Anecdotally, I’m hearing lots of stories of how people are reacting to the lifting of lockdown restrictions.

As well as hearing the relief and pleasure of people returning to their offices, I’m hearing that some people are suffering anxiety and panic attacks when faced with the prospect of leaving their home to go to work.

As well as hearing the care and concern of business leaders wanting to bring people safely back to the office, I’m also hearing that some business leaders are so content with their own experience of working at home that they’re delaying the return to company premises.  Some are even selling off the company premises!

Alongside relief at returning to normal and pleasure in anticipate of seeing people in person, I’m hearing frustration with colleagues showing poor performance and resentment of using home as a workplace.

Mixed emotions indeed.

What I’m not hearing, is much discussion of individual needs and circumstances.  I’m not hearing about bosses considering each person in their team and what they need.  I’m not hearing people considering how to work effectively as a team, given their different capabilities and circumstances.

Now, it’s possible that I’m just not hearing it.  It could be that everyone is having the conversations about getting the best for – and from – each individual person, as we move forward into reducing restrictions and the freedom to resume old activities.  Maybe I’m just not being included in the chat.

But it occurs to me, that after over a year (in the UK at least) of minimal interaction with anyone outside of our domestic circle, maybe we’ve lost our ‘second position’.

‘Second position’ in NLP terms is one of three Perceptual Positions.  It means taking different points of view on the same situation. In NLP we usually consider three different perceptual positions:

First position: Looking at the world from your own point of view, totally aware of your own feelings, needs, experience, agenda and thoughts, without taking account of anyone else’s point of view – ‘How is this for me?’

Second position: Imagining what it is like for another person in this situation; considering their needs, thoughts, experience, feelings and agenda – ‘How is this for him or her?’ (Notice that this is not the same as wondering ‘What would I do in their situation?’ It’s more to do with wondering ‘What would they do in their situation?’ The stronger rapport you have with another person, the easier it will be for you to appreciate their reality and achieve second position.)

Neuroscience has revealed the role of ‘mirror neurons’ in adopting second position.  When we observe another person, mirror neurons fire, creating a parallel experience for the observer.  Facial expressions are important here, especially the smile.  It’s not surprising then, when people have been wearing masks outside the home, that it’s been harder to get that sense of what’s going for someone else.

Third position: Seeing the world from an outside point of view, as an independent observer, someone with no personal involvement in the situation – ‘How would this look to someone who is not involved?’ From this objective viewpoint you can observe, evaluate and create new and useful choices.

NLP assumes that all three positions are equally important; none is any better or worse than the others. The ideal is to be able to move between them freely and use whichever one suits your purpose at the time.

At this time, as coronavirus restrictions are being lifted and we are beginning to spend time with people outside of the domestic ‘bubble’, let’s pause to consider the value of each of the positions:

First position:

In times of stress, we tend to use first position more than normal as we grapple with ways to reduce the stress and to cope with the way we’re feeling.  Therefore, it’s likely that most people have spent a lot of time in first position over the past year or so.  This enhanced self-awareness can be useful.  It can also lead to a lack of concern for others, even – dare I say it – to self-obsession.

Second position:

It’s easy to assume that as the coronavirus restrictions are lifted everyone will be happy.  If you stop to think about it, it’s obviously not as simple as that.  It’s also easy to judge other people’s attitudes to increasing freedom, to be impatient with those who are still wary of socialising or annoyed with people who are already throwing parties.

By adopting second position, we can cultivate a greater awareness of each person’s unique situation.  The reality is, this has been a new experience for everyone and each of us has had to find our own way to cope.  Keeping an open mind about what’s going on for another person and withholding judgement about how they have found their way to cope will go a long way to re-establishing good relationships.

Spending time with more people (perhaps wearing masks less frequently) challenges our ability to relate in real time and space interactions.  I think this may be like an under-used muscle that suddenly has to start taking the weight.

Third position:

The third position offers a detached pint of view.  Mentally stepping outside of our habitual way of thinking and analysing our own position (and possibly the position of others) can be very helpful.  There are various ways to imagine this.  You could imagine how you appear to someone who doesn’t know you personally.  You can imagine how the current situation might look with the benefit of hindsight in five years’ time.  You can imagine viewing CCTV footage of your actions.  The important thing is to detach from the emotional content of the experience and see it objectively.  A wider context can also help.

