#workingparents

I have now been back to work for a month from my second maternity leave.  Well, I have never felt more energised and ready to do, work, be committed, pull pieces together, prioritize and be ready to throw enthusiasm into new and old projects, at home and at work.  

I now have one of those fitness trackers which tells me what my husband and I have known all along. We do not sleep enough, it is probably safe to say that we have not had in the past three years more than 3/4 straight hours of sleep.  And yet somehow we, as spouses, professionals and parents have never been more on top of our life. We have learnt to make friends with stress and exhaustion, find energy, make "miracles" happen, work full days then once home bath, feed the kids, play and put them to bed, maybe work some more or catch up with our private and social life, then carve a pumpkin (or a turnip for our first Räbeliechtli!). What is incredible is that like us, hundreds of colleagues and friends are running the same silent marathon.

Once again questions are asked. "Don't you work too much? Where do you find the time and the energy? Are your kids going to be OK with you not being there most of the day?" Typically these questions are asked to me (a "working mum").  

I will elaborate another time on the answers. What is clear to me is that as parents and as professionals, it is about having the choice, it is about doing in the best possible way whatever it is that we are good at, and it is about feeling satisfied with our lives.

A few weeks ago the genius #manwhohasitall hashtag hit a nerve with his (her?) twitter posts targeting the endless amount of advice given to working mothers "about "how to have it all" with 'all' meaning happy kid, successful careers, great hair, healthy diets, immaculate wardrobes, the perfect beach body, good girlfriends, a supportive husband and a pristine house. But what if we applied the same type of inane language we use when discussing women in the workplace to men?"

http://www.breakingnews.ie/discover/if-we-gave-fathers-the-same-nonsensical-advice-we-give-working-mothers-700862.html

No wonder the pressure is on for many women. Over and over in all the diversity conversations, events, studies I have heard of, the topic "self-confidence in women" has been indicated as one key trait to perform and stay on top of their lives, careers, etc. At some point early in life, we build a reserve for a life of self-confidence. Families, social surroundings and corporate life have a deep effect on the amount left by the time a woman can thrive in business and private life. This 60 million youtube views video from Procter & Gamble goes straight to the point. Enjoy. #likeagirl.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjJQBjWYDTs

M.

Stress. How to get good at it

"The message that stress is always harmful, and life is fundamentally toxic—that is, I think, a big misread on reality." (Prof. Kelly McGonigal)

As my return to work draws near, as the challenges of balancing childcare, family and professional life, start again, I can feel it, it is the elephant in the room. 

It is the knowledge that stress will come back in our daily life as my husband and I start again the ballet of balancing it all, this time in four: a 5 months old, a nearly 3 year old, long days at work, nursery germs, erm, I meant nursery schools et all. 

But luckily, being this my second maternity leave I think I know better and I hope we are more prepared for what`s to come, for the “house of cards” feeling that majority of parents know very well. And I know that I have been in the best possible school in these past few years, the school of life with children (if you are not a parent, just think karma and trust me :-)

So in preparation for this, beyond securing all the house help I could, I have done some reading on it. Yes. I researched the topic stress.

The month, the week and the night before each and every exam I took in university, before each test in my old beloved Liceo Scientifico, were filled with it. And yet, the more under pressure I felt, the more I knew that if I kept it under control it would help me to perform. As an adult, before every presentation, opening speech I had, I knew it was good to feel that "pressure". Yet it stressed me. I tried not to but did end up complaining about it. Was that “good” stress?

I ended up with an emergency operation when I was 19 because my stomach twisted, literally. Doctors said back then I was lucky as they could put everything back in order easily, I was just left with a scar and the knowledge that this is a very common thing to happen and it can be caused by “stress”.

The stress we experience when we see our loved ones suffer, when we lose someone, when we expect the results of a test, or even simply when our kids are sick. That can`t be surely "good" stress?

So how many types of stress are there and how can we recognize them? Stress is the lining of every day life, we need to learn to live in balance with the pressure that comes from it and that we experience every day.

What follows is an extract of one of the most interesting articles I have read about stress, my main take-away is the following:

"If you understand that what you experience as stress is the biological mechanism by which you are going to learn and grow and develop your strength, now that’s a totally different way to understand why your heart is pounding, or why you’re having trouble falling asleep at night because you’re thinking about something stressful that happened."

For a full list of my summer reading on the topic, just PM me!

“We’ve been so inundated by this belief, this mindset, and this message that stress is toxic, that stress is harmful, that you should avoid or reduce stress, that in moments of feeling stressed out, we think: ‘I shouldn’t be stressed out right now.'”

“And just like with a placebo effect, when you recognize that your body and brain are capable of responding in a way that is helpful or healing, you actually enable it to happen more effectively.”

 “I  was beaten over the head with the concept that stress is a toxic state, that while helpful in the short-term, has long-term effects that are damaging. This was based on a lot of animal research from Hans Selye (see below), which doesn’t really translate to the experience of being human. Ultimately, I think it was all based on a misunderstanding of, or a very narrow definition of stress in terms of what happens in your body and in your brain. I had been taught that every time you experience anything we would call stress, your body shifts into this state that is fundamentally toxic—that flight or fight survival mode, which impairs your insight or ability to make decisions, that’s toxic for your body, that increases inflammation and hormones that in turn suppress your immune system and kill brain cells. We’ve all heard that.

If you go back 10 years to look at interviews I did about stress, I was saying all those same things in magazines and newspapers.

