Sticky Learning Lunches

#35: Keep Putting Off Your To-Do List?

Today's topic, Putting Off Tasks Part 2. Find out why you procrastinate, how to avoid it, and simple tips to start doing the tasks that you are putting off.

You Can Read the Full Transcript Below:

Nathan Simmonds:

Welcome to today's Sticky Learning Lunch with me, Nathan Simmons. Just the last couple of people coming into the room now, and we're just gonna get them in. And then we are gonna crack on because we've got some core content to cover. We're gonna carry on the theme of yesterday around procrastination. We're gonna dive even deeper into those seven excuses that, you know, these words that we use to validate why we don't do things, and then boil those down to the core values and core fears that we display that often come up and trigger these excuses.

Nathan Simmonds:

And when you understand this and get it right down to its root cause, it's gonna enable you to take better actions, more considered approaches to things and help to eliminate those things off your to-do list. So let's get everyone in the room. He says, where's my mouse on? There it is. Welcome to today's Sticky Learning. Hello, Andrea. Good to see you again. Colin. Darren, Fabian. Thank you Gareth. Good to see you again. Gina Howard. Karen Lynn. Nice. See you Petra. Thank you for being here. Ramah and Tim, handful of more people, handful more coming in.

Figure out your procrastination and be more productive

 

Nathan Simmonds:

First things first, as always, let's get the phones on flight mode. Zero the distraction, a hundred percent attention on where you're going today and what you are doing. And this is about investing your time in you to make you more incredible than yesterday. That's what we came here for. So, phones off. Fresh sheet, fresh sheet, fresh thinking at the top of that page. In your notepad, you're gonna write keepers, as I always say now, it's about things that you hear, things that you learned today that you want to keep hold of, that you want to remember, reignite and help to kind of reimagine and reinvigorate the thinking.

Nathan Simmonds:

As you know, as you reread those notes, new ideas percolate to the surface so you can come up with new ideas, new actions and and new thoughts that are gonna help you deliver even better result. Also, making sure you've got a drink, it's getting warmer over here, wherever you are, on, in, on the planet, on the globe at this point in time, making sure you've got a drink and you are ready for this.

Nathan Simmonds:

We are in Welcome to today's Sticky Learning Lunch with me, Nathan Simmons, senior leadership coach and trainer for MBM, making Business Matter, the home of sticky learning. And these sessions all about helping you be the best version of you in the work that you are doing right now. And if you are returning back to the office for that return as well, we are the leadership development and soft skills provider to the grocery and manufacturing industry.

Nathan Simmonds:

And I want to give you some of the skills up here that I've learned in 23 years of leadership and the last nine, maybe 10 years now, of coaching leaders and developing leaders. And share some of this content with you just to help push that thinking further. Where are we today? Someone's already told me how they're feeling On a scale of of 10, obviously a 7.5 is pretty good. How are we feeling today? First question is, how are we feeling today? One being terrible, 10 being phenomenal. How are we feeling on a sliding scale? What's going on for us? How are we feeling right now? Got nines. We've got a six. Okay, we're gonna work on that today. You've got nines, nines, nines up for it. Good. Seven.

Nathan Simmonds:

We've got a couple of sixes. Weather has brought the score down. Oh, well let's, let's lift this score up. Yesterday when we talked about it, it, I also said, you know, what's the one small action you can take today that's gonna create impact on something that needs to be on your to-do list or that you haven't ticked off of your to-do list. What's that one? Small action. Let me know in the questions. What's again, what was that one small action you said you would do yesterday to take action on that thing that you've been procrastinating on about? What was the one small action?

Nathan Simmonds:

I'll wait for those coming. 'cause That's gonna require a little bit more typing than just a number called a tax man. Nice. What did you call him? Admit I'm a procrastinator, paid up member of pa I need to ask myself though, why behind my lack of action on the same topic. Good. Called him a gi delivered bad news. If it was necessary, it was necessary. Focus on the one thing at a time. Absolutely.

Nathan Simmonds:

Your brain cannot focus on more than one thing at a time. And there are optical illusions that you know, that can show you this. Just even in the physical scientifically proven that multitasking doesn't exist. Just do the one thing. Focus on that. Get it done phenomenally. Well move on. Good. We've got some stuff up there. So what are we covering now then? Yesterday we looked at the seven excuses.

Nathan Simmonds:

I've got 'em listed down here. I'm not gonna go through those in too much depth. The first one, it's easy. So we don't bother doing it. You know, we find it's, it's maybe beneath us or it's just too easy to go and do something else. Now we fear failure and we're gonna talk a bit more about fears today. So rather than actually taking action on it, we procrastinate and leave it for as late as possible in case we know. 'cause We think we might produce a substandard quality of product at the end. But then what we do is we cut ourself off at the very last minute and produce a substandard product anyway because we didn't give ourselves enough time to do it.

Nathan Simmonds:

It's boring, quite frankly. We'd rather do something else 'cause it's less, it's, that's less interesting. Need for certainty. We've got down here as well. Now we, we can guarantee certain actions and certain outcomes. So we do them instead of doing the thing that might be a bit more difficult. We've also got here enjoy pressure. So sometimes some of us lead it to the last minute just 'cause we enjoy the thrill of being under pressure. But actually that has a detrimental impact on our health mentally and physically doing all nighters, drinking too much coffee using, doing these sorts of things. We don't

Nathan Simmonds:

Don't wanna take the responsibility. So we'd rather leave it for as long as possible and get someone else to make a decision so we don't have to take that responsibility. And if we don't like it, we can blame somebody else. And then finally, we think tomorrow it's gonna be easier. We think the future version of us will do it easier. So we're gonna leave it to tomorrow rather than doing it today. But then we go back to the top of the loop where it, well, maybe it's just too easy so I won't bother doing it. And we go back into a cycle of the seven excuses, right?

Nathan Simmonds:

That was the headlines from yesterday. If you didn't see it, that was the kind of the catchall there. What are we gonna be covering today? Right now we're gonna be looking at the four human needs and looking at the two fears that go alongside this. So we've got about 15 minutes to do this. The first need is the need for certainty. So the need for certainty is, is creating stability, creating security. I need to know where my house is. I need to know where money's coming from to pay the bills. I need to know where food is. I need to know where my family are. I need to know that they're supported. So these are your core certainties. Your core securities. Well, on the other side of this, we also have the need

Nathan Simmonds:

For uncertainty. And what that means is, you know, we want certain amount of novelty. We want a certain amount of different things to be happening in our lives. We want, you know, we want stimulus. We want things to be exciting occasionally. Why? Because if we go too much this way, life becomes boring. Now we, we look for security. We want everything to be just so, and we spend all our time trying to put things into compartments to make sure that we mitigate all the risks and everything. That there is no gamble. And we know, we know full well that if I do this, I get this as a result.

Nathan Simmonds:

But the challenge is that if we go too far this way, the moment that we have a curve ball come in, all the toys come out of the pram. We know that we have no flexibility. 'cause We spend all our time over here trying to balance it or make sure everything's gonna work exactly how it's meant to work. And the moment that something blows in from a different direction, everything goes into crisis. How many people have got people in their lives right now that absolutely have to know a hundred percent exactly what's going on all of the time?

Nathan Simmonds:

And the moment you give them, you know, and this kind, this happens at varying times when pressure's really high. You know, we talk about this in mental health, you know, having your stress pot, your stress tank. And when your stress tank gets full, you know, my wife can ask me for a, for a cup of tea and I will erupt, but it's just a cup of tea.

Nathan Simmonds:

It was the same cup of tea as it was yesterday, only fresher. But because of all the other stuff going on, you know, it causes me to, to explode. But as a human need, we all need a certain amount of security if we go too far the other way. And we are living in constant uncertainty. This is where they talk about the, the, the VUCA in in, in military terms, volatile, uncertain I forget the other part of it, you know, challenging or whatever critic. Crisis situations. If we are constantly living right in this space over here, what happens is, while brains tend to go into overload again,

Sticky Learning Lunches

#34: Keep Putting Off Your To-Do List?

Today's topic, Annoyed That You Keep Putting Off Tasks Part 1. Find out why you procrastinate, how to avoid it, and simple tips to start doing the tasks that you are putting off.

You Can Read the Full Transcript Below:

Nathan Simmonds:

Good afternoon, sticky learning lunches. Just gonna give it 30 seconds. Everyone has just suddenly compiling in at the, just a few seconds beforehand, which is great. It's fantastic to see you all. Colin, thank you Darren. Great to see you. Fabian, lovely to see you again. Gina. Always a pleasure. Howard, John. John, thank you for being here. Karen, good to see you again, Lynn. Alia sorry. Yeah, ela, Stuart, Tim, Vicki. There's some wonderful, there's some new faces here, which is always great to see.

Nathan Simmonds:

There's some I want, I don't wanna say old faces, 'cause in that would be wrong. You know, just some regulars. We've got some regulars in. And it's lovely to see you all. Thank you for being here. Just gonna give it 10 more seconds. Just wait for the last handful of full of people to arrive. Jane, good to see you again. Diane. Welcome Andrea. Thank you very much for being here. Just before we get in, on a scale of one's 10, one terrible, 10, phenomenal, how are we feeling today? How are we feeling?

Work on your procrastination and get your to-do list done

 

Nathan Simmonds:

Oh, and also just writing the comments. How are we feeling about learning some stuff about procrastination and how we overcome that state, one to 10, how are you feeling? And also, let me know how you're feeling about getting some tips around procrastination. We've got a seven. Can't wait. Good. Thank you very much, Karen. Nine, six. Tired. 10 up for it. That's a good trade.