To what end?  To expand your perception of the situation and create more choice in how you choose to respond.  As I said earlier, I’ve been wondering whether we’ve lost our ‘second position’.  If we have, I think it’s time we put some effort in to recovering it.  Kindness and compassion, empathy and awareness are going to be very necessary as we shift back into a more social way of life.

What do you think?

When I worked as a consultant and trainer for a small consulting firm, it was someone else’s job to source venues. We had an in-house team that managed the public programmes and when delivering an event for a client, the client chose the venue. So, when I started my own business in 1997 and started running my own public programmes, I didn’t have a relationship with any local venues.

Not that I was new to running events. In my final ‘proper job’, where I was UK Head of Training, my PA and I spent a good deal of time researching and visiting venues for training courses, off-site meetings and our annual Trainers’ Conference. The task was simply to find a suitable venue in my local area.

At the last count I’ve used about a dozen local hotels in the 24 years since I started my business. Some of them have closed down, some just didn’t suit me, some continue to be great locations for specific programmes. I aim to have a relationship with more than one venue at a time – I got caught out with ‘all my eggs in one basket’ in the past and now I prefer to balance the risk by having options. Having said that, when I find somewhere that works for me, I’m a very loyal customer.

Here are my criteria for a great venue for the kind of course I run now. I’m thinking of the NLP Practitioner and Master Practitioner, the LAB Profile training or a small team event. Group size is rarely more than twelve.

1. Location

The location is important because most people will be driving to it, some will come by public transport and however my clients are travelling I want the venue to be easy to get to. Hence, I prefer somewhere that is no more than 15 minutes from a major road, no more than 40 minutes from the nearest airport. At the same time, I want it to be somewhere appealing. If it feels like a bit of a treat to be there, so much the better. (So, no airport hotels then!)

I also prefer to be fairly close to home. A three-hour journey at the end of five days delivery was not uncommon when I worked for someone else. Now that it’s my choice, I prefer to be in Warwickshire. For a client, of course, I’ll go to the ends of the Earth – and sometimes do, depending on where you think are the ends of the Earth!

2. Size

Cue the cheap laughs, size IS important. If I’m working with a small group over an extended time period, I want to be in a venue where any other groups are also small and stay for at least a day or two. In a large venue with large groups coming and going, it’s easy for a small group to be de-prioritised or overlooked altogether. I know because I’ve made the mistake of booking a room in a large conference hotel and constantly had to remind staff to bring our tea and coffee.

I also prefer a smaller venue because the number of staff is smaller and there is a greater opportunity to build up a working relationship with the people on whom I depend for the smooth running of my event.

3. Space

Space is important, both indoors and outdoors. Ideally, I want somewhere where we can spread out in our training room. I don’t want a ‘board room’ for twelve that barely has space to pull the chairs out. I want a space where I can set up for the presentations and demos and also have a separate area for break-out exercises without having to use ‘syndicate rooms’. I do like to be able to keep an eye on everyone and be available to answer questions during practical sessions.

Natural light is essential. So are privacy and low levels of noise.

Outdoor space is also significant. NLP training can be intense and it’s often good for participants to be able to take a walk outside during the break. We all know the soothing power of Nature!

4. Style

This is very personal, but I want to be working in a place I like. I would never book a venue that looked shabby or dirty, but I would hesitate equally over somewhere that had décor that didn’t appeal to my taste. Environments are important because they affect our internal state. I want to be in the best possible state to deliver my programme, so choosing an environment where I feel comfortable – even feel at home – is important.

NLP Trainers have said to me, “Surely you can manage your state regardless of the environment?” Yes, I can. I once had to deliver a 20-day programme during renovation work that the venue neglected to tell me about until the day before my programme started. We moved around the hotel, using whichever space was least disrupted on each day. The programme was still a success, but much more effort was required on my part to keep the right atmosphere.

Yes, I can manage my state, but I’d rather be putting my energy into other aspects of the delivery!

5. Staff

It doesn’t matter how perfect the environment seems to be, if the staff aren’t doing a great job, it’s not going to work for me. It’s not always easy to tell how well an event will be staffed until it’s actually in progress, so I usually aim to run a short event in a new venue before I commit to a long one.