I’ve come to realize that there are many things about that point of view that are not true. The most basic one that’s faulty is the premise that there’s only one stress response, and that every time you experience stress you’re in a toxic state. That’s fundamentally not true. The body has a whole repertoire of stress responses. Sometimes when we experience stress we’re experiencing a state that is healthy, that makes us resilient, that makes us more caring and connected, that makes us more courageous. The experience might be physically similar in some ways to stress states that we would describe as debilitating anxiety or other negative stress states, but they are not toxic. There are a lot of different ways to experience stress.” 

(Prof. Kelly McGonigal, The Upside of Stress)

Full article here.

M.

Do – Rest – Do

I have always been a fairly active person. The to-do-list and whats-the-deadline type. When I hear people say “I have nothing to do today” my face turns into a question mark.  Even if for whatever reason I am off work, I have always plenty to do. 

Years ago I would have not hesitated one minute to think that obviously, if you want to get anywhere, you need to get and keep going, and fast if possible. In short, I was more focused on the goal and less on the journey. Thank God, like everyone, I aged, and learnt. 

I have learnt that rest is as important as action, and that our bodies, as well as our minds, need the occasional day off to better perform. How much time do you allocate to the “dolce far niente” and how much to planning and doing? Do you run parallel projects close to your official job? What do you do in your "time off"?

Today, as a working mum of two, I see my time off work as a good occasion to get more done, but also to take a little break and think of myself. A massage, sitting by the lake doing nothing, one hour on a book during the day? Hey why not. My personal to-do-lists are now done on a weekly basis and I give myself plenty of  more time to “get there”, remembering that if I am well rested I can get double done, be more patient, and walk through my day with a smile.

I still believe in the “getting things done” and “making things happen” motto as, incredibly, when I step back and let things go…well, either I delegate or things just don`t happen! A new investment, a trip planned, a real estate project, fixing a broken toy, writing, sorting family pictures, volunteering for an association, keeping in touch with old and new friends or work acquaintances, keeping strong bonds with the people I love. This too requires effort. As a wife and a mum, I now prioritize family time above everything, but still try and cut out of my day a few pockets for what I call my “hobbies”.

So how do you find the right balance between "slowing down" while "making things happen"?

A few learnings from the past few years (no I do not manage to stick to them all the time, I just try :-)

1. Private victories come before public ones. Keep the promises you make to yourself (that work out, that language course, that healthier diet, etc)
2. If you have a good idea, try to take some action right away (a new house, starting your own company, changing job, etc)
3. Don`t get defensive.
4. If you are serious about something, do not lose attention. Stay focused.
5. There is something valuable to be learned from everything. Make it a habit of finding it.
6. If you are achieving 100% of your goals you should think bigger.
7. If an opportunity arises, seize it.
8. Put yourself in other people`s shoes.
9. Take time for yourself and to be yourself if you feel your body is running out of fuel. The magic recipe for me is sleep (with a 2 months old that`s often interesting!), exercise (Pilates) and shiatsu.
10. Cut as much as possible time spent with negative or false people. They are drainers!
11. If your husband says you are doing too much...you probably are :-)
12. Use diplomacy but be honest to yourself, and to others, some won`t like it, some will thank you.

How to MakeThings Happen in Your Life

Rest: The importance of slowing down

M.

Quiet. The Power of Introverts.

A few months ago, I sat at lunch with two colleagues who, like me, volunteer some of their time for our company`s “women business network” and its events. We discussed chairmanship options for one of our upcoming events and general public speaking-related topics. To the outside world, the three of us would have probably come across as extrovert women discussing business. How wrong can perceptions be? All three of us, in different ways, would probably come across as extroverts in our daily business life too but what we were discussing that day, besides the event, was the effort that is required in our world, to "become" an extrovert, along with the new book by Susan Cain, “Quiet”,  its great success and the meaning of this phenomenon.

When asked, years ago, if I was an extrovert, my initial reply was “yes!”. Surely I am not an introvert? Am I?  I don`t really like standing up on stage, giving a speech, drawing too much attention to myself or wearing bright colors or loud jewelry. Typical signs of an extrovert for many psychology tests. I do like time alone, I like to listen before I make up my mind and as a teenager I would shy away from too much attention. But I now have no problem giving presentations, standing up on stage with a microphone, talking to a lot of different people at events and parties, organizing social get-togethers or feeling comfortable around others. So, what happened? I trained myself over the years, I guess. Now I  fall within the “ambivalent” group.

At a more or less unconscious level,  society sends out clear signs that associate extroverts with winners, with happy people and with people who are successful in business. Society rewards extroversion, unlike Eastern European and Japanese cultures and all the cultures of regions where Orthodox Christianity, Buddhism, Sufism etc. prevail, where much more importance is placed on introversion than extroversion.

“Extroverts think out loud and on their feet; they prefer talking to listening, rarely find themselves at a loss for words and occasionally blurt out things they never meant to say. They are comfortable with conflict but not with solitude.”

“Introverts, by contrast, may have strong social skills and enjoy parties and business meetings but, after a while, they wish they were at home in their pajamas. They prefer to devote their social energies to close friends, colleagues, and family.”

However, humans are complex and unique and because introversion-extroversion varies along a continuum, people may have a mixture of both orientations. A person who may be an introvert in one situation may be an extrovert in another and people can learn to act "against type" in certain situations, falling within what Cain calls “ambivalent types”.

Can introverts be leaders? Is our cultural preference for extroversion in the natural order of things or is it socially determined? Should you devote your energies to activities that come naturally or should you stretch yourself? 

