Passive listening is letting the other person speak. Active listening is helping the other person communicate their message to you.
Active listening and yesterday’s post to slow down share a common thread: when you take the time to give your full attention to what is occurring in the present moment, you open yourself up to experiencing something new and expand your awareness of possibility.
When you truly listen to someone, they will open up in ways you might not expect.
Perhaps we also need active internet reading… considering that typical high-literacy readers read at most 28% of the words during a visit to a webpage. I would tell you more, but I only skimmed the article.
a firm, disciplined focus stops people going off on tangents (which is where most creative ideas will be found)
cutting costs often cuts out innovation too
Personally, I still want to know the where do you draw the line between getting things done, and making space to be creative? Or is it more a question of what is required for the task at hand?
Seems like I’m not the only one trying to figure out how to get things done…
Management Innovation is emerging as a new focus for companies struggling with intense competition. It is a topic that is gaining a lot of attention, as can be seen by the annual Management Innovation Forum in Dubai.
Fortunately for the world, it seems it is much more valuable for a company to focus on creating engaging and fulfilling workplaces, rather than focus solely on financial gain. New powerful methods for remaining competitive, may work wonders for creating a more fulfilling work environment.
Finally. I thought with all this technology, at some point we could stop working like mad dogs and start enjoying our lives.
A clip from last year’s management innovation forum:
Gallup, as described in the book, First, Break All the Rules, determined through rigorous analysis the 12 questions which are the most useful in describing the strength of a workplace, and created a story describing the strength of your job in terms of climbing a mountain. And because a company who has figured out the world’s organizational problems using hard-core statistics can’t be wrong - here are the 12 questions:
Base Camp: “What do I get?”
1. Do I know what is expected of me at work?
2. Do I have the right materials and equipment I need to do my work right?
Camp 1: “What do I give?”
3. At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day?
4. In the last seven days, have I received recognition or praise for good work?
5. Does my supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about me as a person?
6. Is there someone at work who encourages my development?
Camp 2: “Do I belong here?”
7. At work, do my opinions seem to count?
8. Does the mission / purpose of my company make me feel like my work is important?
9. Are my co-workers committed to doing quality work?
10. Do I have a best friend at work?
Camp 3: “How can we all grow?”
11. In the last six months, have I talked with someone about my progress?
12. At work, have I had opportunities to learn and grow?
Friday is about dreams… because I have a hidden passion for dream work, and tomorrow morning is the perfect day to sleep in.
Dreams are an excellent source of creativity. They can also be used to uncover a vast source of insight. Lucky for you, everyone dreams every night. Except possibly when there is a lot of alcohol, or when you don’t go to bed. Although, then you might start hallucinating, which is also fun.
Dreams aren’t that useful (in my opinion) if you can’t remember them, so the first step is learn how to recall your dreams in detail.
Dream Recall Technique:
Purpose: To increase your ability to remember you dreams.
Steps:
Keep a private dream journal next to your bed.
Before falling asleep, repeat to yourself (at least 10 times) a positive intention to remember your dreams. For example: “I remember my dreams with ease, and write them down as I awake.”
First thing in the morning, as you awake, lie still. (This can be difficult with an alarm clock.)
There is a period between when you end dreaming and when you awake, where you are conscious but still have access to your dream memory. Think up 3 key words to describe your dream with.
When you awake, write down the key words before anything else.
Next, write down your dream in a much detail as possible including anything you remember - most importantly how you felt and anything out of the ordinary.
When you start, you might not remember anything. Just focus for five minutes and jot down anything you come up with. The longer you do this, the better you get.
Here is a group focused on innovating around management - examining current models of management and creating more effective working environments. So, what’s the secret?
To make matters more challenging, there is no play-book, no set of golden rules for management innovation. But, the research found that there are several vital ingredients that always come together when management innovation happens.
These are:
A distinctive and novel point of view on the future
A clearly-articulated problem or challenge that needs resolving
A core group of heretical thinkers and action takers who push the new idea through the organisation
A deep understanding of the traditional orthodoxies that need to be overcome
The exciting bit is that in a world of intense competition, companies are learning that focusing solely on financial success is not the best way to higher profits. Instead, companies generally earn more by focusing on value to the customers, and creating more fulling work environments where employees have more responsibility and empowerment in deciding how to achieve their objectives.
I asked myself this morning, how many times in the last week was I truly creative?
Monitoring my thoughts this week, it is a shock to realize just how persistent the thoughts are racing around my head… I leave no room to be creative… the space is squeezed out with a constant urge to be doing.
While I’m on the go, I do create blog posts, photographs in the park, drawings during art class, saucepans of stuff for supper… but they don’t have that novel aftertaste of true creativity.
The most creative moments come when I am not doing but just being. During these times, the problems which have been stewing in my unconscious bubble up into the present moment.
Work environments push for creativity, but they don’t tend to encourage space for reflection. How can you create a quick space for creative thoughts to flow? Bring yourself back to the present:
Tool for returning to the present moment:
Find a quiet space where you can sit uninterrupted
Sit with your back straight, and your feet planted on the floor.
Inhale. Take a deep breath, and watch what it feels like to breathe in.
Exhale. Let your breath out slowly, and watch what it feels like to breathe out.
Smell. As you breathe in, what do you smell?
Taste. Move your tongue around your mouth. What do you taste? Any bits of lunch left over?
Listen. Ask your self what you hear. And then probe deeper. What background noise is there?
Look. What do you see around you?
Look again. This time, look at the negative space - the shapes of emptiness between objects.
Look again. This time look at the a color, and how the tone varies with the light and shade.
Examine your thoughts. Ask yourself, “what is the next thought that enters my mind?” Sit patiently until the thought enters.
Through focusing the mind or with determined observation, meditation increases self-awareness and provides a safe space of emptiness where creative thought naturally flows. Further reflecting on Jill Taylor’s video, this space of meditation seems to be similar to the right-brained state she describes.
This week, I am monitoring my thoughts throughout the day. After a 35 minute tube ride and 10 minute walk, I realized that I had barely noticed the past hour… my mind was busy racing through details, reciting e-mails to be written, checking of todo items, and thinking about what I need to get done. My mind doesn’t know how to take a rest.
After 45 minutes when I caught myself, it is as if I woke up to the world around me. The rain drops still on the trees, the stillness of a street at night. My walk became much more vivid. And my mind stayed quiet.
Here is an interesting insight into the right-brain from Jill Taylor:
Jill seems to suggest that creativity comes from the right-brain, whereas logic and language belong to the left-brain. I’m not sure if it’s as much a distinction between the left and right hemispheres, as a mode of operating.
Shortly after watching this video, I came across another distinction on right-brained characteristics - and thought, hey, that’s me… and perhaps this is why I having trouble remembering details.