Nathan Simmonds:

Seven. I wanted to put this off to be fair or to be honest. Thanks Howard for the joke. Good bit harassed. Ready for a break. Dunno. Can't make up my mind. Ha, funny people, funny, funny people, right? So let's dive into this. If anyone's coming in late, that's absolutely fine. Like I said, they might have been putting it off. They didn't wanna face the hard truth of what's actually gonna be talked about today. Let's get into this. Welcome to today's Sticky learning lunch with me, Nathan Simmons, senior leadership coach and trainer for MBM Making Business Matter.

Nathan Simmonds:

The home of sticky learning idea of these sessions is to give you skills to help you be the best version of you in the work that you do right now at home. And also preparing you for return, returning back to the office if that's the case. These sessions, we've got three sessions now all around procrastination. And I know from the previous trainings that I've delivered and the previous conversations that we've had, I've been drip feeding some elements around procrastination, some elements around mindset, and some ideas that are gonna help shift that.

Nathan Simmonds:

And what we wanted to do with these sessions is bring 'em together in a package of three learnings so that you can really understand at a deep level what is procrastination, how you are doing it, and also have a mechanism to overcome that in the best possible way and keep you moving forward. And that's what we wanna do. We wanna bring this to life for you to keep you, give you that momentum.

Nathan Simmonds:

First things first. Who here is a procrastinator yes or no in the comments? Who here is a procrastinator? We've got a yes, I've got an everyone tell you later. Maybe I can be sometimes last minute Charlie. A-K-A-A-K, a big time, sometimes good. And it's the same with Alcoholics Anonymous. Now the first thing about when you are, when you are an addict or you are an alcoholic, is to admit it. You have to take ownership of where you are with what's going on.

Nathan Simmonds:

Now, if you are not able to do that, you won't be able to put the actions in place or the steps in that are gonna help you move beyond that. We are all procrastinators. So that's the first thing I want to get you, you know, get really clear in your head that we all have a tendency to do it. How we work through it and how we use it to its advantage is different for different people

Nathan Simmonds:

And with the level of experience. So I wanted to cover that first, but quite here, we, I'll dive straight, I'll dive straight in too quickly. First things first, we've gotta set you up for success for this session, for the ongoing mobile phones. Let's make sure we're just zeroing out of distraction phones on flight mode, a hundred percent attention clean sheet for today.

Nathan Simmonds:

Write your procrastination at the top of it. Write keepers up there. And these, this, this sheet is gonna be the ideas that you want to go back and remind yourself about and reignite the thinking and remember what we talked about to kind of get the thinking going even further and embed the learning even deeper. Really important that we do this. So procrastination, we're all procrastinators.

Nathan Simmonds:

You have to take ownership of it. Why? I've got key elements here because it's inbuilt. So the first part I'm gonna cover today is it's a little bit of science. And then how you learn to dress it up. The science is that we all procrastinate. We have a central nervous system that is designed for comfort, yet we have a a spirit and a soul that is designed for growth. So what happens is, though, this central nervous system, this, this physical body that we have it, the idea is it's, is the brain is trying to keep us alive so that we can procreate and keep the species moving forward.

Nathan Simmonds:

And that's all any species is trying to do, is to adapt, to evolve and keep moving forward. So 200,000 years ago, what would happen is the amygdala that primordial part of your brain, the reptilian brain, the moment that you would go outside of the cave where you would go into something that or into an alien environment, that part of your brain would fire up and start to make you feel anxious or nervous or scared in order for you to go out there as quickly as possible and return back to the comfort, the creature comforts of your cave where you are safe so that you could continue to survive and your family would survive.

Nathan Simmonds:

But the problem is now, as we've got into 2020, regardless of what's going on, is your brain can't differentiate between a saber-tooth tiger or a job interview. It rates them at the same level of, of, of threat because that's the only thing your brain has has is a very binary kind of equation. Is it gonna eat me? Is it going to, you know, steal my food? Is it a threat or does it feel good? Can I move towards it?

Nathan Simmonds:

So the moment we start getting some of the, the, these brain signals and, and these frustrations and these anxieties coming up, the moment this happens, our brain starts to go into shut down. The, the logical part of our brain up here at the front closes down, and we go into fight, flight, flock, or freeze. And you've heard me mention this a couple of times in the training sessions, and this is what's hard starting to happen when we get into that and when we start getting, you know, that feeling, we then start to make excuses about why we don't want to do things or why we do want to do things.

Nathan Simmonds:

And this then comes out as procrastination. So what happens is we, we find ways to use our words that then justify why we are not doing things and we start to make excuses or we use socially acceptable mechanisms that distract us from actually doing what we need to be doing. 'cause It doesn't feel comfortable 'cause it's not normal because it's outside of our comfort zone.

Nathan Simmonds:

Hope this is useful so far high levels neuroscience, I'm not gonna go too in depth with that, but you just need to understand that this is actually your brain working and it's been doing it for 200,000 years or so and it's been doing it very effectively because we're still alive as a species just about right now in 2020. Bill Mollison, who's an interesting gentleman now sadly passed away. His phrase or quote that I learned from him is, you know, work with nature not against it. So if you understand that this is part of how your brain works, it's brain chemistry and it's your brain playing tricks on you to keep you alive. When you want to stop procrastinating, you just have to learn to play tricks on it back so you can keep yourself moving forward.

Nathan Simmonds:

Hope that's useful. Quick mouthful of tea. And then I'm gonna get into some common excuses that we use on a regular basis and to use as excuses to validate why we're not moving. So today what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna give you the seven common ones we use and then depending on time today within, I'm gonna boil that down even further tomorrow and get, start to give you that real clear insight as to why you're doing what you're doing and how to create that real deep focus and insight and alertness to help you move beyond it. So the first one, we've got the first excuse, excuse number one. It's easy.

Nathan Simmonds:

So what we have is actually modern technology and the way we work it is just making it easy to send a message, write an email, play Facebook Scrabble, do this, do that, you know, it's easy to avoid it now. Or it might be that the job's too easy to do. So because it's not physically challenging or mentally stimulating, we don't go towards it. So we put it off, nah, not important enough. And because then the distractions are easy, it's easy to flick onto social media and find yourself scrolling for 20 minutes rather than doing what you're meant to be doing.

Nathan Simmonds:

Why? Because social media isn't actually social, it's antisocial. So what they're using is these clever algorithms. But they are, again, mechanisms to fire up certain parts of your brain chemistry to make it feel good.

Sticky Learning Lunches #33: Learn How to Effectively Prepare for a Negotiation - Step 2

Use this 3-Step Template to Effectively Prepare for a Negotiation.

You Can Read the Full Transcript Below:

Nathan Simmonds:

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to Sticky Learning Lunches with me, Nathan Simmons. We are just gonna give it 30 seconds to get the final people in the room. Couple more people arriving. Great to see you. Yes, this is Friday. Yes, this is slightly more casual than my white shirt. Look Monday to Thursday. Who we got? Ryan, good to see you. Colin, thank you for being here again. Very appreciated. Darren, good to see you, Faby and Gina, amazing.

Nathan Simmonds:

Thank you for being here. Howard, June, Karen, Tim, Tracy, Victoria. Thank you very much. Camouflage not against the white wall. You know, I'm, I'm sure camouflage means I disappear into the background, not stand out from it. . So look, we're getting into day two of negotiation skills. Really grateful for everyone being here on this Friday for 30 minutes of their lunchtime with me.

Prepare for negotiation with this 3-step model

 

Nathan Simmonds:

So what, maybe in the future, when all this is over, we actually have a face-to-face lunch, and we all get together and we do a lunch and learn somewhere, somewhere central, and we do this and we actually have something to eat afterwards. I think that would be a great idea. You have made it fun and interesting. Made it a fun and interesting look. There you are. Very welcome. Very, very welcome. Let's get into this. Agreed. Sounds good to me.

Nathan Simmonds:

Okay, we've got some, we've got some positive votes for a lunch and learn somewhere. It could just, well be the back of Costa at King's Chaing cross train station. But we can get together and actually say hello and shake hands. That would be amazing. Let's get into this. Set up the day. Let's set up this session. Mobile phones, let's do this. Airplane mode.

Nathan Simmonds:

Zero out the distraction, a hundred percent attention fresh pad on your, on fresh note, no fresh page on your notepad. Get keepers at the top. These are the things that you want to remember, remind yourself about and come back to and reignite to, to kind of get the thinking going and put new ideas into flow and into flight. That way when you go back, you'll remember things that were said, ideas that were shared, and you'll come up with new ideas as well as those two things. Converge, drink, hydrated. It's getting warmer out there. So let's make sure you've got a drink and you can keep that attention flowing on this fine Friday.

Nathan Simmonds:

And let's do this. So welcome to Sticky Learning lunches with me, Nathan Simmons, senior leadership coach and trainer for MBM making Business Matter, the home Sticky learning, and we are the leadership development and soft skills provided to the grocery and manufacturing industry. Idea of these lunchtime learnings is to help you be the best, best version of you in the work you do. Whether it's at home right now, or whether that's helping you to return back to the work to the, to the work environment.

Nathan Simmonds:

Doesn't matter here to help, here to maximize the thinking and maximize your capabilities to go and deliver an even better result. Negotiation day two, starting to get into some of the technicalities of what we do, it's gonna come off the screen share for a little bit. Quick recap on yesterday. Number one, what did we cover yesterday? Mindset. The key elements of negotiation in anything that we're doing, whether it's sales negotiation, one-to-ones personal development.