As a recent business TV commercial, featuring an office worker losing out on a plum assignment ran:

BOSS TO TED AND ALICE: “Ted, I am sending Alice to the sales conference because she thinks faster on her feet than you”

TED: (speechless) …

BOSS:  So, Alice, we will send you on Thursday….

TED: She does not!

As Cain puts it, “If we assume that quiet and loud people have roughly the same number of good (and bad) ideas, then we should worry if the louder and more forceful people always carry the day. This would mean that an awful lot of bad ideas prevail while good ones get squashed.” Studies of group dynamics suggest that this is exactly what happens. We perceive talkers as smarter than quiet types even though intelligence test scores reveal this perception to be inaccurate.

Introverts can indeed be leaders. It might be more difficult in our society for them to emerge as such but once there, they will have a sharp set of skills an extrovert probably won’t be able to count on. An introvert leader is likely to show more empathy for his team and be willing to listen to their ideas and implement suggestions. This could motivate the team to work harder. Extrovert leaders, on the other hand, have a natural ability to inspire, will end up doing all the talking and might be able to get better results from more passive workers.

The above topic is now a line of research, still in its early days.

So, should we devote our efforts to improving in activities that don’t come naturally to us? Pushing ourselves out there if we are born or have a tendency to be introverts and trying to keep quiet and listen more if we are born extroverts? 

Research on the topic is ongoing and, while we wait for more studies, we could probably say that becoming aware of who we are and how we come across and pushing ourselves a little further surely can`t hurt us.

Are you an extrovert or an introvert? Take this quick informal quiz to find out!

M.

Sources: Quiet (S.Cain), Wikipedia

About sharing knowledge

Four weeks ago I asked you in a post to share stories, send interesting blogs and posts you have come across and love reading and to name people you would like to know more of.

Two days after that post my second baby was born and since then I have taken a little leave from the blog while watching my inbox grow :-) Thank you to those who sent me thoughts and ideas, there are so many interesting stories and so many people I will be connecting with and write about! And thank you for all of your well wishing messages for our family, it is a busy and happy time.

Here is my first “guest post”: I met Daniel, a communications guru among other things, nearly two years ago during a company event and thanks to social media I got to know him a lot more since then!

Who: Daniel Martin Eckhart

Jobs: Head of Community Management at Swiss Re, screenwriter and author

About him: “As Head of Community Management at Swiss Re they call me collaboration platform and social media guru and I'm spending my days doing my best to motivate and empower colleagues around the globe. How? By blogging, by sharing and by teaching the whys and the hows of collaboration and open knowledge sharing. I see it every day - the value, the sheer power of just how much we can do for ourselves as individuals, for our teams and for the company as a whole when we openly and smartly share our knowledge.”

Bio: His work as a screenwriter has been Grimme-Prize nominated. He is the author of the novels The Champ and Barnaby Smith. 

Date of Birth: 9 December 1962, St. Gallen, Switzerland

Trivia:

Was a Swiss Guard in the Vatican, protecting Pope John Paul II.

Worked for the United Nations in Israel, Lebanon, Iran and Iraq.

Narrowly avoided being kidnapped by Iran's Revolutionary Guards ... his friends didn't.

Why I love reading his work: He is a Maestro of one of the greatest arts: sharing powerful knowledge. His writing is fresh, direct and honest.

Where to find him: www.theworldaccordingtod.com

His last two posts:

On knowledge sharing and virtual collaboration:

"(…) 18 reasons to show why virtual collaboration and engagement in your company makes sense for you, your team, your project, your leadership and your location. The list applies to anyone, across the board, across the locations, across the hierarchies. While a hierarchical leader's engagement may reach more people, it isn't about numbers. Virtual collaboration and engagement is about each and every individual taking ownership, being a leader within one's own realm of influence and sharing one's knowledge in the best interests of the company." Read more here.

On happiness: “Do more of what makes you happy”

“We can't flick a switch and change everything on a dime. But we CAN do more of what makes us happy, in little ways, in big ways, here and there, more and more. And the more we do the things that fulfill us, the happier we'll be, the more motivated we'll be to give our best for our community/company” Read more here.

M. 

Learners and Doers

“Being happy doesn`t mean that everything is perfect. It means that you have decided to look beyond the imperfections” - Gerard Way

Despite what you will be reading in these first few paragraphs, this post has nothing to do with being a parent or raising children, not directly at least. But as mentioned a few times before here, given I find parenthood an educational and formative experience, some of my latest learnings come right from the fact that almost 2.5 years ago I became a mum (while staying everything else :).

As many who prepare for the birth of their first child, during my first pregnancy I invested way too much money and time in all sorts of books, pregnancy books, first months books, books about routines, sleep patterns, feeds, clothes. All sorts of experts, mostly childless, where lined up on my bedside table for months, all ready to share their…opinions, based on their, often little, experience.

Once we came back from the hospital with our little bundle of joy sleeping in his car seat, I realized that none of what I had read for months was based on the two things that in my opinion matter most when you become a parent: gut feelings and research based advice. I am now expecting my second baby and the only `baby` book I have gone back to over and over again in the past months and years is “Brain Rules for Baby” (J. Medina). This is because the whole book offers a wealth of knowledge and research based advice on how to raise happy children while being a happy parent who needs to also very much rely on his/her instincts and experience. The book goes beyond the mere babyhood and childhood years and gives great insights on many different aspects of the so called behavioural sciences.

As someone interested in the topic I researched a little bit beyond the book what could give me more knowledge on the topic, how can the principles of the book be applied to more fields, to different types of people. And mostly…what does behavioural science cover anyway?

