Are the patterns that drive your behaviour helpful?

When coaching I'm often looking for patterns. Patterns that support clients, either individually or in teams, to achieve their goals, and/or patterns that set them back.

• Patterns may be fairly clear to see: watching tv, or on the pc, until after midnight every night and then struggling to get up in a morning, and not having as much energy as you'd like throughout the day.
• Patterns may be hidden: the tone and words used of the small voice within that repeatedly talks us out of action. 
• Patterns may be totally unconscious: only really observable over time when we realise we ALWAYS - give up too soon, back off from conflict, eat too much when stressed, play it safe, avoid the unknown and so on. 

No pattern is inherently good or bad. The clue is in the outcome that the pattern delivers. If it's not what you want then if you can understand the pattern that triggers the response you simply have to change the pattern. (OK perhaps not always simple but understanding the unresourceful pattern is certainly a major step towards success.)

That's what much of the work I do as a coach, facilitator, consultant and problem solver is about. Helping clients discover the patterns to release, and those to embrace, that will help them achieve their goals. 

Future blogs this month will look at the different tools and techniques I use to help identify patterns and release any unhelpful hold on our thoughts, feelings and actions. 

Alison Smith

Inspiring change inside and out

PS Patterns already explored his week include how we start a conversation, how the weather patterns we live with might impact our preferences. Tomorrow I'm going to consider how incomplete patterns can leave us consistently unable to move forward. 

How's the weather with you?

A BBC article entitled 'is the British weather unique in the world' had me wondering about the weather and its effect on us. Although sometimes I do think my 'wonderings' should just stay in my head rather than be shared here!

I don't mean on whether we need to put an extra jumper on or get the sunscreen out. I mean how might the weather we experience where we live impact how we're feeling, thinking and acting? I also don't just mean the actual weather - like the lack of sun meaning we don't produce enough vitamin D and therefore are grumpier than we might be. I mean how might the patterns of the weather we experience daily, monthly or yearly unconsciously impact how we act.

Let's look at what the article says about British weather patterns and explore what differences in behaviour they might illicit.

Its a blog where I'd encourage those working cross culturally to share what they've experienced. So do please comment below on what you've noticed about weather patterns and their potential impact on cultural behaviour. 

Changeability

Q: Does the predictability of the weather impact the level of planning involved when developing
strategies?

The overarching theme to British weather is its unpredictability. Which means we grow up used to having an umbrella, extra layer, sunscreen and snow shovel in the car - just in case. We're also used to changing plans at the last minute to embrace an unexpected sunny day or to avoid getting drenched.

How does that translate in business?

Have we in Britain become so used to unpredictability that we have become good at planning it into what we do. Or does it simply mean we're great at thinking on our feet and adapting to the changing economic, political or social environment?

What about countries where the weather is predictable does that correlate with predictability of behaviour too? Or perhaps it has the opposite effect? 

4 distinct seasons

 Q: Do the number of seasons impact the process adopted and speed to implement strategies?

Some areas in the world only have 2 seasons compared to 4 here in the Britain. These 2 seasons come and go as if like clockwork with limited external factors effecting the date for the start of one and end of the other. In Britain the movement from one season to the other is impacted by many factors. Even then spring can take 8 weeks to move from south to north! 

So I wonder are strategies easier to implement in countries with only 2 seasons. Are they either planning or acting. Can we see a correlation to implementing strategies here in Britain that follows a four part process? 

Ratio of daylight 

Q: Does the variance in daylight throughout the year impact our preferred patterns of activity?

At summer solstice in London there's 16 hours between sunrise and sunset. Compared with just short of 7 hours at winter solstice.

Do the long nights in winter and long days in summer impact the patterns of our work. Not just directly in summer and winter but every day. Are we in Britain more likely to have a preference for peaks and troughs in activity. Will we throw long hours at something and then need to take our foot of the pedal afterwards.

What about countries with less variation in daylight - is output and productivity more evenly spread throughout each day? Do they find it hard to react to a need for an increase in output?
   
Lack of dramatic weather

Q: Does lack of dramatic weather lead to lack of dramatic behaviour?

The article suggest the UK lacks dramatic weather such as the monsoon's in India, the hurricanes in many other parts of the world and the thunder storms I've encountered in France.

Do other cultures see the British as less dramatic or do we make up for the lack of dramatic weather through dramatic behaviour. What about the behaviour of those individuals living in countries with dramatic weather? And does it depend on what the weather is? Does the fear of hurricanes make people less grounded or the propensity of thunder and lightening make others angrier?

Not sure if the blog has answered the questions as much as posed them. It was just a thought I had when I saw the BBC article :-)

I certainly believe that we're impacted by the patterns around us, and as weather is a set of patterns just wondered if we may be unconsciously impacted by them.

What do you think? What have you noticed?

Alison Smith
Inspiring change inside and out in procurement and beyond

The Landscaping your life (LYL) process uses nature as our teacher to help provide additional insight to situations in our lives - going with the flow, getting out of ruts, seeing the woods for the trees, turning a corner and the like. To find out more do see my LYL facebook page and pinterest board. 

All images from Pixabay - click on photo to link to original picture sources.

Nameste or Oel ngati kameie?

An email sharing the Vietnamese word for thank you very much (cam on nhieu) in response to my blog on thanking people reminded me of this blog last shared over 2 years ago.

Nameste or Oel ngati kameie? Both of these are greetings and I wonder how different our relationships at work would be if we used them – although I would suggest that Namaste might be easier to say :-)

When you greet someone with hello what are you thinking about? I’d suggest very little. It’s often just a word at the top of an email or the start of the conversation and is simply a means to the rest of the conversation. I wonder if the other person even registers it.

When I watched the film Avatar I loved the Na’vi’s welcome “Oel ngati kameie” which translates as “I see you.” I see you feels to me like an appreciation of the person with whom we’re communicating. Surely such an appreciation would be a great way to start any conversation - in spirit if not word.

The Sanskrit word Nameste has a similar meaning. One translation I particularly like, although perhaps not strictly grammatically accurate, is “I honour the spirit in you.” On researching for this blog I realise there are other words that are used around the globe for hello which have similar meanings and these include Aloha, Shalom, Salaam etc.

I like that these start the conversation recognising and appreciating a connection between both/all parties. I just wonder what difference it would make if we used them more regularly at work - even just in our heads.

The responses to the blog at the time suggested that just remembering to say "good morning" could make as much difference and my response to that was:

It's perhaps not the word but the intent that matters. Hello can illicit the same response if said with meaning and a desire to connect as much as any of my other suggestions.

Au revoir (until we meet again here or in person)

Alison Smith
Inspiring change inside and out in purchasing and beyond