. The truth is, most people don’t have clarity on what their values are and how these values impact on them every single day of their lives.

Given that your values are the foundation of your life, trigger what makes you happy and unhappy, form the basis of your decision making and indeed are lie at the route of your judgement of others, I think it’s about time we started a values revolution – giving everyone the gift of knowing and understanding their values and how to use them in daily life.

So let’s explore this vital yet often unclear topic in more depth.

So first of all, what exactly are values?

Hyrum Smith defines values as

“what we believe to be of the greatest importance and of the highest priority in our lives”

The truth is, nobody can really prove in the scientific sense what values are, but it makes sense to see them as hard wired pathways in the brain – which are linked to our beliefs. Whether they are innate or develop due to our culture and upbringing is also unclear. Common sense says it is likely to be a combination of both. Sure there are some studies with identical twins who appear to have very different values (suggesting our values are innate), but it is also hard to believe that our environment through our childhood years does not influence our values.

The way I explain values is as follows:

Values form and are pretty much decided by teenage years (nature or nurture or both)
Beliefs grow from those values
Those beliefs and values trigger emotions, thoughts and actions

So, for example, let’s say a friend asks you if you want to help her for a new sports club for young people and one of your top values is “Health”

You subconscious mind, where your values are hard wired, hears the question, and this “triggers” your “health” value pathway.
Connected to that general value of health you have lots of beliefs, and two of those beliefs are “sport is good for children” and “kids should get more exercise these days”
This triggers a positive emotion to the question, and you feel engaged and interested.
This triggers a thought: “Sounds interesting”
This triggers your behaviour and you ask your friend “I like the idea, so what exactly do you have in mind”

And you feel happy about this process because all of this is aligned to your value of health and the beliefs that are connected to it

And then later in the same day another friend, who works for Coca Cola, asks you this question:

“I want to do an event for kids to encourage them to drink more Coke, will you help me?”

Now you heard that the average half litre bottle of Coke contains about 24 teaspoons of white sugar – so you get a very different response to this question. You feel irritated by the request, which triggers a thought “no way” and leads to the response “actually I am pretty busy at the moment”

If you went ahead with this and helped the second friend, your value of health would always be in conflict with the action and you would just feel not quite right.

So this is just one example of how our values impact on our feelings, thoughts and behaviours every day. The next question is how can we learn more about our values and be clear on what they are?

Well, simply taking a logical approach to this and attempting to write a list or, even worse, choosing your values from a set list, won’t be effective. Why? Because values aren’t logical and they don’t exist in the logical part of your brain – they are hard wired in your limbic system (your subconscious brain)

So let’s late a less direct approach – try asking yourself these questions:

What do you love to do?
Why is it important to you?
What does it give you?
What else do you get from it?

Chances are you might have come up with a value there. For example:

What do you love to do? “Read books”
Why is it important to you? “Because I love to explore the world of fiction”
What does it give you? “It’s about learning”
What else do you get from it? “A change to imagine and create – yes it’s about creativity for me”
So the values of learning and creativity are important to you?
Yes they are

So just by asking the right questions, you can help another person to become much clearer on their values.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Once you have a value, you can then go on to explore how you interpret that value – what does it mean to you in everyday life?



May 2014

Steve Neale’s online programme, the Limbic Performance System for Outstanding Leadership, contains a comprehensive, step by step guide to understanding your Values, how to coach to help find Values and how to apply Values in your daily life.

Just click here for more information…

On a recent training course I remember one of the delegates telling me how tired she got from work because “(she) could never be her true self at work”. This is a statement I have heard so many times and it always surprises me how many people have this belief in their heads.

Many people say they can’t be their real selves at work and can only truly be themselves when at home or with close friends. It is a myth that you have to put on an act at work – any time you spend striving to be someone you are not will take effort and drain your energy. People can tell when you are not being authentic. Get used to being more honest, open and assertive in all situations – strive to be the real you more of the time.

So how do you do this. Well actually, you need to develop a combination of areas from the Limbic Performance System.

Firstly, you must understand and be clear on your Personal Values – what matters most to you and life. Then you must develop your sense of self worth to be able to value yourself enough to stay true to your core values, and state openly and respectfully how you feel if someone steps on your values.
You also need a high level of self awareness, to notice how your instinct will tell you if you are playing a role and in a way not true to yourself.
Add into the mix effective conflict handling skills and a clear understanding of your personality and you are well on the way to a life of authenticity.

And what if you don’t? Well remember, it’s easy and effortless being you but it takes a lot of energy and effort to not be you!



April 2014

All of the development areas mentioned in this blog are comprehensively covered in Steve Neale’s online programme, the Limbic Performance System for Outstanding Leadership.

Here’s a philosophical question (best suited to an armchair around the log fire and a bottle of wine):
Do you live in the world or does the world live in you?
Personally, I believe the world lives in you. So what you see, notice and choose to focus on in this world is just a reflection of your inner beliefs. So if you believe the world is a horrible, negative place (“Life’s a bitch and then you die” type thing) then don’t be surprised if you tend to notice lots of negative things about the world (and watch out, as you have a high chance of catching that horrible and spreading disease, “Victimitis”)

You see our internal belief systems act as a filter to select what our conscious brain notices in the world. Let’s face it, we are bombarded by far too much information and far too many stimuli each day for the so-called intelligent or rational part of our brain to be aware of all of it.

So we form beliefs that helps us delete, distort and select the information we notice (isn’t it strange how people always buy newspapers that just so happen to agree with their political beliefs).

So, rather than feeding ourselves on the daily diet of negativity, helped of course by the media and TV programs, I wonder what would happen if more and more people focused on what really brings us happiness. And surprise surprise, that’s not material wealth (The richest countries in the world just happen to have the highest levels of depression, suicide and mental illness, especially among the wealthiest families). According to psychological studies, sharing, giving to others, empathy, being rather than doing, bringing more joy into our life and the lives of others and noticing the positive more than the negative will all make us feel happier. And I wonder what would all this happy energy do for our chances of saving the planet? We have had the dark ages. We have had the middle ages. We have had the industrial age. I sincerely hope in many years to come people do not look back on this age as the age and materialism, unhappiness and destruction.



March 2014