I started asking myself the question: if I took a professional course in behavioural sciences, what would I learn and for what reasons, useful to whom, myself, my employer, my family? It turns out there is a huge offer out there when it comes to learning all about this discipline and its latest discoveries.

I ended up “choosing” an “Executive MSc Behavioural Science” at the London School of Economics (LSE). Here is what it offers:

“The Executive MSc Behavioural Science is offered jointly by LSE’s Departments of Social Policy and Management. The programme is delivered in a modular format and aims to provide a suite of high quality integrated courses for individuals seeking to advance their career in behavioural science while continuing to work.

The MSc Behavioural Science executive cohort will have a diverse academic background, such as – but not limited to – economics, geography and environmental studies, management, medicine, philosophy, political science and government, psychology, public policy, social policy, and sociology.

Executive students will have relevant work experience in the public, private or third sector, including businesses, charities, government, local authorities, and international organisations (such as the OECD, the European Commission and the World Health Organisation).

Many organisations now engage with the idea of applying behavioural insights to their organisational challenges. After all, these challenges ultimately require behaviour change of some kind. Further, many companies, charities and public bodies are recognising the power of ‘live testing’; testing their products and policies in real world environments. The motivation for this comes from increasing recognition of the limitations of traditional research methods, like market research and customer insight.”

It sounds promising and fairly impressive, especially given the increasing number of organizations looking into this. Also studies on the topic do seem to be of fairly high importance for pretty much everyone around us.

“Behavioral science is the systematic analysis and investigation of human and animal behaviour through controlled and naturalistic observation, and disciplined scientific experimentation. It attempts to accomplish legitimate, objective conclusions through rigorous formulations and observation. Examples of behavioural sciences include: psychology, psychobiology, criminology and cognitive science.” (Wikipedia)

While I would love to attend different courses and list a few more masters on my CV, I have very little time currently to enroll in any of the many interesting formative offers out there, so books, interviews, podcasts and reaching out to a few experts are the key activities that for now allow me to expand my knowledge and satisfy my curiosity.

Why would more knowledge on behavioural sciences be of interest to me personally? The answer to this allowed me to drill down and select the parts of this discipline that at this point in my life would be more beneficial. In short, behavioural sciences are directly linked to the way we (and our children, families, colleagues, etc) observe and perceive the world and in turn behave, learn and develop. Enough for me to decide it was worth to find out more.   

In the past two years I have read different books and listened to different experts on the topic, here is my current line-up of top three “luminaries” when it comes to this topic:

Dr. Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D., is one of the world's leading researchers in the field of motivation and is the Lewis and Virginia Eaton Professor of Psychology at Stanford University. Her research has focused on why people succeed and how to foster success.

Olivia Fox Cabane, a Harvard, Yale, Stanford, MIT and United Nations lecturer, executive coach to the leadership of Fortune 500 companies. From a base of thorough behavioural science, Cabane extracts the most practical tools for business, giving her clients techniques she originally developed for Harvard and MIT.

Alex Ikonn and UJ Ramdas, the creators of the Five Minute Journal.

I could add many names, books and lectures to this list, but I think the above names and their work sum up the key points I have learnt to carry with me daily.

One of Dr. Carol Dweck`s masterpieces is “Mindset”. I had already read about many experiments on children`s mindsets in Medina`s work, here I found a comprehensive research-based work on how the type of mindset you are born with could influence your life. 

As a young researcher Dweck was obsessed with understanding how people cope with failures, so she decided to study this by watching how students grapple with problems, specifically with easy first, then hard to solve puzzles. She expected the children to cope in different ways with difficulty, but was not prepared for what she saw. Confronted with hard puzzles, some of the children seemed to enjoy and be excited about the challenges they were facing. What was wrong with them? One either can cope with failure or can`t, so were these children onto something? They seemed to love failure! 

These children, many children, and many adults of course too know that human qualities, such as intellectual skills, can be cultivated through effort. And this is what these kids were doing, getting smarter. Dweck, on the other hand, thought that human qualities were carved in stone. Either you were born smart or you were not and if you failed it meant you weren’t.  So what are the consequences of thinking that your intelligence or personality is something you can develop, as opposed to something that is a fixed trait?

Robert Sternberg, the present-day "guru of intelligence", says that the major factor in whether people achieve expertise “is not some fixed prior ability, but purposeful engagement”. Or in other words, it is not always the people who start out the smartest who end up smartest. So what does this mean for us? For over 20 years Dweck`s research has shown that the view you adopt for yourself profoundly affects the way you lead your life. It can determine whether you become the person you want to be and whether you accomplish the things you value. But how can a simple belief have the power to transform your psychology and as a result, your life? We have seen a similar principle in the Placeboeffect, a  cognitive bias. 

Believing that your qualities are carved in stone – the fixed mindset – creates an urgency to prove yourself over and over. Our society values intelligence, personality and character, so you want to have these traits, and you want to have a healthy dose of these. But what if you fail, if you are not always accepted, if you don`t look and sound always as smart as you would like? Frustration kicks in at best.

There is another mindset, based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts: the growth mindset. People with this mindset believe that a person`s true potential is unknown, that it is impossible to foresee what can be accomplished with years of passion and training. Dweck`s research confirms that the willingness to take some risks and to put extra efforts into projects, to challenge yourself, come directly from the growth mindset, a mindset that can be learnt and achieved. The many self help book out there telling us what the “secrets” of many successful people are, do not give us a reading pattern, they are often scattered points (believe in yourself, enjoy life, etc) but they do make a whole different sense if you think of how (some) of these “successful” people might approach life and with which mindset.