I began my career in the service sector and I’ve spent months of my life delivering training in customer service so I do have high standards. For me, it’s not about the staff getting everything right first time, it’s about their willingness to listen, to understand what I want and to remember it so that I don’t have to keep asking for the same things every day. Which brings me to…

6. Consistency

When I book a venue for a modular programme, I want to be sure I’m booking the same room for every single day of the programme. This isn’t just because I’ve chosen the room best suited to our purpose and I don’t want a different one. It’s also because the room becomes an anchor for the course participants and when they arrive back for a new module they feel as if they haven’t been away. Continuity of environment assists with continuity of learning.

In the same way, being supported by the same staff each day helps a lot. It’s not always possible because of the shift patterns, but the fewer people I have to work with, the more quickly we come to understand each other and work effectively together.

7. Food

If the food isn’t good, I go somewhere else. No debate. Poor food can be such a distraction on a residential programme so I won’t compromise on this.

8. Bedrooms

I often stay in the hotel where I’m running an event and I want to be comfortable. One of the Brilliant Minds values is ‘comfort and joy’.

But it’s not just about me – if my clients are going to stay overnight, the rooms have to be up to standard. Clean, modern facilities, comfortable bed, temperature control – they all matter. Like poor food, all these things become a distraction if they’re not right.

I could go on, but I think these are the top criteria. Don’t get me started on the challenge of negotiating the deal with a salesperson and arriving at the hotel to find that most of your requirements haven’t been passed on to the operational team of the day. (That’s why I like to arrive on the evening before the event)

Ultimately, I know that when you book to attend a Brilliant Minds course, the venue is an integral part of the experience. Hence the venue and the quality of service you get are a part of my brand. I’m not going to trust that to anyone – or anywhere – without giving it a great deal of thought.

 

Your turn…

If you’ve attended one of our courses, what did you think of the venue?

Even if you haven’t, what do you like in a conference hotel?

The UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, in his press briefings about coronavirus restrictions, frequently refers to the importance of the ‘freedoms of the British people’. I’m somewhat uncomfortable about this slightly awkward use of the English language, especially coming from one so illustriously educated, but I agree with the sentiment.

Freedom is important.

The question is, which is most important to you? The freedom to…? Or the freedom from…?

As you play with those two different phrases in your mind, what do you notice?

For me, when I think about acquiring the ‘freedom to’, I feel a sense of opportunities opening up, of lightness and laughter, I feel the empowerment of choice. It’s a feeling that prompts me to sit up straighter and to lift my head. To look the world in the eye and invent my future.

When I think I about acquiring ‘freedom from’ (assuming I can ignore the echoes of a popular supermarket brand of gluten-free products), I get a completely different experience. When I think of acquiring the ‘freedom from’ I experience a narrowing of focus and pull towards examining the past. If I indulge this further, I start noticing small irritations and tiresome tasks, repeating irrelevant events and people I’d rather not deal with.

Does it make me feel free? No, it makes me feel irritated and tired. It highlights the troubles from which I am NOT free.

In a nutshell, this is the difference between Towards and Away From motivation. It’s also the difference between your brain in Reward or Threat mode.

The contemplation of ‘freedom to’ stimulates creative thinking, it engenders a feeling of autonomy and choice, it puts us in the driving seat of our own lives. Even if it’s the freedom to do something which you may ultimately choose not to do. The choice is important. The choice triggers the brain into Reward mode.

Thinking about the ‘freedom from’, in the past year I have experienced freedom from early morning starts, uncomfortable shoes, travel expenses and motorway service lunches. Did it make me happy? Not especially, because none of these things were big problems for me, but it may have engendered a few brief flashes of gratitude.

I’ve had the ‘freedom to’ run a very flexible schedule, to work on my creative projects, to avoid unwanted social interaction. Did that make me happy? Sometimes, but not every day.

You see, there is a difference between focusing on the freedom you have and the freedom you want. Try it:

Think of an area of your life: work, family, a hobby, a goal:

• What do you currently have the freedom to do?
• What do you currently enjoy freedom from?
• What do you want the freedom to do (which you currently lack)?
• What do you want freedom from (that you currently endure)?

This shows the importance of context. It also shows the significance of choosing your focus. If you focus on the freedom you have, that’s always going to be more productive than focusing on the freedom you lack.

…and ultimately, I can’t help thinking that we have in fact, enjoyed a great deal of freedom during our period of enforced lockdown, if we choose to see it that way.