Nathan Simmonds:

Any conversation that we need to be having, there needs to be an element of preparation. Why? Because we, we feel under prepared, we feel underqualified. And as a result of that, it puts us under stress. Mindset is always the thing that's gonna gonna support us. Everything is preceded by a thought. Everything happens because of what we think. It's then our emotions that follow that thinking then, then causes some of the problems. So what we covered yesterday,

Nathan Simmonds:

Very high level. First thing is positioning about how you position yourself. One analogy that came to mind as I was writing some more in-depth information about this, this, this morning. You know, often when we go to war, we have to get a position, we have to hold a position and we have to defend a position. Does it mean that every conversation we're going into, we're already thinking it's gonna be a war or a battle?

Nathan Simmonds:

Actually with this this in mind, maybe we need to relax and stop positioning ourselves. Stop defending and stop fighting. The second thing we covered was important. Lower the stress, lower the pressure, take the importance off it. If you're looking for a new client or a new contract, let's be frank, you didn't have it in the first place, therefore you are not losing it. Reduce the importance. Take the stress outta it.

Nathan Simmonds:

It doesn't mean that you have to be or sorry, in instead of doing this, you can still be confident in what you are delivering and still be focused in what you are bringing to that conversation. Again, think about what you are contributing and the growth that you're creating, the impact as a result of you being there, rather than what you think you're gonna get or not get. Reduce the importance. The second thing you've gotta do in here, or sorry, the third thing in here, because it's gonna break into two parts, is listening.

Nathan Simmonds:

When we take ourselves out of the position, we lower, lower the importance. We can then start to listen to actually, actually what's going on for the other person. How are they positioning themselves? What pressure are they putting themselves under? What's the reason? Who, who do you feel is putting the pressure on them? Actually, we can start to get a bit curious. We can start to get some ideas about actually what's important to them.

Nathan Simmonds:

And then the third, sorry, the final part for this is then thinking about our language. What words we're gonna use, how we're gonna approach it, showing appreciation, finding merit in what people are saying and finding the value in what they're saying. So actually we're gonna have a, a, a, a, a mutually beneficial conversation rather than give take or, or going in for the kill. So these are the first things. It is the mindset. Everything starts with mindset. But then we want to get into a little bit of the technicalities of what we're doing here. We wanna, you know, have a structure to the conversation.

Nathan Simmonds:

And this what we're gonna provide you with is what we call the square dance. So the, we're gonna provide you with the link in a minute to the article, which is good, Tracy, glad you're back in. We're gonna provide you with the link to the article, which gives you the downloadable template of the square dance. We'll drop that into the into the chat box in just a moment. What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna, I shared it briefly yesterday. I'm gonna share it with you now so you can see this immediately. So you have the key elements here.

Nathan Simmonds:

So this one sheet provides you with an opportunity just before you go into any conversation, any negotiation, lemme clarify any kind of business professional negotiation. Now, if you're negotiating with a 7-year-old daughter, like I have to about bedtime, writing one of these sheets before may not be the, the, the appropriate thing, but maybe actually as I'm saying that, that might actually be a beneficial thing. Maybe I should do this at lunchtime just to work out what might happen this evening and work out what I would like to achieve.

Nathan Simmonds:

What my walkaways from and what I can, you know, what I'm willing to trade with my daughter to support her. Going to bed on time, links there now for the ultimate guide. And then there is the, the the square dance template as well. So the first part we wanna talk about, you've got wish and walk, and then you've got give and take. And then you've also got your tools and tactics. So in this, the first part we're gonna cover is your wish and walks. What is your wishes? Your wish is the things that you want to take away.

Nathan Simmonds:

It is what you wanna achieve from the conversation. Now what are you wishing now what is the desired outcome of this conversation? And as Steven CO's co co says in habits of Highly Effective People is, you know, begin with the end in mind. You want to know where you are going. I said this in goal setting. I've said it in the pd p planning previously in those, in those tutorials before. You need to know where you are going. And it's like sat nav. Unless you know where you are and where you want to get to, you know, you are never ever gonna get kind of the, the right route and the right path to make that happen. So your wish is the first part. The bit that you need to be really clear of. The first part

Nathan Simmonds:

Is you make your wishes smart. And we've talked about that. You need to be looking for your smart objectives. Specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, relevant, results focused and time bound. So you need to be clear, you know, is do you want, you know, you are selling produce or you're selling, you know, a product and you want six pound 80 for a per crate and you want to sell a hundred of those crates. And you need to be clear your wishes that I wish to sell 100 crates and they need to be at six pound 80.

Nathan Simmonds:

The moment you kind of make it unspecific and unmeasurable, I wanna sell some crates. Well, maybe you only sell two and maybe you only get them for four pound. So we need to be really clear on what we're doing. The other part we need to think about in this, and I've said this around goal setting, we talk about this in in the negotiation preparation, is make your goals credibly stretched.

Nathan Simmonds:

Sticky Learning Lunches #32: Learn How to Effectively Prepare for a Negotiation - Step 1

Use this 3-Step Template to Effectively Prepare for a Negotiation.

You Can Read the Full Transcript Below:

Nathan Simmonds:

Good afternoon. Wonderful people. Lot of enthusiastic faces and names popping up. Colin, great to see you Fabian. Thank you very much for being here. Janine, Karen, good to see you again, Vicki, fantastic to see you vj. Thanks for being here. Just looking down the list as people arrive. Just gonna give it a couple more seconds while people are arriving. Good afternoon. Darren got three days of negotiation. Concepts and ideas.

Nathan Simmonds:

You can tell when people get fired up about these ideas 'cause they've turn up early. Feel the need to before they get the best seat in the house. And as you're working from home, you already have the best seat in the house. So before we do this, give a few more seconds while the last few people are arriving. As always, mobile phones, let's zero out the distractions. Let's make sure you've got a hundred percent attention on what you are doing today on yourselves and your thinking and development. Making sure you've got a drink available as well. Keeping hydrated. Good afternoon, Stuart. Petra, great to see you. Tim, thank you very much for being here. Gina, great to see you again. Last couple of people.

Learn how to prepare for a negotiation

 

Nathan Simmonds:

Just while we're waiting for the last few people in, I go, I'm gonna start today's session with a few questions. We're gonna be looking at a few things of how much training, if you've had any if you have had negotiation training, how much, how many hours of negotiation training have you had in relation to your job? So I'm gonna be asking a few of these questions when we start today's session. Kind of get a flavor for what you guys know, don't know and start to see how potentially there's a bit of a gap there in the amount of training we have to the amount of time we actually spend doing these things in the real

Nathan Simmonds:

Good. Let's do this everybody fresh page in your notepad, pens at the ready, at the top of that page, you're gonna write keepers and those, those are gonna be the things that you wanna remember, keep hold of and kind of reignite that thinking when you go back to when you finish reading these notes. Okay? So get that fresh page ready to get your fresh thoughts on there. Unless to get into today's session, welcome to today's Sticky learning lunch with me, Nathan Simmons, senior leadership coach and trainer for MBM Making Business Matter, the home of Sticky learning.

Nathan Simmonds:

And we are the leadership development and soft skills provider to the grocery and manufacturing industry. I do with these sessions is to give you 20 minutes of micro learning that's gonna help you be the best version of you in the work that you do in the moment right now while you are working from that and preparing you to return back to work in the best possible way. Today's session and the next two sessions after this, so it's gonna be Friday and then Monday is all about negotiation skills and working in the grocery industry.

Nathan Simmonds:

There's a hell of a lot of negotiations going on for me though. I wanna start this with a bit of a question. The question I've written down here for you is what do you consider to be a negotiation? What sort of things do you think for yourself are negotiations? And I wanna see what your thinking is and where your thinking is on these things. What do you think is a negotiation gain? A positive outcome? Yeah. Any interaction between two people can be, yeah,

Nathan Simmonds:

Bargaining, win-win. Good. We're getting some good ideas. Always looking for the win-win situation if we can. Karen? Yeah. And we bargaining it is an interaction between two people. Negotiation, persuasion, and influencing are all similar. Yes they are. And there are elements that we switch onto those things that different points in the, in the, the dynamic of the dialogue. Thank you Colin. Just reminded me. Get on the full screen. There we go. Reaching a compromise in some cases. Yes Howard, it is about reaching a compromise.

Nathan Simmonds:

It's trying to work out what the best solution is for everybody at any given situation at any given point in time. And sometimes there has to be that given and take. So what we're gonna cover through the course of, he says, lemme go back to that first question. I've already got some answers. My next question for all of you is, how many hours of training have you had in negotiation skills in relation to the amount of years that you've been doing that inside your job,

Nathan Simmonds:

Neil? Zero. Zero for every occasion that we need to use Infl. Yeah, absolutely. Point zero zero five. That's very precise. 1% not enough. Good. It's a lot of really brutally honest responses in here and I'm glad you're all here to learn some of these concepts. One, and this is the problem. So then is there any wonder why we find negotiations difficult? Is there any, you know, is there any wonder why when we think that we need to go and negotiate some something that we may not get what we want and we feel like we may be losing?

Nathan Simmonds:

Yes or no? Is this how some of us are feeling when we are thinking about that we have to go and negotiate something? Yes. Emotions get in the way. Absolutely. And we're gonna talk about emotions date. Yes, yes, yes, absolutely. We feel under prepared underqualified and under stress to go and get those things done. We get stress put on us by our managers, our leaders or whatever if we're going to, if we are buying or or selling a product or whatever or negotiating on prices and then we feel under prepared because we don't quite know what we need to do and then we feel underqualified because we actually haven't had the training or the support to actually make that happen in the best possible way.

Nathan Simmonds:

So the moment that says someone, someone says, oh, you need to go and negotiate or you need to negotiate this. What sort of emotions come up for you? What sort of thoughts come up for you? I'm not sure that word is an emotion current and it wasn't an expletive. It's like, ah, I think that's kind of an, an outcome of an emotion that goes with this win-lose or walk away. So we started to see as this this win-lose walk away thing. So we're starting to feel the kind of this pulling away almost.