Similarly, “The Charisma Myth: Master the Art of Personal Magnetism” (Olivia Fox Cabane) is another of my all time favourite books. Olivia Fox Cabane is an inspiring source for me for effective, frills free meditation and concentration techniques (a post on this soon, watch this space) and for her theories on charisma.

Can charisma be learnt?

“Charisma can be a huge asset if you're applying for a job, improving your relationships, or leading other people. The Charisma Myth shows you how to become more influential, more persuasive, and more inspiring. Soon you'll be able to move through a room and have people say: 'Wow, who's that?'"

Many believe that charisma is unchangeable, and now we know that this sounds like a fixed mindset approach, you either have it or you don't. But is that really the case?

Far from many of us (and far from me) the wish to move through a room raising constant attention. But from networking events, to gatherings, to meetings, to presentations, to family conversations, we want to come across and express ourselves in the best possible way and to show we can draw the right attention and discuss our reasons with a little influence, we want to have that amount of charisma that seems to work magic for some. This book shows us that this is too a skill we can learn, if of interest to us. We are born to learn.

“The Charisma Myth is a mix of fun stories, sound science, and practical tools. Cabane takes a hard-science approach to a heretofore mystical topic, covering what charisma actually is, how it is learned, what its side effects are, and how to handle them.” 

Finally a little gem I have found very useful over the past few months and that I would like to share with you, the Five Minute Journal.

What is it and why am I mentioning it here?

The Five Minute Journal was created by Alex Ikonn and UJ Ramdas and is based on the most recent researches on behavioural sciences. They designed a type of diary that helps to achieve concentration, have more productive days, and possibly, to feel happier. Before jumping to conclusions, it is suggested to try it out for at least 5 days.

The Five Minute Journal is available in both a paper version and an app (my personal choice). The diary is built on proven principles of positive psychology: priming your brain, cultivating gratitude, having a growth mindset.

Begin the day right: When you start the day on the right note, things automatically start to fall in place. (At least on most days?) 

Cultivate Gratitude: Gratitude is the opposite of depression and anxiety. It's the conscious experience of appreciation of the gifts in our lives and the results are tangible.

Introspection: Ending the day on the right note can be essential to a good night's sleep, eliminating negative thought loops and learning more about yourself.

It’s been proven that shifting your focus to the positives that many life events bring with them can dramatically improve your happiness, or the way you perceive it. The key is consistency. This journal has been created by combining the different elements of what is known as positive psychology: it might not work for you and if it does it might not work daily, but surely it is worth a try?

It is probably not a coincidence that, among many, Tim Ferriss, author of the “4 Hour week” (see post here), is a big supporter of this type of diary.

The key parts of this diary are the following:

1.   What would make today great?

2.   List 3 amazing things that happened today

3.   Weekly Challenges

4.   Gratefulness

5.   Affirmation

6.   How could you have made today better?

Of course not all parts need to be written daily. For “affirmation” I often ask myself, “where do I see myself in 1 year? In 3? In 5?” “What project should I invest time on next?, and so on.

Question nr 6 is particularly important for me: projecting our minds towards self-improvement, especially at the end of the day, is a powerful tool for our brains to elaborate the main facts of the day, visualize them, gain clarity and assess again what could have been done better or just differently. This is no pseudo-science, our brains are wired and obsessed with questions, they need to answer them, it is just a matter of feeding them the right questions and answers.

M.

Sources: “Mindset” by C.Dweck, “The Charisma Myth: Master the Art of Personal Magnetism” by Olivia Fox Cabane, “Five Minute Journal” by Alex Ikonn and UJ Ramdas.

Simplify your Life: Mind De-Cluttering Tips

I think we have all been there. Looking at our desk at home, at work, at our personal space anywhere and thinking “Do I really need all this? It is getting a bit cluttered here…” Then looking at our diary and to do list and wondering: “What should I prioritize? What`s the most efficient way of tackling this?”

A life uncluttered by most of the things we fill our life with - tasks or things, would leave more space for what really matters. Many of us know that feeling of tidiness and control that comes after a good clean-up or declutter session, being it for physical spaces or situations. Decluttering spaces and parts of our life is a good exercise for body and mind.

"A life that isn’t constant busy-ness and rushing, but leaves time for thinking, creating, finding new successful paths for your business and for your private life, connecting with people we love or simply admire" is probably the aim of many of us.

Decluttering your diary, your home and work space does lead to a less cluttered mind. Many of the distractions and commitments we have pull on us in more ways than we realize. I will post what I have learnt and I am experiencing with regards to “physical decluttering” in my next blog post. 

For this week`s post, I have a question in mind:

How do I become more effective and avoid mind and life clutter?

I have attended a few interesting workshops on efficiency, focus and brain power in the past few years. I have been asked several times at work and in my private life how I manage to "squeeze" several key activities in a work day while dedicating time to nurturing and creating business relationships. 

I do not manage to be successful on the above every day of course. But when I do it is often because of a few key suggestions I have picked up along the way and made mine.

A few key principles I have found very useful have been mentioned by different speakers and similarly expressed by Stephen Covey, American educator, author and businessman, in his most popular book, “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”. 

The “habits” or principles I like to keep in mind daily are the following:

• Habit 2: Begin with the end in mind. It means to begin each day, task, or project with a clear vision of your desired direction and destination.
• Habit 3: Put first things first
• Habit 4: Seek first to understand, then to be understood
• Habit 6: Synergize. This is the habit of “creative cooperation”. It is teamwork, open-mindedness, and the adventure of finding new solutions to old problems.