As part of a recent team meeting I invited each team member to share their (current) favourite Personal Development book and it was one of my highlights of the day. The session involved each person not only naming their favourite book but also explaining why and/or reading a few paragraphs. I can’t invite you to one of our meetings, but I can share with you the books that were recommended in that session and a flavour of the discussion:

I started it off (leader’s privilege) with an excerpt from “The Knight in Rusty Armour” by Robert Fisher.  This book has positive anchors for people who have done NLP Practitioner training with me and it’s special for all kinds of reasons. I truly cannot remember where I bought my first copy – I believe it jumped off the shelf and into my hands in a bookshop in a US city, but I have no idea which one. My first copy went missing from a training room and I replaced it with an author-signed hardback copy I found on amazon.

Next, Jeremy volunteered “Conversations with God (Book 1)” by Neale Donald Walsch and treated us to the following few lines:

“You may think this is easy, this ‘be who you are’ business, but it’s the most challenging thing you’ll ever do in your life. In fact, you may never get there. Few people do. Not in one lifetime, not in many.”

Several other team members had also read this one and agreed that Book 1 is the best of the three.

Next up, Vicki recommended “Untamed: Stop Pleasing, Start Living” by Glennon Doyle and read to us the introduction, entitled ‘Cheetah Run’. This was a new title for everyone else, so she gets top marks for introducing us to a new writer. (Could it be because she’s a bit younger than most of the rest of the team…)

Peter’s recommendation was “The Highly Sensitive Person by Elaine N Aron”. It explains that 20% of the population have a more sensitive nervous system than the remaining 80% and takes the reader through the ways to identify whether you, or someone close to you is a HSP as well as giving advice on how to manage in a world that is geared towards the 80%. It’s a great addition to your knowledge on how to manage stress and might be the key to managing sensory overwhelm.

Maria then gave us “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen R Covey. A classic and a title familiar to everyone in the team. Having said that, my copy is getting on for 30 years old and I probably haven’t looked at in the last ten! Maybe it’s time to dust it off and read it again. Maria certainly inspired me with her enthusiasm for this book.

It was Neil’s turn next. Our very own Mr Options! I should have realised that he would be reluctant to name just one book as his Favourite. Or is that incapable…?

So Neil gave us a list:

How Real is Real by Paul Watzlawick; Awareness by Anthony De Mello; The Reenchantment of the World by Morris Berman; Every Time I Find the Meaning of Life, They Change it by Daniel Martin Cline; It was on Fire When I Laid Down on it by Robert Fulgham; Illusions by Richard Bach

That last one, is also one of my personal favourites and Neil and I have used is as part of the NLP Master Practitioner programme for many years. If you’re a fan, you might like to know that there is a Volume 2: “Illusions II” by Richard Bach.

Debbie made the final recommendations and I give her full credit for suggesting this activity. As a writer of fiction, Debbie’s favourite personal development books are related to her journey as a writer and I allowed her a list, rather than just one book, as well:

The Science of Story Telling by Will Storr; Short Circuit: A Guide to the Art of the Short Story (edited) by Vanessa Gebbie, The Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction (edited) by Tara Lynn Masih

So that wrapped up a very enjoyable session. It not only pointed me in the direction of some new titles but also reminded me of some of the gems on my books case that haven’t been off the shelf lately – well, not to be read anyway. My recent house move means that they’ve all been handled at least twice recently.

If you’ve enjoyed our list too, please share your own favourite personal development books with us…

…and if you’re hosting a meeting of your team, why not undertake the same exercise? I think about 24 hours notice of the question is good – but no longer or it’s likely that everyone will come with a Top Ten!

This is for you if you’re a business leader looking at bringing your people back to work in an office…

Recently, I’ve read several reports on research that shows a drop in employee engagement over the past twelve months. It’s not really surprising that employees who have been working at home for over a year feel less connected and less involved and perhaps care a bit less about the organisation than they did when they reported for work in an office five days a week.

Their only contact with colleagues may have been at pre-arranged video meetings and the challenges of lockdown life may have made them less inclined to chat anyway. With informal and social interaction lacking, what is there to engage with except the screen of your laptop?

Of course, a lot depends on how they have been treated in the time they have been working at home. One of my contacts told me that his company had given every employee who was required to work at home a – quite generous – sum of money with which to equip their home office: a decent desk, comfortable chair and whatever else was needed. They had provided a further sum for ‘wellness activities’. So that even though my contact had joined the company during the pandemic and hadn’t yet met anyone in person, he was already feeling that his employer cared and that his wellbeing was important.

I’ve had conversations with hundreds of people during the periods of lockdown and none of my other contacts reported this level of care from their employers.