Nathan Simmonds:

But the good thing in what you're saying there is we're starting to break down some of the things that we need to be thinking about when we go into a negotiation. Often the biggest challenge we have when we talk about negotiation is we're concerned that it may end in conflict that are our needs won't be met. And actually, when you go back to the root cause of any conflict situation, it is based on the fact that either one or both parties believe that their needs are not being met any and every conflict situation.

Nathan Simmonds:

So whether it's someone's upset and they're calling their contact center or their mobile phone provider because something's wrong with the terms and conditions or you go all the way up to full blown war, it's because one or both parties, whether on an individual or or geographical level believe their needs are not being met. So when we think about negotiation, we feel like we might have to compromise. We feel like maybe someone has to lose out or that maybe we have to walk away. So we start to get these, these negative connotations and these emotions start to come up.

Nathan Simmonds:

So they've got, coming, coming through here, depending on who it will be with, can be through a full spectrum of enthusiasm to fear. Absolutely. Why? Because the other person on the other side of the table may come with some emotional biases. So when we look at things like the apprentice and these people say, yeah, I'm in a cutthroat and I'm a shark and I'm this and that, and you think of people slamming their hands on the desks and all these sorts of things, that's not negotiation, that's just rude. When we look at the negotiation, one of the key things that breaks down any relationship or any dialogue is the emotion and mindset we have before we even get there.

Nathan Simmonds:

You have to be quick thinking on the spot Sometimes yes, sometimes yes. So the idea of this session and the next two sessions, and I've got it written down here to make sure that I'm prepared, is to give you some of the core thinking and some of that preparation that's gonna help you to think a bit clearer. It's gonna give you a structure and a dynamic where you can get your thoughts down on paper and, okay, well what is it I need?

Nathan Simmonds:

What is it I want? What am I willing to give? What do I want to take away from this? And how am I gonna make that happen? How many of you in this group right now do some really clear preparation before you go into a negotiation? Yes or no? Are you preparing yourselves before you go into a negotiation? Yes. Good ish, yes, but need to do more honest. I like it.

Nathan Simmonds:

Yes, if I'm aware it's gonna happen, not enough. So we've got a mix through responses. We know we need to do more. If I know, if I'm aware it's gonna happen. Not enough. The the negotiation idea we use, it's a framework, it's a way of thinking and it gives you some structure so that even if you are not prepared, at least you can hang a couple of pegs in the right places while you are having the conversation and having to think on the spot. So what we use, and I'm gonna share my screen with you, is partly what we're gonna teach you over the next two days, primarily mindset.

Nathan Simmonds:

Today, tomorrow is gonna be more about the structures and how we get into that is what we refer to as a square dance. This is a model concept that was built by Darren, the founder of MBM.

Sticky Learning Lunch #31: Feel Like Your Constantly Stuck in the Office?

When working from Home I Feel like I am Always Stuck in the Office. Discover ways to separate home & work, and be much happier in both.

You Can Read the Full Transcript Below:

Nathan Simmonds:

Good afternoon. Sticky learning lunches. Just waiting for the last couple of people to arrive. Looking forward to doing this session today. Good afternoon. Just waiting for people to get in. Good afternoon, Claire. Good to see you. Colin. Great to see you again. Thanks for being here. Fabian, wonderful to see you again, Gareth, splendid. Laura and Tim, thanks for being here. Just what given to give it 30 seconds as always, just as I'm having a mouthful of tea, before we dive into this, make sure we've got our phones up. Let's make sure our phones are on flight mode. Cancel out the distractions. Give yourselves a hundred percent attention right now. Let's see. Just gonna give it 30 seconds.

Nathan Simmonds:

Question for those that were already here. What is, we've been in lockdown for, what? 11 weeks, 12 weeks now? It feels like a long time. Maybe. Maybe I'm exaggerating that. Firstly, how long have you been in lockdown for? And secondly, what's the strangest randomest thing that you've actually, you know, learned to do or, or put your time into doing While you've had all this extra time, let me know in the questions box or the chat box, how long have you been in lockdown for?

Nathan Simmonds:

What's the strangest thing that you, or the newest thing that you've been learning to do since you had the all this extra time to play with. Just as we're waiting for the people to arrive. And let me know in the questions box and I'll share with you my new project in just a moment. Completely unwork related, sort of good last few people just arriving. Focus on them, the colleagues, always focusing on them.

Find out how to break the cycle of working from home

 

Nathan Simmonds:

Alright, pens in pockets ready to go. Welcome to today's Sticky Learning Lunch with me, Nathan Simmons, senior leadership coach and trainer for MBM Making Business Matter. Excited to be here again. Been doing this for six weeks. I think I've worked out earlier, just over six weeks now. We've been delivering these lunchtime, learning these micro learnings to give you ideas that's gonna help you be the best version of you in what you do right now and prepare you for the return to work, whatever that might look like over the coming weeks and days and weeks.

Nathan Simmonds:

Welcome to this sticky lunch. So for those that don't know or maybe new to making business matter, MBM is the home of sticky learning. We are the leadership development and soft skills provided to the grocery and manufacturing industry. And I just wanna share some core ideas just to help you push your concepts in thinking forward. One of the most valuable things that we do at MBM is we make learning stick. And what does that mean for HR professionals and, and l and d professionals and leaders out there?

Nathan Simmonds:

Is the way that we deliver our training. Makes sure that the training and the learning is embedded and stays there and is getting used. Too many training providers go in one day, deliver a piece of content and then exit. And then maybe they do kind of their, their evaluation sheets or maybe they have a bit of a conversation a couple of months time, but they don't go back and revisit or address or support or tweak and adjust that content as those learning experiences start to adapt and evolve in the live environment.

Nathan Simmonds:

So, making business matter, the way that we structure our learning and development is all about making sure that these new skills, these new ideas and these new concepts stay in, get used and create results. One, one of these, you know, the elements of, of what we are doing here, right at the beginning of this situation in lockdown, we went through a model called mindset. And it was all about your mindset and, and how you are dealing with certain elements of the lockdown situation.

Nathan Simmonds:

And what we are doing today is we're coming back to revisit some of the core elements in there just to make sure you are refreshing and a and a and keeping that think and evolving about how you are interacting with this current circumstance. How you are making the most of it, how you are adapting to the new working world that we're in.

Nathan Simmonds:

And this session is about coming back to that, doing the revisit, doing the redress on it and making sure that we're recalibrating and pushing it forward. So what does mindset stand for? Well, the first part of mindset is about manage. It's about managing yourself and managing what you do and how you are working on a daily basis. Bear with me, my laptop is just decided to do something a little bit peculiar and it's about having routines.

Nathan Simmonds:

It's about how you manage yourself in the process of what we're doing. One of the key things I wanted to talk to you about today and just remind you in this first part is making sure that you have a to-do list and also making sure that you have a to don't list because it is really easy. When we are in isolation, which is the other part of the mindset model, it's really easy that we start to lose focus on things.

Nathan Simmonds:

We don't want to get involved in new projects and we may still be feeling that now. We may be challenged by certain situations are work, home, life balance and whether we are homeschooling or how that's working. And because of some of these things we get thrown off kilter, off, off balance and our routine starts to get taken, takes a bit of a knock. How many people here have a really robust routine on a scale of one to 10, one being terrible, 10 being phenomenal, what is your daily routine like right now? Let's see what we've got. So 10 weeks, 10 weeks in lockdown so far leading teams and keeping them around up from a distance.

Nathan Simmonds:

Absolutely. It's a, it is a skillset in itself. Hmm, good. So morning routine seven some days three on others. That's good. I like there, there's a varying there, you know, a couple of other sevens coming in. What's the thing question here, you know, going into, into the, into the group, what's the thing then that really knocks your daily routine off? What's, you know, what really really take, you know knocks your attention and really kind of throws the whole day out for you? What are the things that made that happen?

Nathan Simmonds:

Got an average of 8.5 surprises, unplanned events. Good. So it's the ad hoc stuff, the curve balls that come in. The routine and establishing that routine is making sure that we have the breaks. It's making sure that we have the to-do list so we know what we need to do tomorrow. We know what we're starting. We know when we start the day, we give ourselves 10, 15 minutes at the beginning of the day just to go back over the things that we know we need to do and making sure we're documenting them. Also going back in there and, and like I say, having that list and having the to don't list and making sure you are putting things on there that you are guaranteed that you are gonna say no to.

Nathan Simmonds:

Because the question from me to you is if you say yes to them, what are you actually saying no to? This makes sense. If you say yes to the things that you know that are not gonna be productive, that are gonna hold you back or cause a problem. If you say yes to those things, what are you actually saying no to? To think about that for a moment. When we look at the things like surprises and events, if we go back to that Brian Tracy analogy, which is about eat the frog.

Nathan Simmonds:

And for some of you that may have heard this phrase before, do eat the frog. Why? Because it's probably the most repulsive, disgusting thing you can think about today. Eating a frog, that's disgusting. I'm not doing it. The idea, come on though, when you do your to-do list, what is the most difficult thing on that list? What is the thing that you are procrastinating about? What is the thing that you're trying to avoid doing and wish someone else would do?

Nathan Simmonds:

And in truth, if you're working from home and you're on your own, no one else is gonna do it. So what you need to do is make sure that you eat the frog first. Get your to-do list, get your todo list. See what the most difficult thing is challenging thing that you need to get done first on that list and get it done. 'cause Then what happens is when the surprise comes in, when the unplanned event comes in, you are guaranteed to still feel success 'cause you did the difficult thing that's still not weighing down on you.