From Mind De-Cluttering to Focus and Productivity

How can I clean up and declutter my mind from too many commitments and activities? Again I have found very interesting what I have learnt in past workshops on focus, efficiency and time management.                

• Online distractions. There are a lot of amazing things we can do and find online. Learning from inspiring people, keeping up-to-date with the world news, keeping in touch with friends and family, but also wasting hours on social media, TV, games. As usual, we are in the driver`s seat of our lives so some self control and detached judgment of how we are using our time can help a lot. 
• Time for what is important and over-committing. One concept that has often lately come up for me is the rocks, pebbles and sand metaphor. If you put sand into a cup of water first, and then the pebbles and the rocks, you won’t get everything in.  But if you put the rocks in first, and then the pebbles and, lastly, the sand – the smaller items will fill in the gaps and you will be able to do all of them.  The same goes in life – start with the big priorities and then do the medium and then the smaller items. We have to make time for what’s important to us: time with our kids, time with our friends, partner, time for creating, time for exercise. The rest should be pushed aside to make time. It’s easy to fill up our lives because there are so many things that many do which sound amazing, holidays, sports, get-togethers, projects, etc. And they are often amazing experiences indeed, but by adding so many things to our lives, we are subtracting space. Often I get carried away and would love to do so much more, then remind myself of the rocks metaphor and try and stay “centered” on mine and my family`s priorities and choices, at least for some time. 
• It’s tempting to fill in every little minute of the day with productivity or distractions. Don’t. Leave some emptiness here and there: it turns out it is also a great different way of being productive.
• We often overemphasize productivity. Focus, priorities and effectiveness are more important. So is a nice walk home to reorganize thoughts. Even if catching that bus would have saved you 10 minutes. Do not always rush. It took me years to learn this, but I am getting there.
• Our attention and focus are our most valuable possession. Let`s give it as a gift to the people we love most and to the work that matters most. Distractions and downtime are also a good part of life, for me, they represent the sand of the quoted metaphor.

How many times have we written our to-do list for the day…and then got to the end of the day without having been able to cross off the list half of our to-do`s?

Leaving aside structured working days full of meetings, conversations, work lunches, phone calls, and so on, there are days in which we envisage full focus and productivity to get to the bottom of our to do lists. Then the end of the day comes and that list has probably even got longer.

Planning in detail our “less-structured” days can be a great habit, but not always is synonymous of daily productivity I have found. Why? Because there are too many variables in our days, new urgent priorities, a full inbox, a sick child, a traffic jam, a previous decision that impacts in the wrong way on our day, activities that end up being more time consuming than we had planned. So mostly, if we experience the above we end up our day with a feeling of frustration.

One trick that I have learnt for myself and that on most of my “unstructured” days works, is the “2 hours plan”. Two solid hours or two slots of an hour each during the day set apart for that to do list. Plan for these two hours and block them in your diary, ideally in the first part of the day. Plan also for some extra 30 minutes at the end of the day if you think you might need a backup plan. During these two hours try and respect every (realistic) activity you have planned, no room for distractions, emails, phone, procrastination, etc.

So what activities should be done in that time?

• Important but non urgent activities. Once done you will be able to spend time on the different “fire drills” of your day without feeling you still have all those important to do`s to cross off your list and enjoy that welcome and familiar “sense of control” for the rest of the day. 
• Long and complex activities (see rocks, pebbles, sand metaphor)
• Core activites, ie, all the main activities of your job. If you are working mostly on a project, leave all the admin aside and focus part of the two hours slot on this project.

I won`t lie, it is not easy to stick to any of these and be always disciplined, but it helps a lot to have all this in mind on the one hand, and to let things go every once in a while on the other hand. 

We are fully immersed in too often busy and imperfect lives, but we can learn (a lot) and keep becoming daily better and happier versions of ourselves.

M.

Source: S.Covey, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

Life stories for inspiration: Dame Stephanie Shirley

This week I am sharing the story of an extraordinary woman via her latest TED talk, Dame Stephanie Shirley. Hers is one of those special personal tales that made history on many levels.

Below some snapshots from her inspiring speech followed by a quick intro and her TED talk. Invest your next 10 minutes here and enjoy!

“In the 60s in England women could not work at the Stock Exchange, fly an airplane, drive a bus or open a bank account without their husbands` permission.”

“Who would have guessed that the programming of the black box of supersonic Concorde was done by a bunch of women from their homes.”

“You can always tell ambitious women by the shape of their heads, they are flat on top for being patted patronizingly.”

“The two secrets of success? Surround yourself with first class people and people you like and choose your partner carefully.”

In the austerity of post-World War II England, jobs were few, and opportunities for women to earn a wage were even fewer. So, on her dining room table, Stephanie Shirley founded the kind of company she'd like to work for -- one that posed challenging, rewarding tasks, built around flexible work rules that made it possible to have a real life. Her software company, Freelance Programmers made her one of the richest women in England (and one of the few to have earned her own money). Initially employing only women -- Shirley often bid for contracts as "Steve" to compete in the male-dominated industry -- the company was eventually valued at $3 billion, while 70 of the staff became millionaires when it floated on the stock market.

http://www.ted.com/speakers/dame_stephanie_steve_shirley

Expat life, culture clash and cognitive biases

I am an Expat. Not that I ever thought about it in these terms when 8 years ago I traded life in Milan for life in London and purchased that one-way ticket. It never occurred to me back then that leaving your country is a much bigger deal than one would think.