Now, most of my contacts are senior people. Their contribution is valuable and at a time when everyone is making up everything as they go along, looking after the brains is important. One would think.

If the leaders of a business are not looking after their own wellbeing in a time of crisis, what can we conclude about the level of care for their people? Not much, I think. Some leaders care a lot about their people and neglect their own wellbeing. Some think ‘all that stuff’ is for softies and that everyone should just ‘keep calm and carry on’. What have you been thinking?

I have written elsewhere (links below) about the SCARF model and the importance of keeping your brain – and the brains of those around you – in Reward mode as opposed to Threat mode. In our current situation Threat mode can be triggered easily. Here are some common current triggers:

• Not knowing what is going on
• Not knowing what’s going to happen next
• Feeling you’re not important
• Fear of catching COVID-19
• Fear of your loved ones catching COVID-19
• Fear of losing your job
• Feeling unsafe around other people
• Being unable to do what you want to do
• Isolation and loneliness

In Threat mode, the brain finds it hard to see the bigger picture, can’t see others’ points of view and doesn’t retain information easily. Anyone in Threat mode is also going to feel a generalised pessimism. Not conducive to engagement with anyone or anything – including their employer. This, of course, is why you may not have heard anyone saying how much they’re struggling with working at home. In Threat mode, they can’t see any point in telling you because you probably won’t listen/care/do anything about it. And you might hold it against them. Safer to keep quiet.

A leader whose brain is in Threat mode will find it hard to provide good leadership (which can be summed up as keeping others’ brains in Reward mode).

Therefore, I think I’m justified in assuming that in many cases, the quality of leadership behaviour over the past 14-15 months has been poorer than before. There are exceptions, of course, but as a general trend, it would seem that most employees have had less meaningful contact with their boss and peers. Which accounts for a drop in engagement.

In light of that, when you announce that it’s time for everyone to return to the office, what kind of reaction do you expect? Enthusiasm? Apathy? Hostility? No idea?

If you have no idea, it’s time to get to work finding out. Find a way to get yourself in Reward mode and then invoke Dianne’s First Rule of Engagement:

If you want people to be engaged you have to engage with them

People may engage with the company through corporate PR, internal communications and the general popular perception of the organisation and its products. However, when an individual becomes disengaged, these messages cannot be changed to suit the needs of one individual.

If you, as a line manager want your people to be more engaged, you have to engage with them. No excuses.

In this context, here’s what that might mean:

• One-to-one conversations with each member of your team to find out how they feel about returning to the office. How they really feel – not what they think you want to hear.
• Being flexible about how many days per week each person spends in the office.
• Ensuring that your people have the opportunity to interact socially and informally.
• Re-visiting the policies on working hours. If some of your people have discovered during lockdown that they enjoy eating dinner as a family, make it possible for them to carry on doing it.
• Making it safe for people to discuss the changes and easy for them to change their opinions as the situation changes.

We’ve never done this before, so no-one has all the answers. What works on the initial return to the office might become obsolete after a few weeks or months. People may have learned things about themselves in lockdown that have shifted their attitudes irrevocably. Some may have fears and doubts that will dissipate as the world gradually resumes former activities. Some have lost loved ones and their lives will never be the same again.

Your job as a leader at this critical time is to listen. It’s to pay attention. It’s to engage with your people.

Your job has probably never been as important as it is right now. And if leadership is largely about ensuring your people have their brains in Reward mode, here are some easy ways to achieve that:

• Ask how they are – and listen to the answer
• Ask their opinion – and listen some more
• Tell them what you know about plans for the future
• Answer questions
• Give good quality feedback on their work and tell them why you appreciate them
• Make your people your priority, nothing is more important than they are
• Invite feedback – and listen to it
• Recognise that engagement is an individual issue

Every person in your organisation or team has their own reasons for being there. Their individual values guide their choice of job, their choice of employer and their choice of how much to engage with the company, the people and the wider opportunities of belonging to an organisation.

What engages one person will leave another cold. What disappoints one person will be ignored by another. What rewards one person will be irrelevant to another.

The person most likely to be able to make a difference to a person’s level of engagement is their line manager. The line manager is the person most likely to have some knowledge of what engages an individual. To know why they do the work they do. Why they work for this organisation and not a different one. To know what will keep them interested even in difficult times.

Like I said, if you’re a leader in business your job has probably never been as important as it is right now.