Nathan Simmonds:

The idea is that when we end the day, we don't feel like atlas. I'm not sure if it was the Greek or Roman gold with the whole world on our shoulders being weighed down in truth, you know, potentially it's just a giant frog. We just need to chop it up into small bite-sized chunks and just eat it. Hope this is useful to do List to don't list. Eat your frogs. This is the first part I wanted to go back over with it just to help you deal with some of those surprises. The second thing I wanted to get in there was around structure.

Nathan Simmonds:

So the, the one of the biggest challenges that we have in isolation is going through the guilt part of it is we suddenly feel guilty because we've got all this spare time and then so we're going do more work and then we feel like we're going into overwhelm and doing too much and we go back and we're not sure. So we're going busy, busy, busy freedom, freedom, freedom. And we're still going through little waves of that depending on the projects et cetera that we're working on. So it's really important that we are taking time to breathe and, and we're structuring our day.

Nathan Simmonds:

Again, it comes back to that routine.

Sticky Learning Lunch 30: How to Make Your Virtual Team More Effective

Exclusively to help line managers to discover ways to build a more effective virtual team, in Virtual Team Could be More Effective Part 2.

You Can Read the Full Transcript Below:

Nathan Simmonds:

Good afternoon. Welcome to Sticky Learning Lunches with me, Nathan Simmons. We are just gonna give it 30 more seconds. Just we're all waiting for the last handful of people to arrive. How was everybody's weekend? Let me know in the questions box or the chat box for those in the UK that had a bank holiday. How was your long weekend for those? Not in the uk. How was your weekend? Two days ago? I think there's a few people still just trying to get back in the swing of things for a Tuesday. Hello, Colin. Fabian. Janine. Good to see you. Good to see you again, Pearl. Good to see you Stuart.

Nathan Simmonds:

I think with the long weekend here in the UK that we might see a few stragglers and a few people may be watching us on the replay rather than getting us live as they get back in the swing of things after three days or away in the garden. Windy to start, but so lots of time in the garden. Weed's still winning. Nah, well, weeds are just plants with a different viewpoint put on top of them. I know this 'cause I spent time on my allotment. I've got some potato plants here in the garden that are actually being weeds right now 'cause they're in the wrong place.

How to make an effective virtual team

 

Nathan Simmonds:

Attendees, let's just make sure we've got everyone here, Aaron, on. Good to see you, Tim. Good to see you. Welcome back. Let's dive in because we have got a couple of key points to, to cover. Anyone misses the first part, they can dive back in and get the recording later, whether that's on YouTube, whether you're watching this on the replay or whether you can watch this live and you're diving, we'll get there or you will get up to date rapidly.

Nathan Simmonds:

Part two of engaging virtually with our teams. Last week we covered some people, ah, always so eager to deliver the content. First of all, let's make sure we're setting everyone up for success. Mobile phones, let's get your mobile phones out, let's make sure they're on flight mode. So you zero out the distraction, a hundred percent attention on you. And you are learning and making sure that you are paying attention to what's happening and where your thoughts are going rather than what's happening coming through from your mobile phone.

Nathan Simmonds:

Thank you, Colin, for the reminder. Let's make it on full screen. So that's the first thing. Second thing is making sure you've got a drink and you are hydrated. It's getting warmer here. Let's make sure actually you are physically looking after yourself so you can mentally engage with what we're doing. And the third thing is making sure you've got a blank page in your not put note, not put notepad with keepers written at the top.

Nathan Simmonds:

And keepers are the things that you want to keep hold of the things you wanna remember and the things you wanna remind yourself about when you read back through your notes and say, ah, now I remember that thing. Ah, this is how it helps and this is how you are expanding it. So it's really important you're doing these three things to give yourself the the the focus and attention and engagement so that you are winning from this from the beginning. Part two.

Nathan Simmonds:

Then virtual engagement, how we are building stronger teams wherever they may be across the globe, across the country. And whatever satellite location in relation to you, you are building a tight network that looks and works much like more like a structure of a chemical compound. Well connected, well thought about and deliberate. So one of the key, well three of the key things that we picked up last week was the three differences.

Nathan Simmonds:

One is distance, two isolation, and three is connection. And I wanna expand and dive into these just a little bit more to give you that bit of extra clarity on them. So as I was thinking about, you know, the, the, the key elements that are building psychological safety and how we do this as, as leaders, as as learning and development practitioners, as HR business partners. These are some of the key elements that we need to be aware of so we can start to build that psychological safety.

Nathan Simmonds:

And as I started to sit on these ideas and, and kind of just to see where my thinking was going and what's important to this and doing a bit more research, you know, I came up with some really key elements that we need to be thinking about the first one and the expansion of those questions.

Nathan Simmonds:

And a quick recap, the expansion of those questions that we started looking at last week, which was now as a leader is asking more questions of your people. How are you? What's going on? How can I help? Then making yourself available to them. So understanding that when you're asking these questions, they're gonna need support and make yourself available to them. Let them know when you are available, where you are going to be.

Nathan Simmonds:

So they've got a mentor pitch of, of your availability so they know when they can speak you and when they, when they need to wait, et cetera. And it just gives them that sense of security that they know they have someone they can call upon. And then the part last part there I put on there was do sweat the small things for these people, for your people that are in different locations, what you think may not be important to you may be massively important to them.

Nathan Simmonds:

And it is the small details that sometime get compounded over a course of time, especially with this intensity of proximity that we have with our families, with our works, et cetera. You know, and the analogy that I used on on Friday was, you know, if you've got a small pebble stuck inside your shoe and your climbing Everest, which one's gonna seem bigger? The mountain you are climbing or the pebble inside your shoe. So think about this, ask these questions to your people and get them and, and get to understand what are those important small things for them so that you can eliminate those obstacles so these people can do their best work.

Nathan Simmonds:

And I wanted to dive into this distance and give some ideas to help shorten that distance. Question to all of you listening, watching right now, what's one thing that you are all doing that's helping you to stay connected to your people? What's one trick or tip that you would like to share with everybody else in this session that is helping you to stay connected with your people and have a slrp of tea? Just while you are pinging in those suggestions,

Nathan Simmonds:

It is important we understand this distance weekly, one-to-one meetings via video. Good using teams allows, for instance, chats, messages, calls, video. Absolutely. So we're using different platforms to stay connected at different points in in the day. We're having a weekly session booked in with our people.

Nathan Simmonds:

The challenge that we have, especially with distance, as any more suggestions come in, the thing we have is now if there was distance in the office, whether there were interpersonal relationships or friction or tensions, these things are gonna be exacerbated over a longer, you know, e even more greatly because of the distance that's being created by logistically and geographically.

Nathan Simmonds:

So it's important we understand this and we need to find ways to close that distance and to get, make stronger connections. And, you know, when we return back to the office, if we can start using these techniques and ideas physically, it makes it easier to manage virtually. Couple of key things in, and we're looking at the distances. We wanna start to learn how to collaborate more clearly. Maybe the people in your teams are working on different projects or working on one. How do they actually connect with each other? How are you encouraging them to connect with each other?

Nathan Simmonds:

How are you getting them to have conversations with them, with, with each other, even when you are not there? So rather than those individuals feeling like they're siloed or segregated even by their own thinking, let alone by, you know, the thoughts or, or in intonations of other people, how are you making sure they're connecting? Couple of things that we can do inside this space is one is create collaborations.

Nathan Simmonds:

Get people to work with each other, get people to have virtual coffee breaks with each other, just to have downtime to speak to each other in the team. So this is one element that we can use these, the technologies and the platforms that we've got, whether it's by phone, because I said about this before, you can still use the phone, it still exists. Don't have to use video chat all the time. Get correct.

Nathan Simmonds:

Create moments where people collaborate with each other. Make suggestions. If you are talking to someone in your team and you say, oh, that's a really great idea, it will be really great if you shared that with so and so or with the rest of the team, could you have a conversation with them and encourage them to speak to other people in the team? They may already be doing it, but get 'em to carve out those little times a window to connect, to shorten the distance.

Nathan Simmonds:

The other thing is, is also getting them to lead meetings. So we talked about before the online presentations, and it's now the same person comes on, here's Bob, the team leader with his PowerPoint deck, and he presses at the beginning and he reads every single slide and you can't see the video and most of the people have checked out and they're doing something else.

Nathan Simmonds:

You want people to engage. And again,

Sticky Learning Lunch 29: How to Make Your Virtual Team More Effective

Exclusively to help line managers to discover ways to build a more effective virtual team.

You Can Read the Full Transcript Below:

Nathan Simmonds:

Good afternoon everyone. Welcome to Friday Sticky Learning Lunches with me, Nathan Simmons. We are just giving it a moment for the last attendees to arrive. Before we dive in, let's just give it 30 seconds. While we're getting there, hope everybody's Friday is being good to them. So far right now, just as we're waiting for those last people to arrive, what is the best part about your Friday?

Nathan Simmonds:

And please, I will not accept the answer of, it's the last day of the week and it's the weekend. What is the best part about your Friday right now? Let me know in the questions box, what is the best part of your Friday right now? Just as those last people come in, we've got an acceleration on a big project. Nice, great way to finish the week. Good session as it is right now. Colin, thanks very much. Really appreciate that. Love the feedback.

Nathan Simmonds:

Just I'm gonna give you a couple more seconds as we're waiting for those people to arrive. Welcome to New Faces and old faces. Old as in people that have been there before, not age. Welcome, good to see you. Let's just make sure everyone's got their phones on flight mode. So get your phones out, make sure they're switched over to flight mode. Make sure that you've got zero distraction. Make sure you've got full attention on what you are doing right here for yourself right now. So phones on flight mode. Make sure you've got a drink as well. Make sure you've got hydration available. It might be a little bit less sunny. It is still warm here. Please make sure you are hydrated and you are ready for this session.