It has been an amazing experience and should I go back I would not change a thing, but the effects of moving abroad might impact you and your closest ones for ever. I had no real reason to leave, I had an interesting permanent job in a beautiful city, many great friends I had grown up with, a flat in a lively area and was enjoying life. But well, I wanted more, experience new places and life in another country for a start. The allure and spice of life abroad and the words of an ex boss who had relocated to London with his family years before, did it. During a lunch in a busy restaurant near Trafalgar square, 8 years ago, he asked me "If not now, when?". 6 months later I was boarding my plane.

It is safe to say that, like many, I became an expat (or just a “world citizen” as a friend would put it) by coincidence.

One of the things that surprise you at the beginning of your life abroad is how differently at times people do and perceive things: a different language structure helps to emphasize this too. I put this down to culture and country of origin the first few years, but 8 years and 3 countries later I can say that in my experience often culture and origin have very little to do with behaviours. Of course we all carry  traits that come straight from what we learnt as children and from where we grew up. But how much does that really influence the adult life of many educated, well travelled people? As I did not move abroad to bring my motherland with me, I have been determined to find out more.

Most importantly, as an Italian married to a German (also an ex Londoner), living in Switzerland and raising a trilingual/tri-cultural family, it has been imperative for my own survival and sanity to get to the bottom of things when it comes to personalities, backgrounds and unconscious biases.

I have had different occasions in the past few years that made me think about what makes people say and behave in a certain way. My typical Italian impulsiveness has long gone and has been replaced by a more open, curious attitude (ok, on most days!). I often take a quick step back and think "what made him/her say that?" Background, personality and where people are in life in that moment are some of the components I believe play a big role in people`s responses to life, rather than where they are from (too simple, too stereotyped), and most times, the real reason is one and only:  unconscious and cognitive biases, I am thinking of you!

So what are they, how do we deal with them and above all which ones do you recognize yourself in?

I am no expert but I have done quite a bit of reading recently on the topic; here is what I have found.

Wikipedia defines cognitive biases as “a pattern of deviation in judgment, whereby inferences about other people and situations may be drawn in an illogical fashion. Individuals create their own "subjective  social reality" from their perception of the input. An individual's construction of social reality, not the objective input, may dictate their behaviour in the social world. Thus, cognitive biases may sometimes lead to perceptual distortion, inaccurate judgment, illogical interpretation, or what is broadly called irrationality.”

So in short, cognitive biases represent the way our brain distorts reality. But why do we do it?  Our brains are daily bombarded by hundreds of thousands of sensorial inputs and in order to let warnings emerge (especially danger warnings) from the background noise, it has learnt over millennia to adopt some shortcuts.

Normally these are correct shortcuts which allow us to interpret reality quickly and efficiently, but some of these shortcuts lead us to dead-end roads, wrong conclusions on the world around us: these are called “cognitive biases”.

Here is a list of cognitive biases that we stumble upon more often. 

I have picked the ones I believe are more common. There is nothing we can really do to change them or change our perception either, but as always, acknowledging and being aware of how and why we perceive things in a certain way could make our life a lot easier.  

1. Affect heuristic

Our perception of reality is particularly influenced by what we most desire or what we are going through in that precise moment of our lives. 

This is also very true for the many challenges that expat life presents, we perceive realities in a new country also based on how we are feeling and we are giving more importance to in that moment.  

Once you choose to buy a new car, won`t you start seeing that model everywhere? 

2. Bandwagon bias

Our tendency to develop an idea based not so much on its actual reality but in relation to the number of people who share our same idea.

Or to put it differently, sometimes we like to follow without realizing we are doing it.

Especially as expats we will surround ourselves with people who are similar to us. Not necessarily people from the same country we come from, in fact, often the opposite I have come to realize. By sharing the same opinions we will often only reinforce our beliefs in it. This is where being open to confrontation and to constructive feedback from outside of our “circles” comes in handy. 

3. Confirmation bias

It is in our nature to give more relevance to those pieces of information only that can confirm our initial thesis.

It is apparently very easy to be in denial when it comes to this one bias…

4. Clustering illusion

One of the most powerful weapons our brain has is the capacity to spot "patterns" via which we get to quick conclusions (stereotypes, anyone?)

As expats for example, how many times have we been tempted to link behaviours or attitudes of people to their nationality? 

5. Hyperbolic discounting

The hyperbolic discounting is an attitude, the habit to choose immediate gratification over long term satisfaction.

This attitude is often present in 3 main areas of our lives:

• Food choices
• Savings/investments
• Career 

In an experiment of a few years ago scientists asked a group of people to choose a snack, fruit or chocolate, as their snack of the day and their snack in a week. 

As a future snack, 74% of the people chose the fruit. As the snack of the day 70% chose chocolate. Would they have chosen differently the following week if given the choice again? This shows we tend to overestimate our future abilities but the truth is that it is only by changing today`s attitudes that we can hope to be improved versions of ourselves in the future.

Similar experiments have been carried out by scientists on babies and children, the book “Brain Rules for Baby” (J. Medina) has quite a few interesting examples on this topic.

6. Negativity bias

We basically tend to give more importance to the negative aspects of our lives than to the positive ones.

A quick step back to re-evaluate a negative situation (a fight with your partner, a missed promotion, etc) and to regain perspective could only lead to a better life balance. Yep. Not easy to do on the bad days.

7. Placebo effect

This is one of the most famous cognitive bias and my favourite: it consists of trying to influence an event by convincing yourself that that particular event will at some point happen. I call it positive thinking and it does not sound too negative, does it?