To read other articles I’ve written about the SCARF Model, here are the links:
The SCARF Model
Why leaders need to work in teams
The rules of engagement

This week marks a full year since the first time I held a meeting of my team via zoom. We’d been due to have one of our full-day team meetings on 17^th March 2020, but with the looming threat of COVID-19, I decided on the day before to switch to a virtual meeting. (As it turned out, it’s very fortunate that I did, because that evening I developed COVID symptoms and was probably infectious on the day I’d planned to spend with my team!)

After the full day session (and after I’d had a few weeks off sick) we started having a weekly hour on zoom. Initially, we just chatted about what was going on in the world, how we felt about it and whether or not we could deliver our workshops and coaching on-line.

Then we progressed to using our meetings to experiment with the technology and to discover what we could (and couldn’t) do virtually. I confess I was a reluctant convert. I would so much rather wait until I could get face-to-face with people again, but as the weeks ticked by waiting ceased to be an option.

Now, twelve months later, our bi-weekly meetings have evolved into really productive sessions. Different members of the team have conducted CPD sessions for their colleagues and we’ve successfully integrated two new people into the team.

I thought it was timely to take stock of what we’ve learned and how we’ve benefited from this change of approach.  So I asked the team…

What have you enjoyed the most? What have been the benefits for you?

And they told me…

Keeping in contact; the connection and learning; keeping in touch with things professionally during times when there was no work; getting to know each other more deeply; the structure it gave to the week in the early days of lockdown; keeping my brain alive; revisiting some of the models we use and delving in more deeply.

For me, one of the greatest pleasures has been watching each of these talented individuals sharing their knowledge and skills. And as client after client deferred, delayed or cancelled the work we had in the calendar for 2020 it became ever more important to me to make sure we supported each other and that when the lockdown was over I still had a Brilliant team.

I also asked…

How can we build on what we’ve done together in the past 12 months?

And they said…

Do more client work together!! (The number of large projects for corporate clients is still well below the usual levels and most of the work we’ve all done in the last 12 months has been coaching work)

Maintain the virtual meetings even when we can meet in person again – we can have remote meetings more frequently.

There was also some great discussion around the way that relationships have gone to a deeper level through people showing vulnerability and not always needing to put on the professional face for each other.

There’s more, but we have to retain a few secrets.

It was a valuable meeting and enjoyable to review what has been a very challenging twelve moths on a number of levels.  To discover that we have learned and grown as a team is gratifying, to say the least!

Oh and – we’re available for work.

Since the technology exists to enable people to ‘meet’ in groups, break into smaller groups, look at slides, write on whiteboards and exchange messages outside of the main activity of the session, it’s not surprising that the possibility of conducting group training online has arisen.

The question is, why do we need to be together? And why don’t we?

The benefits of doing training/coaching online

• We know from the increased use of video meeting technology during the ‘Lockdown’ that virtual meetings can be shorter, more efficient and more focused than the typical meeting carried out face-to-face. These benefits are especially noticed when meeting participants know each other well.
• In addition to virtual workshops, an online development experience can include e-learning, done where and when it suits the learner.
• Since a lot of leadership must now take place in virtual environments, it makes sense to do the learning in the same environment.
• One-to-one coaching can work well in a video-conference – some clients report that they feel more able to express any difficulties when they are in the comfort of their own home.
• Virtual workshops can potentially accommodate larger cohorts of learners and there is much less administrative time required to arrange a virtual event compared to the work of organising an ‘in person’ workshop or training programme.
• Importantly, the Covid-19 risk with virtual events is zero. Nobody has to leave home.

In summary, there are lots of great reasons why it makes sense to do our leadership development programmes on-line. And yet…

The downsides of virtual training

Video-conferencing is tiring. Much more tiring than being physically present with other people. This drain on energy comes from a variety of factors including:

• The reduced view of colleagues means that it needs greater focus of attention to pick up and process the non-verbal cues.
• Because we can only see heads and shoulders, we may feel that our minds are together but our bodies know that we’re not. This creates cognitive stress, meaning we can’t relax and become fully immersed in the conversation.
• Seeing yourself on the screen is also a source of stress. It’s hard to ignore your own image and most people are constantly monitoring their appearance, checking they look good or worrying that they don’t. At best it’s a distraction, at worst it’s another stressor.
• This extra stress means that there are more misunderstandings and more negative comments and feedback on a virtual meeting.
• In a virtual gathering you can’t make eye-contact. You can’t see who’s watching whom. You can’t pick up the subtle cues that let us know whose turn it is to speak. We can cope when we know everyone, but with new colleagues we fail to experience the warmth and trust that leads to effective working relationships.
• The human brain cannot detect latency in the technology of anything up to 100ms. Data transmitted under such conditions is perceived as instantaneous. However, if your internet connection is slow and the latency increases above 100ms, we begin to be aware of it and this has a negative effect on performance. Delays of more than 1 second will have a negative impact on relationships – the other person is perceived as less trustworthy if there is a delay in the communication of 1s or more.
• Because of the heavy reliance on video-conferencing during lockdown, many people already have a lot of negative associations with this medium. It’s become, for many people, their least-favourite meeting room. The one with the distracting background noise, bad lighting and poor acoustics. The one where you get to see how lovely your boss’s home is and hope nobody can see the laundry drying behind you in your micro-flat. More stress.

The above drawbacks apply to all virtual meetings, not just training workshops. When it comes to training there are additional considerations:

• If a person is stressed by the virtual medium, their brain will trip into ‘threat’ mode, where their field of vision is reduced, short-term memory impaired and mood depressed into a generalised feeling of ‘gloom and doom’. This is definitely not a good state for learning.
• Leadership development involves raising self-awareness and sometimes can include dealing with old emotional baggage. Because of the on-off nature of virtual events, it can be hard for trainers/coaches to spot the signs that someone is brooding about something that happened earlier in the day, and even harder to offer the necessary support.
• Some of our content is hard to teach through a virtual medium because it involves physical movement.
• Our leadership development programmes include multiple days of workshop time. Clearly, we would not expect to replicate that timetable. We would plan shorter sessions and deliver some content by other means. However, in whatever way that time is divided into shorter sessions, there are going to be repeated opportunities for ‘real life’ to intrude on the learning process. This leads to imperfect consolidation of the learning and reduces the application of what has been learned.
• The lack of separation between different elements of life is another source of stress for people involved in lots of virtual meetings. They have lost the feeling of moving from one context to another and the change of pace that goes with each. Since all learning is context-dependent, we need to think carefully about how we set up the context for learning.

Now, let’s weigh up these disadvantages with the advantages of getting people together physically to do leadership development:

The benefits of being physically together for training

• Part of the purpose of a leadership development programme is to create lasting and meaningful relationships between participants, much of which comes from having a shared experience. The value of being in the same place, eating the same food, getting distracted by the same things and seeing each other having moments of great insight is what creates the bond that drives successful business.
• In a global organisation, visiting another country and exploring new places together not only strengthens professional relationships, it also builds cultural understanding and an appreciation of the challenges faced in different parts of the world.
• When participants come together in the same location, they tend to allow more ‘transition time’ between previous commitments and the workshop. This ensures they are mentally ready to engage.
• If we are physically together, the delivery team can manage the environment. This means the participants only have to manage their own presence. We can remove most of the stress and keep everyone in ‘reward’ mode, where the brain is open, receptive and creative. In ‘reward’ mode the memory functions properly and it’s easy to make connections with new ideas. This in turn means that what is learned is properly consolidated into long-term memory and becomes available for implementation.
• And of course, if we are physically together, none of the problems associated with virtual environment apply.

But it isn’t perfect…

The downside of being physically together for training

• Getting everyone together in the same place is costly. Venue hire, travel costs, accommodation and meals can add up to a substantial bill.
• In the current level of alert for Covid-19, using public transport may not be appealing to participants and a 1m social distancing requirement could place a degree of stress on all concerned, even if all appropriate precautions are in place.

What to do?

Finally, deciding how to deliver an effective Leadership Development Programme will involve a number of factors.  To get the best of all worlds, I would recommend it includes:

• Kick-off meeting via video-conference.
• E-learning of introductory materials.
• Workshops delivered ‘in person’ when the Covid-19 risk can be managed appropriately.
• Coaching conducted via video-conference or in-person, to suit the individuals and the logistics.
• Regular ‘check-in’ meetings via video-conference.

By using all of the available options we can deliver a programme that truly meets the needs of our leaders and their teams, today.

 

Sources:

The reason Zoom calls drain your energy – By Manyu Jiang 22nd April 2020
The psychological impact of video calls – by H Locke, UX Collective
How Fast is Realtime? Human Perception and Technology – PubNub
The SCARF Model – David Rock