How to make your virtual team more effective

 

Nathan Simmonds:

And finally, the last part as always with these sessions is make sure you've got a fresh pad and pen available, a blank sheet for you to fill up. At the top of that sheet, you're gonna write keepers and keepers are the things that you want to keep hold of the space to put ideas that you want to come back to and, and be reminded of so you can invoke and recharge some of that thinking to help embed the learning and keep that behavioral change moving forward. It's what we do here at MBM. Good afternoon. Hello Tim. Good to see you again, Fabian. Great to see you again. Thanks for coming back. Great to see you people, Janine and Pearl. Great to see you.

Nathan Simmonds:

Welcome to today's Sticky Learning Lunch with me, Nathan Simmons, senior leadership coach and trainer for MBM making Business Matter at the home of Sticky Learning. And we are the leadership skills and soft, sorry, the leadership development and soft skills provider to the manufacturing industry idea of these sessions is to give you some core focus content that's gonna help you be the best version of you right now if you're working from home as well as for the future.

Nathan Simmonds:

And moving forward. Today's session is all about virtual teams and how we are creating more connection, how we we're getting better results from these new brave new world that we're living in right now. I am one for asking questions and we're gonna talk a bit about this later on. What are you doing right now that is enabling you to create a better connection with your virtual teams in your virtual environments? What are you doing right now that's creating stronger connections?

Nathan Simmonds:

Because I want a, I wanna see if there's something that I can learn from you and there's also, I wanna be able to share some things as well, practical, pragmatic approaches that maybe you are doing that other people aren't, and we can share that immediately and do some peer-to-peer coaching with the people that are here right now. What are you doing right now to create stronger connections with your virtual teams? Let me know in the questions box, what have we got?

Nathan Simmonds:

What are you doing right now. Thinking more about them and revising objectives and tasks. Absolutely asking them how lockdown is treating them. Absolutely absolute definite to doing this because it's gonna be different for different people and revising the objectives and tasks for me. And with is something we looked at before is actually the time it's being taken to do those things or the time that we get responses for those things because our ways of working are now different and we have different responsibilities with family and children around, maybe we don't get an email response immediately.

Nathan Simmonds:

Don't, maybe we don't get the email at 10 o'clock in the morning. Maybe it comes at 10 o'clock at night because that's the time that we're now working because the world's changed shape. And as we're leading teams, it's important we understand that how things are working for different people in, in different environments. So part of it is about acknowledging these things and, and how we can make these improvements for our virtual teams. Another suggestion coming in, meet on a regular basis and shared tricks to manage anxiety and keep balance.

Nathan Simmonds:

Absolutely this regularity of contact as well. And we're gonna talk about that in just a moment. And this is, these are some of the variables that we get. And that are then magnified. We get a certain level of intensity and we need to magnify because the, the, the challenges are magnified. We also then need to magnify the way that we bridge those challenges. As I talked about with presentation skills are here, you have to up the game, you have to be more energized to bring people in because they're not physically there. And it's the same when we're looking at these regular contact points.

Nathan Simmonds:

We have to up the way they work, we have have to increase the the intensity on those to make sure that we feel more connected because we are less connected. Another suggestion coming in, giving them the opportunity to share their wins and challenges. Absolutely Fabian, these are absolute fire and I'm really happy that you're sharing them great spaces for people to share. And whether this is, you know, on conference calls or phone calls or whatever it is, is giving them new windows to share that stuff. Brilliant.

Nathan Simmonds:

So today's session is about, what I've got here is three ways to up the team game. Now it is about understanding what the difference is between the, the virtual space and the homeworking and the face-to-face space and what those core differences are and those core challenges are. And then give us some techniques and tips that are gonna help you to succeed with those things and just ramp up and support the ongoing journey because this is the new reality in one way, shape, or form. And it's about really appreciating that.

Nathan Simmonds:

So for you, what do you think the difference is between a virtual team and a face-to-face team for you? What are those differences? What are the biggest differences and challenges that come up? Let me know in the questions box, trust becomes even more important. Absolutely. So trust is one of the key elements that we've got in there. What are some of the other differences and challenges that we have in these spaces? What other suggestions have we got?

Nathan Simmonds:

Steely silence, they might be typing. The three core challenges that we do have three core differences and challenges. One is obviously distance is the space between us is how close we are to people and, and then how far away we are from them. The second one is isolation. And we talked a little bit about this in the homeworking, the initial parts of these trainings we did. But it's the sense of isolation.

Nathan Simmonds:

Loneliness is actually gonna be one of the biggest killers of society over the next probably 5, 10, 15 years. So when we look at mental health, and this is mental health awareness week, anxiety and depression, loneliness and isolation is gonna be one of the biggest challenges and one of the biggest indicators or signals that people will be having challenges with their mental health. We need connection. And the last part here is actually the connection

Nathan Simmonds:

Is how we are connecting, how we are interacting with each other. And it's important we understand that these are the three probably biggest differences between the real team and the virtual team and how we learn to manage some of these elements and some of these aspects. Now suggesting a lack of continuous contact, whether you used to be able to see their body language of behave. Absolutely.

Nathan Simmonds:

But what we found though in this world is in this new conditions that we're in is some people are really thriving inside the the homeworking space. And there are certain people working on certain projects at certain points where actually homeworking is better for 'em because they're getting more done and they're feeling more productive. The things that we need to be checking on with especially or checking in with, especially with our teams is are they struggling right now with this situation?

Nathan Simmonds:

And you as a leader or a HR professional, whatever it is up to you to then ask them that question. How are they feeling now? It's been eight weeks, nine weeks, 10 weeks, whatever. How are they feeling in this situation? Are they still struggling or are they struggling in a different way? Were they okay at the start? And has that built up over a course of the time? Because what I've felt over the last couple of weeks, I've had more fluctuations where I've dipped because it feels like, you know, I've had enough and that's gonna be different for different people.

Nathan Simmonds:

And then asking the question, well what do they need? What do they need as an individual? Now some of the people we're working with, they need to be in the office,

Sticky Learning Lunches #28: Making Learning Stick & Making a Difference

Today's topic, After Training Courses they Do Nothing Different Part 2. Discover 7 ways to help your people to achieve behavioural change, and make learning stick after a training course.

You Can Read the Full Transcript Below:

Nathan Simmonds:

Good afternoon everybody. Welcome to today's 50th Learning Lunch. I'm just breaking my whiteboard. We're just waiting for the last couple of people to show up today for part two of How to Make Learning Stick. Hello Colin. Good to see you Darren. Thank you. Karen. Hello again. Matt Brown. Hello Susan. Tim, see you. Thank you for being here again. It's very, very appreciated. Very appreciated.

Nathan Simmonds:

We're just gonna give it 30 seconds while we're letting some more people show up and then we're gonna get into some stuff he says in floating speech. Marks loving these sessions. I'm loving these sessions too, Karen. Thank you very much. It's appreciated. Benjamin, great to see you And no, I was not. I did not have makeup on my shirt the other day. I know you made a comment about that. I had a check and it must've been a shadow, but it definitely wasn't makeup.

Nathan Simmonds:

Not very often that I do wear makeup. My agent, it's not very often you get it on your shirt either. No, not even at the weekends, right? Let's make sure we're setting everyone up for success as people are coming in. Let's zero out the distractions as always. Let's make sure the phones on flight mode a hundred percent attention on you. A hundred percent attention on the information rings available. I actually have a warm cup of tea today, which is good and we're gonna dive into this in your pen. So what have we covered so far? Actually, whoa, skip him back.

Make learning stick with our sticky learning lunch

 

Nathan Simmonds:

How's everyone? Still got their goals written down from yesterday. Thank you Colin, for the reminder. Appreciated. Get off the full screen. Has everyone still got their goals written down from yesterday of what they would like to achieve from this session? Yesterday's session about how to make learning stick. Have you still got that piece of paper handy with that single learning objective that you wrote down for yourself?

Nathan Simmonds:

Can hear the flapping of paper as you're scurrying back through your notepads? Wanna find that page? Good. We're gonna come back to that in a minute. The second thing to help you set, Lauren, the third thing to help you set help set you up for success as I have done in previous sessions, is making sure you've got a fresh page or you've got a fresh piece of page to write on for your keepers. And at the top of that, you are gonna write keepers.

Nathan Simmonds:

These are the things you wanna remember and be reminded of and reread that is gonna help bring that memory and that thinking and that imagination to the forefront to help embed and make the learning stick. Starting to see where I'm going with this. Early doors. Good. What did we cover yesterday? Let me ask that question to you because this is, you know, one of the things I've got a degree in is asking questions. What do you remember from yesterday? What are the key standouts for you from yesterday? Carrying in there? Like fire wtt, what's in it for them? Number one from yesterday.

Nathan Simmonds:

What else do we remember? Good. What's in it for them? Good. What else do we remember from yesterday's session that helps Pete, that's gonna help you to make your learning stick? Hello Helen. Good to see you. Hello Haley. Great to see you again, Emma. Thanks for being here again, change as a change resisted, absolutely engage leaders. Absolutely they need to engage our leaders so that they can engage their own development so other people are inspired to engage with theirs. And what's the last thing we've got?

Nathan Simmonds:

Experts Is get experts deliver what they're passionate about. Be the example. Phenomenal, some great memories coming up here. Really glad to see you. You are digesting and taking this on board. So we've got the single learner objective that we, we wrote down from yesterday. Today we've got the keepers in place, the things that we wanna remember. So the reason I ask you this question now is what do you remember from yesterday? Is bringing back that memory to the forefront. Those memories to the forefront with the ERs idea. With this, it is about

Nathan Simmonds:

Helping you to embed those memories. So write down the thing that's, I need to remember that. Oh, I need to share that. Oh right, I need to go back to that because that's gonna make me think in a different way. And we're helping to embed the learning at different points in the journey. Eben House talked about the forgetting curve and it's something we talk about at MBM as well and how over the course of time what you remember gradually disappears. And if you don't use it or you aren't reminding yourself, that curve is quite steep over a very short period of time.