8. Reactance

Simply put, the desire to do the opposite that others would like us to do.

It comes from the will to defend one`s freedom of choice. A suggestion could be to avoid to impose a single choice but to offer a range of options that, obviously, go in the desired direction.

Disclaimer: It applies to many situations in life of course. As the mother of a toddler I classify these biases as `tantrums`.

Yes, adults have them too, they are just called in many different ways…

9. Information bias    

Gathering information. Gathering yet more information. Then feeling absolutely stuck and undecided. This insecurity is caused by the information bias, the belief that the more information we have available, the better our choices will be.

Truth is, often the overload of information does not lead us to efficient solutions that work for us. You are the only one in the driver`s seat of your life.  

10. Galatea effect

This bias goes hand in hand with self-fulfilling prophecies. It occurs when a success (or a failure) of a person is influenced by his or her self-esteem.  

In other words, our successes are often determined by how much we believe in ourselves. Others and/or what we consider foreign cultures to our own have very little to do on this matter.

Conclusions

So which bias did you like best? Does any of these particularly influence your life? And your life as an expat or your opinions about the so called `culture clashes`? Which ones have caused you trouble? 

I have personally identified a few that over the years might have influenced my days and my decisions. I am observing them, recognizing them and learning to “manage” them when possible.

Are you ready to start your weekly “bias count”?!

M.  

Men, fathers, partners: can they have it all?

In the summer of 2013, while organizing an internal event on diversity, I had the privilege to meet one of the founders of Teilzeitmann (part-time for men), Andy Keel.

His project felt new and refreshing and started with a very simple question:  why can`t men make part-time work? Accordingly to research, more than 90% of the part-time requests from the male-work force are turned down. Thankfully times are changing and a few things are moving. Teilzeitkarriere.com for one advertises more than 14.000 flex/part time jobs and has more than 2 million views annually.

Andy stood on stage that day to tell us how it all began, how he had felt the pressure of work commitments clashing against family and life commitments, and how he decided to ask for part time to his company and after that decided to free-lance in his quest to achieve a better life balance, a deeper flexibility that would allow him to take care of his children.  His speech was inspiring and you could see it did touch a nerve for the men and women in the room. Why can`t a father maintain his status and responsibility at work and choose to work a few hours less to spend more time with his children? His advice has stayed with me since that summer, it was simple: whatever you decide to do in life, follow your guts and your passions and if you feel something is not right, do not conform and follow, stand up, speak, ask.

I interviewed again Andy a few weeks ago, while finalizing the "Own the way you live" project.

M. Andy, how did the project `Teilzeitmann` start?

A. I’ve founded Teilzeitmann because part time is not only a female topic… we need to start working as a family team where man and woman – both – are taking the responsibility to earn money and take care of the children at the same time. Teilzeitmann is working with different role models…. In order to show positive examples of how a more balanced division of responsibilities could work.

M.  Do you feel the attitude towards part-time and flexible work has changed in the past few years? Companies seem to have fairly flexible policies in place but the bottleneck they face seems to be on the one hand the final approval of line managers - some seem to be very traditionally attached to a `face time` culture, on the other, the fear of stigmas.

How do you think we can raise awareness on the need for a more flexible approach to work, tailored to the individual?

A. The bottleneck are clearly and without any doubt the middle and top management of companies. …as long as we behave and believe in these old fashioned views on hard working career – full time presence and kind of military behaviour, not much will change. But there are new positive examples out there … flexible working models and empowerment of staff are the two most important topics at the moment and we are contributing to raise awareness on them. 

Read more about Andy`s project and company here. 

Only this week, the press showcased two examples of men, both in leading positions, deciding to `lean out`.

“Earlier this summer, Matt Lauer asked Mary Barra, the CEO of GM, whether she could balance the demands of being a mom and being a CEO. The Atlantic asked similar questions of PepsiCo’s female CEO Indra Nooyi. As a male CEO, I have been asked what kind of car I drive and what type of music I like, but never how I balance the demands of being both a dad and a CEO.

I realized that the only way to balance fatherhood and my job was to step back from the role as head of my company" says Max Schireson, CEO, MONGODB INC. (Full story here).

And again this week: Google CFO retires with a candid memo about work/life balance.

“After nearly seven years as CFO, I will be retiring from Google to spend more time with my family."

“That's how Patrick Pichette, one of Google's highest-ranking executives, led his announcement on Tuesday that he'd be retiring from his role at the company. That line of reasoning has become something of a safe cliché among notable executives leaving their posts. But then Pichette did something unusual: He kept going, offering a candid explanation about the struggles of work/life balance at his level.” (Full story here )

So where do these two announcements leave us? From talks I have had in the past few years with men and women, friends and colleagues from different countries and different industries, parents and non parents, I have sensed the same message: we all want to strike a better life balance, at the same time we do not want our careers to suffer.

Recently the HR head of an international company, during an event on the benefits of flexible working, told his audience that 30 years ago, when he started his job he was told he had been chosen for a successful career, but if he wanted it, in short, he had to forget about his private life and family time, they needed 200% commitment from him. He went for it. “25 years later, my 28 year old  told me he was sorry but he could not cancel those few lined up dinners with friends to join me for dinner: `Why would I, you were never there for us when we asked`. He didn`t mean it probably that way as we have an amazing relationship, but that hurt more than I ever thought it could.”

As Mr. Pichette`s wife put it, "So when is it going to be time? Our time? My time?”  

M.