Targets of perfection

At 88, my dad worries about his mental capacity, and uses the Telegraph's cryptic crossword as a means of checking this. On our weekly call he will often say "I didn't do very well this week" and the niggle at the back of my mind would wonder whether decline was imminent.

Until that is I asked " how many did you struggle with dad".

His answer was "oh about 3 this week".

"3 whole crosswords?" I asked.

"No 3 clues". Let's put this into perspective, there's approximately 25 clues a day, and 7 crosswords a week, and my dad was worried that he was failing to answer less than 2% of the clues. Interestingly, I'm happy if I manage one clue, and therefore have a much lower success target of about 4% to my dads 100%. It just shows how easy it can be to set such high standards, and start to catastrophise a little too quickly.

Expectations and achievement

Over the years I've obtained many insights from my personal training sessions. Such sessions that have me rushing to my laptop have usually ended with my laughter and "that would make a great blog."

Here's what generated today's laughter and insight.

Earlier in the week I ended my PT session with 3 sets of plank of increasing duration - 30s, 45s and 60s. On the last set I was screeching and near to tears as my body shook with strain at holding such a strong position for so long.

... Fast forward to this morning ...

"Please don't get me to do 60s again" I pleaded. Which resulted in the following.

• I held plank for 30s - being told of my progress in 10s increments.
• I held plank for 45s - being told of my progress in 10s increments
• I held plank for 60s - being told of mu progress in 10s increments

My personal trainer then showed me his stop watch ....

Apparently my timings were actually 30s, 50s, 71s, with increments in approx 12s (when telling me they were 10s).

Had he told me before I started I was going to do it for that long I'd have failed to do it! I know myself well enough to know that, certainly as far as fitness is concerned, if I don't think I can do something then I won't. Today's white lie proved to me I have to be careful about my expectations of my ability to do things - both fitness and I'm sure at work too.  

Alison Smith

Inspiring change - inside and out in mind, body, heart, soul and purchasing!

Other insights shared more broadly here around well being broadly have covered:

• Don't stretch yourself too much
• Not this but this - a great reminder for any new skill
• Build on success - which certainly resonates for me for my fitness
• Comfort zones - and how much we can really achieve if we get out of them
• Dream believe achieve - based on watching others learn how to street dance with Ashley Banjo!
• Aim for what you want  - unlike the England football team at the time!
• Stop, look, listen - remembering to take time out
• Don't spend time with miserable mackerels 
• How do you start your day - aligned with your goals, or out of synch with them
• Changing priorities - what do chips, alcohol, chocolate & pomegranates have in common?
• Get outside
• Are you settling for suboptimal performance  - using excuses about age, time of life, injury etc
• Sleep  - allowing more room for more information 
• Can you have too much fun?
• We love the challenge but is it good for us - adrenaline fuelled activity
• The conspiracies that support our well being (a bit of a rant)
• The tortoise and the hare - a short story
• My prescription for positivity - a popular blog post

The recent issue at RBS isn’t their fault it’s ours

Everyone is very quick to point the finger at others, as I wrote in a blog some time ago when we had the last media witch hunt. It’s IT’s fault, it’s the decision to outsource, it’s outsourcing, it’s the CEO, it’s all banks, it’s India etc etc. I’m sure the analysis of all the contributory factors will take some time to come out.

The fact remains it is likely there will have been hundreds of different points along the way where someone raised an issue with what was happening. Someone said:

• This won’t work
• There’s a problem
• Slow down
• We’re not ready
• We need to do something different
• There are risks
• If we do that this will happen
• We don’t have the right skills

The biggest problem is that these statements weren’t taken seriously. They weren’t taken seriously and action wasn't taken by:

• The person thinking the thoughts and not articulating them
• The person saying them
• The team hearing them
• The project manager
• The manager
• The auditor
• The risk manager
• The executive
• The CEO

Why, of course, is the million dollar, or in this case the multimillion dollar, question. I'm sure we’ll all have different answers – mine to add to the mix would include:

• The speed we’re all working
• Ego’s needing to be heard and not listening – see previous blog
• Culture of “Yes” and not “No”
• Lack of taking responsibility
• Unrealistic expectations – within and out with the company
• Lack of effective communication
• Fear of repercussions
• Ineffective management of the process, people and suppliers

And these are certainly not only happening just in RBS.

What behaviours in business do you think are contributing to these types of issues and what can you change to ensure you’re part of the solution not the problem? Because if we've ever kept quiet when we knew we needed to say something we're no different than all those within RBS who contributed to this latest fiasco.

Alison Smith
The Purchasing Coach
Sowing the seeds for effective communication in procurement

It's your fault picture source: dotnetnukefool.com via Alison on Pinterest