Nathan Simmonds:

The idea is we wanna shift it from the forgetting curve and turn it into the remembering curve. So we're causing and putting triggers in that are gonna make you go back to that thing that you learned so that you can reuse it, readdress it, and expand it and develop it. So the keepers is the first piece we're gonna do on this or one of the key pieces we're doing. What's the reason? Then we ask about what's your single learner objective? What's the reason I ask this question to find out what you want to get for all of you here, what do you think is the reason that I ask you this question? What would you like to get out of this training?

Nathan Simmonds:

It's about us, not Nathan, pretty much. What else? What other reasons come up? What other reasons I'm making? I'm asking you this question. So you review it, what's covered as well? Yeah, for us to remind ourselves why we are here. Absolutely good. Getting some good points coming in through point number one is we're looking at a single learner objective. We're also looking for the individual learning objective. Ideally, when we build our training, we want one core concept that that person wants to take away from the training.

Nathan Simmonds:

We don't want to give them a deluge of stuff. We have one core idea with some subcategories of it. That's our single learning objective for the session. The individual learning objective is what do you want to get out of it? It's all well in good HR or your leaders going, go out there, you are gonna do this, da da da da dah. You need to understand why you are in the room and why is it important to you. So the thing is, with this thing, because we're making it relevant to the individual and we're helping them to personalize the reason why they're in the room.

Nathan Simmonds:

'Cause If they don't want to be in the room, they're not gonna learn. We also know for myself and my experiences and through MBM that learning is state dependent. And what I mean by this is you have to be emotionally engaged. How many people here have been in a bad mood or not really concentrating and they've read a page in a book and suddenly realize when they got to the end of it, they didn't actually absorb any of that information? How many people have done this? Yes. No, let's see what we got. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Nathan Simmonds:

Of yeses. And how many people have gone back to the top of the page to reread it? Yes or no? Yes, yes, yes. Yeah, I know, I know what the answer's gonna be. This. And then you still got to the end of the page and you still didn't absorb that information because emotionally you weren't engaging it. Your brain was somewhere else. You didn't want be there. You were worrying about the email. You are worrying about a conversation you needed to have or had had. Therefore, you know, your state has shifted. So the idea is we want people to emotionally resonate with what it is they're doing.

Nathan Simmonds:

Let me share some of the stuff that we do in order to make this happen. So I'm just gonna give you a a quick look at some of the documents that we use. Can everyone see my screen? Just wanna quickly check. Can everyone see what I've got on my screen? Yes. Good. Brilliant. So the first thing that we do is we have the keeper sheet. And this is something that we provide. 'cause We want to sense, you know, with the different modalities, the different senses connect people to their learning experience. We're starting to make it experiential. So who's sitting to the left to their right? What were, were they wearing?

Nathan Simmonds:

What were they feeling? Were they excited about the session and all those different things? And who is, what's your learner learning buddy's name? Who are you gonna be coupling up with after this session? To have a conversation with them so that you can bounce your ideas back and forth. And then when you look at the keywords and the notes and the drawings, you can do little doodles for yourself to help just jog that memory. And it might be one word, it might be a picture of something, whatever it is, just to restimulate that thought. If you know, when you go back to those notes, it's imperative that you know we are going through this reminding process.

Nathan Simmonds:

Then what you want to be looking at is, is looking at those single learner objectives for yourself. What do you want to get out of it? And taking a note of that. Now, at the beginning of this session yesterday, some of those, those single learner, those individual learning objectives were fairly similar, but they mean different things to different people. So you may use the same words, but when I probe into that and say, tell me more about that. What's the reason behind that? Why is that important to you? The stuff that sits behind, it's gonna be different because of the job, because of the history,

Sticky Learning Lunches #27: Making Learning Stick & Making a Difference

Today's topic, After Training Courses and They Nothing Different Part 1. Discover 7 ways to help your people to achieve behavioural change, and make learning stick after a training course.

You Can Read the Full Transcript Below:

Nathan Simmonds:

There we are. Good afternoon. Welcome to Sticky Learning Lunches. Just given it the last minute for people to arrive. Got a couple of minutes before we start. Good afternoon people. Hello, Susan. Good to see you. Hello, Matt. Love to see you. Hi. Hello, Hailey. Sorry. New faces, new names. Good to see you again. Colin, thank you very much for being here. Benjamin, back again. I see you just waiting for the last few people to arrive. Good to see you. Tim. Colin's reminding me to go full screen. Not yet, Colin. Just making sure everyone knows they're in the right room before we switch the, to the, to the main camera. Wonderful people arriving.

Nathan Simmonds:

Let's make sure we set you all up for success right now. Just as the last few people turning up. Let's make sure we've got all the phones on flight mode. So let's see the phones. Hold 'em high, put 'em on flight mode, zero out the distraction, as I always say, zero out the distraction and get a hundred percent attention on you, your development and this moment right now. Super important that we do this. If you've got email open, et cetera, get that closed down. Get your social media closed. Get yourself back into this room

Nathan Simmonds:

With me. Let's make sure that, yeah, I've got my email closed. We are good to go. Also, make sure you've got a drink available. Keep yourselves hydrated. Let's do this. There might be a few more people arriving. Good afternoon, Karen. Good to see you again. Make sure I can see everybody. Let's do this.

Make your learning stick with our sticky learning lunch

 

Nathan Simmonds:

Welcome to today's Sticky Learning Lunch with me, Nathan Simmons, senior leadership coach and trainer for MBM Making Business Matter, the Home of Sticky Learning. We are the leadership development and soft skills provider to the grocery and manufacturing industry. These sticky lu lunches are all about giving you great content in short bursts that are gonna help you be the best version of you in the work that you do right now. Whether you are at home or preparing to return back to the office.

Nathan Simmonds:

I wanna give you some skills and some ideas that are gonna really push your thinking and help you to create a bigger impact in what you do on a day-to-Day basis. Today we're talking about how we make learning Stick, which is the USP, the unique superpower of making business matter. That's what we do when we deliver content. When I'm teaching, when I'm sharing, when I'm coaching, it's all about making sure that this stuff up here that I have is gifted to you in a way that makes sure that you've got it in there or you take hold of it, you put it in here and you're also making use of it.

Nathan Simmonds:

So it's really vital for us and you know, it's a, a key passion for me in the nicest possible way. I'm not gonna stand in front of a classroom and just blow off hot air and, and, and content if it's not gonna be made use of, you know, it is vital. These things that I've learned from my experiences from training courses, from the work that I've done, from the epic failures and the huge successes I've had, I wanna share those with people and make sure that those people do something with it.

Nathan Simmonds:

Go and create impact on their own terms with that content in the best way for them. These two days is, as you've learned from me over the last few weeks, some of it's about mindset and the way that we approach this, some nuances in the things that we do, and also some technicalities of how I and we at MBM make sure that we put those mindsets and nuances in place so people can pick it up and run with it.

Nathan Simmonds:

A little bit of, it's gonna be a little bit of a behind the scenes look into what goes on in, in my head as well as Darren's and Andy's and the team from MBM and giving you some of those inside techniques and tools and tricks that are gonna help you to be able to do that for yourself when you are watching them and, and taking part in the training with us, and also how you deliver conversations to people in the future. That's what we're gonna deal with. So today we're gonna look at, I've got three key points I wanna talk about, key concepts around how we approach certain things that are gonna help you make that impact right now as the people are still just arriving as a couple more coming into the room right now.

Nathan Simmonds:

If we are looking at how we make learning stick, how you get people in your meetings, in your training sessions to take action on what you are saying and to make sure they embed their learning. What would you like to get out of today and tomorrow's training sessions? What would your personal goal be to out of these two sessions to help you get your learners and your teams to make sure they take action and they learn what you are sharing with them in the question box. Let me know what you would like to get, what are your goals for these two days?

Nathan Simmonds:

How to move from training to practice. Nice. Thank you very much, Christopher. Good to see you again. What are the goals? Have you got? What goals have people got from today's session and tomorrow's session to help you make learning stick and turn words into action? How many key learning topics or topics are too many for one session? We'll come into that as well. So finding out for yourself for, for your learning objectives. We're gonna look at some more technicalities tomorrow.

Nathan Simmonds:

How we structure certainly certain things when we're delivering content. Primarily we look for one, we look for a single learning objective, literally that making it stick. Karen, we're gonna help you with that. Haley, what have we got here? Easy ways to find out the impact the learning has had. We can look at that, some of the technicalities in that as well. For me personally, it's more, it's that return on expectation rather than the return on investment.

Nathan Simmonds:

It's the emotional buy-in. It's the tangibility of seeing certain things happening and seeing that relationships shift between leaders and team and, and departments. Making sure that they're able to remember and use what we discussed. Absolutely good today. Mindset, nuances and, and, and some approaches. We're gonna get. We're gonna feed into some of these goals and then tomorrow we're gonna look at some of the technical details and the strategies and tactics that we use to make sure that when we're delivering those things are picked up and made use of.

Nathan Simmonds:

Let's do this. So we've got about 15 minutes. The first thing is, is more of a pitfall and it's a, a common mistake that we make as leaders and as trainers, and also as HR professionals when we're setting up training for people. This is one of the key reasons why learning doesn't stick with him. Who here knows what fin stands for? Let's light up the questions box. What does with them stand for?

Nathan Simmonds:

What's in it for me? Colin's on fire. Ba bam, bam. In good. What's one of the first things they teach in influencing skills? What's in it for me? What they say is, put yourself in the other person's shoes and ask yourself, what's in it for me? Has it yes or no? Have people experienced this? Has everyone heard this one liner in their influencing skills? Yes. Good, good, good, good. I'm not surprised, but the problem is with, with them is with food. Good. We're gonna, we're gonna touch on a shift in that as well.

Nathan Simmonds:

What we, the challenge that we have in influencing skills is we go into the training course and they teach us, yes, remember what's in it for me? Put yourself in their shoes and what, what's in it for me? So we leave the training room, we go, oh yeah. So the thing that I picked up is what's in it for me? And we walk into that into the next conversation, or the next project or the next session or whatever it is. And we still have that in our head. What's in it for me?

Nathan Simmonds:

And due to kind of human nature and behavior, we tend to be naturally selfish in the way that we approach certain things. And the what's in it for me just reinforces the behavior. So what happens is, is when we start to design learning and development programs, and we're going into this, what's in it for me? What I'm concerned about is, okay, what does the bottom line look like? If I put these people on a training course, what's in it for me? What results do I get? How does it affect my performance? If we don't do this, do I look good or bad? So we get stuck in the fin.

Nathan Simmonds:

The way that we adjust this and the way that we change this and we nuance this in ourselves, it's the best acronym I could come up with was wtt and what's in it for them. If we make them number one, first and foremost, we're gonna change the way the conversation happens. And you may have learned this from me over the last few weeks, and if it's the first time you're here, one of the key things I ask people when I'm teaching how to give feedback or doing coaching or leadership skills is, who is the most important person in the conversation? If you are giving feedback or you are doing coaching, who is the most important person in the conversation? Who do you think it is?

Nathan Simmonds:

It is always gonna be them. And this is the most important part that we seem to miss, is when we're designing a program, when we're designing a conversation, when we're wanting to create impact or changes in our business, is we need to take it away from me and make it about them. We, we change the me to we, we make the conversation, the content about them. What's important to them,

Sticky Learning Lunches #26: Give Your Presentations Oomph

Today's topic, Your Online Presentations Lack Oomph Part 2. Use the 'ONLINE POWER' mnemonic to be a more powerful you online and a great online presenter.

You Can Read the Full Transcript Below:

Nathan Simmonds:

Good afternoon everyone. Welcome to today's Sticky Learning Lunch. We're just waiting for the last few or the next few people. The last few people to arrive into today's session. Just gonna give them the opportunity to arrive as we get set up, feel a little bit more light on this situation. How are we all on a scale of one to 10, one being terrible, 10 being phenomenal? How are we feeling today so far? Chris, good to see you again, Colin to see you. Gina, hello again. Joanna.

Nathan Simmonds:

Thank you very much for being here. Tim, tens, nines, Howard, new face. How are you sir? Good to be with you as well. Thank you very much, Christopher. Appreciate it. Benjamin, good to see you. Kira, wonderful to see you again as well. Thank you very much for being here. Just while we're letting the last people in at one to 10, how are you feeling? One terrible, 10. Phenomenal. Where are you on today's scale? We can give it not even 30 seconds, and we're gonna dive into today's content and nine with an explanation.

Improve your online presentations with our sticky learning lunch

 

Nathan Simmonds:

Mark. Crikey, definite, 7.5. Let's see if we can lift that up a little bit with today. Right? Let's dive in. Drink as you see herbal tea. Make sure you've got a drink. You're set up. You can must stay hydrated through this conversation. Phones, as always, that's what I'm looking down at right now. Let's make sure you are on flight mode. Get yourselves, get the distraction zeroed out, and give yourself full attention to you, your personal development and where you are going with your skills, with your work and with your thinking.

Nathan Simmonds:

Fresh notepad, clean page at the top of the page keepers, that's what you wanna write is keepers at the top there. These are the things you want to remember, the things that you want to keep hold of the things that you want to read. And when you go back into it, it brings up the new thinking, it creates new ideas and invokes the imagination to keep that learning embedded, to make sure you are consistently building that behavioral change that's gonna help you be even better than you were yesterday.

Nathan Simmonds:

Let's dive in. Welcome to today's Sticky Learning lunch with me, Nathan Simmons, senior leadership coach and trainer for MBM, making Business Matter, the home of Sticky Learning. And we are the leadership development and soft skills provider to the grocery and manufacturing industry. These sticky learning lunches are all about helping you be the best version of you right now in this current situation.

Nathan Simmonds:

Maybe you are working from home and helping you to return back to work as well. Colin, on the ball helping me to remember being, get on my full screen because that's the thing I always forget 'cause I just get carried away and, and, and power into this information. Today is part two of online power. It is about online presentations. It's about creating engagement and being more engaging when you are delivering conversations over zoom or via web conference.

Nathan Simmonds:

And today is all about the power. So yesterday we talked about online. Today we're talking about the power behind that, how engaging, thinking about the content that you, that you are delivering and the conversations that you are having with your people, how would you rate the level of engagement that you create? Again, one, not so great, 10 on point. Everyone's with me all of the time. All the actions are clear, everyone goes away and does what they need to do.

Nathan Simmonds:

Got a five and they're nice. I love the honesty. 5, 6, 6. What else? Any more numbers? Let's see who else. We've got one. Terrible, 10. Phenomenal. How would you rate the level of engagement that you create with your people? A lot of fives. We've got some people we're all feeling right in the middle about this. Six. Good engagement, but it would be better if I had a camera. Absolutely. I don't talk too much about tech here, but making sure that it is, it's high definition.

Nathan Simmonds:

Seven 20, whatever, you know, over a thousand ideal. What's one thing that you could all do right now that would help you to improve that engagement? Whether it's from yesterday's content or something else you've seen me do or someone else do? What's one thing that you could do that would help you to improve that engagement with your teams and inside your conversations? Let's see that in the questions box as well. Let's see what good ideas we can share amongst ourselves to give that peer to peer coaching and development right now.

Nathan Simmonds:

Continually ask for feedback. Great one. Do it at the relevant points. Convey enthusiasm and passion. Absolutely. We're gonna talk a little bit about that today, Howard. Thank you. Check out eye level for camera if I have one. Yes, when you get one, just make sure it's there and you can, and you are looking into that person's eyes when they're looking at you. I read your supposed to amplify yourself by 20%, but not sure this, right? Are we talking about sound and projection?

Nathan Simmonds:

If that's the case, one of the key things is making sure that actually you are standing up, that you are opening your chest cavity up and you are able to put a little bit of air behind what, what you are doing and then start to kind of get a bit of oomph. Test, testing and experimentation is huge. Why? Because if I use the, the equipment I've got here and I don't understand how I sound here or how I sound over here when I'm using the same volume, how does that change and how do people engage with me?

Nathan Simmonds:

Jane, thank you very much appreciated. Jane says, love how you use questions to engage and keep engaged. This is, this is the whole point. It's got to be a two-way dialogue. Yes, there's gonna be moments in this 20 minutes when I'm gonna fire information at you. I also want you to know that you're holding that information and by me asking questions to you, it's helping me to make sure that you are on track.

Nathan Simmonds:

It's helping me to make sure that you are paying attention because I cannot see you in the nicest possible way. What I can see is if you are looking at different windows and browsers, so if you are currently looking at a different window or this, what, what you are see in the video of me, I can see if, if that isn't the, the the top most layer, which means then you're looking maybe your email or you're looking at another webpage whilst this is going on in the background.

Nathan Simmonds:

So I'm this, I can see. So I use these statistics afterwards to see how engaged you are with this and with me. And the engagement scores on average with the go-to webinar is about 52%. When I work with individuals and work in this space, it ranges from anywhere between 62 and 81% engagement, depending on the content I'm delivering and how I'm talking to people. Because, because of the questions I'm asking, how many screens do I do you have open, I only have two one window and then I have the rear display, which is PowerPoint.

Nathan Simmonds:

But I can see when other people have got, you know, they've minimized the windows and they've got selection of tabs open. If I'm not the top one, I can see whether you are engaging with me or whether you've got something else over the top of that or something that you, you deem a higher priority. So it's about that engagement. It's about watching, you know, and me gauging those reactions and, and feeling how people are going at and then asking the questions to bring dialogue back.

Nathan Simmonds:

This is vital for when you are doing this with people in, in your team meetings. In your presentations. Ask questions. One, because it creates a certain amount of authority. If you get stopped by the police who's asking the questions, tell me in the question box, if you get stopped by the police, who's asking the questions, James laughing.

Nathan Simmonds:

It instantly creates a certain amount of authority. I'm interested in you and your response is, ah, he's interested in me. Therefore, you know, okay, this, this person. There's a level of trust or engagement or, you know, or rapport being built here. What's going on here? Let's, let's answer these questions and see where this conversation goes. This is super important. We understand this as well, but look, let's dive into this today.

Nathan Simmonds:

Today is all about power. We've got about 12 minutes to power through this policeman usually asking sarcastic questions. Yes, they tend to do that because they feel they can get away with it. We're not starting with the P today. I'll come back to that in just a minute. We're gonna do that at the end. The first one is what is over your shoulder? You, when you are delivering content, it is vital. You understand what is behind you. Give your prime example.

Nathan Simmonds:

So if you look at the interview series that we've done on the Making Business Matter YouTube channel, we recently started doing some interviews and podcast style conversations. Initially you'll see the first one and this comes into the W of me and what the background is in my home office. What you can see though, along with how I've changed the background here, what I've done is I've changed the wall, the whiteboard is on.

Nathan Simmonds:

I've also changed where the desk is. So you can see you get a different view of what's behind me. So rather than me being at a peculiar angle because of the lighting that was you covered yesterday, I've now shifted it. So the lighting is fairly neutral, fairly, but the background is much more much more professional, much cleaner,