5 Ways To Tap Into your Inspiration

People Discovery is founded on the concept of Inspirational Leadership.  Most people have a good definition of what that means, for me it means you lead from within.  We all have wisdom inside of us; some of us are better practiced at tapping into that wisdom than others.   If you lead either a team, your family, or yourself from inner wisdom, it is a win/win scenario because you are also helping others tap into their own inner wisdom.   We aren’t always in the right state to tap into our inspiration, and here are my top 5 suggestions to help you tune in.  

I work best when I’m inspired. What do I mean by inspired? For me, it is a feeling of “all’s well” with the world: A certainty that nothing is going to go wrong and what I am doing is meant to be. When I am inspired, time ceases to matter and I can be working with focus and complete attention for what seems like minutes and a few hours have passed. Idea’s flow and they are easy to implement. I don’t actually think about much, I am just being, and moving forward. Some people call it being in “flow”. I call it being in the Zone.

Some years ago, I found myself struggling to define “quality” beyond the routine service level agreements, when making improvements to our customer service offer. It was easy to set standards in terms of timing and behaviours for example, it was less easy to define when they were met; but the quality wasn’t good.

The easiest way I found I could communicate quality in this context was to describe what it wasn’t. So for example. If a product was returned, or customers had to ring up for information we could have given them beforehand. If we got feedback which indicated we weren’t meeting on unwritten expectations, for example, an attitude by an employee, or not giving the right information at the right time.

Inspiration is like that, difficult to define or put into words and often easier to describe when inspiration is lacking. So for example: I am definitely not in the Zone when:

• I feel de-motivated
• I am resistant to moving forward
• Time is dragging or worse I feel bored
• What I am doing seems like a chore
• I feel tired and stressed
• I am overwhelmed or discouraged.
• I’m easily distracted

Like being happy, being inspired takes some practice. Mostly, you can’t simply choose to be and feel inspired at will, you have to create the conditions which lead to an inspired state. Everyone will have a different way of doing this, but if you don’t know how to create those conditions then it might be worth your while to find out what works for you.

Over the years, I have developed a way of getting into my Inspiration “Zone” and here are some activities which I hope can help you reach an inspired state.

• Writing early in the morning immediately after waking is a powerful practice. It is a great way to capture those early morning inspirational ideas and thoughts which often hit, like no other time in the day. Do this before you do anything else, yes even before that morning cuppa, otherwise the “spell” is broken, and you will begin to worry about your day to day schedule, or whatever is on your mind at the time.
• If you are feeling fairly negative and need to get into the Zone, then find a comfortable place and stop thinking. No;I didn’t say stop breathing! Although when I suggest this to some, you would think I had indicated such a drastic step. This is a great technique if you have to go into a meeting or an event and you want to be in an inspired state. Instead of thinking about it, just stop thinking. This might involve just observing any thoughts you might have, but not actively engaging with them. It’s a mini meditation which should only last for about 5 minutes or so. Practicing “not thinking” is like giving your tired bombarded mind a mini holiday. It also allows the inspired part of you to shine through. Like sun rays streaming through a cloudy sky.
• Take some time out and spend it doing something you love. That might be spending time with family, reading, exercising, or just watching a good old movie. It’s always good to do this, but be warned, if you take your de-motivated or distracted self with you, then you will negate the benefits. You must completely and utterly allow yourself to give your full attention to the activity, and the good feelings which you connect with.
• Listen to music. Whether it’s up-beat rousing music, slow, ballads, or indeed anything which appeals to you at the time. Listening to music clears away negativity and if given attention and focus, helps change your state positively.
• A state which completely minimises inspiration is when you are cluttered or overwhelmed, whether with things to do, or physical disorder around you. To keep clear and allow the inspiration to flow, take a good inventory of your things to do list, and delete anything less than essential. You must be ruthless. Ruthlessness is also a must when you are getting rid of physical clutter either at home or at work. If you haven’t touched it in 6 months, then you need to ask yourself whether you are going to use it. All clutter and unnecessary tasks are doing to you is keeping you weighted down.

What are your top tips to become inspired?

Last week we launched our Brand New Monthly E-zine:  The Extra MILE!  We had a massive response, and spent the weekend replying to congratulatory emails! We are humbled by your fabulous feedback! If you haven’t read it yet, please visit The Extra MILE

Why not sign up to get your  free copy direct to your mail box and when we send you your first issue, we will also send you a copy of our free E-book “Don’t Just Smile – LAUGH” – The 5 Steps to Guarantee You a Happier Life!

Christina has managed people for tenty seven years and led hugely successful teams. She has worked with people at all levels in various organisations to help them achieve their potential, and she has been actively involved in the learning and development field in a number of different roles.

People Discovery is a Leadership Development coaching consultancy,  based in North East England, working globally

Be Exceptional and Go The Extra Mile

Sometimes a paradigm or a philosophy you live your life by isn’t at the forefront of your conscious mind. When I was naming our new monthly E-zine; The Extra MILE became the perfect choice because I realised that it epitomised the effort I try to put into life, most of the time.

When I was younger I raised around £1000 on a charity event I organised. I was fairly pleased with this. A friend of mine asked if they could replicate the event and use my resources. Of course I agreed. When she raised almost £17,000, while delighted for her of course, I asked myself why I hadn’t done as well. The reason? The level of effort, and aspiration my friend had applied, was somewhat missing in my own application. I know I had done ok, but it was a great eye-opener for me. One I was very grateful to my friend for. So today’s article is of course about going the Extra Mile!

I couldn’t resist taking my most topical theme of the whole month and writing about it today! Yes, I am really proud and excited to announce that our monthly E-zine Launches today, and to celebrate I wanted to share with you, the reasons I think it’s imperative to go the extra mile.

Going the extra mile, is a brilliant ambition, not only at work, but in life too. When I was thinking about the title of the E-zine, some brilliant friends in my LinkedIn Group suggested MILE, and various other great titles. Very soon MILE turned into “The Extra MILE”, and it was perfect, because the title resonates so much with what I believe makes life worth living for all of us.

To be honest, for many years I aimed to go the extra mile in terms of customer service, and was extremely successful. Setting a vision and outcomes in a working environment, it was pretty easy to set stretching and challenging objectives, not only to meet customer expectations, but to exceed them.

As I matured as a leader I began to realise that the jewels in my crown were my team and without them I simply wasn’t able to achieve what I wanted. I also realised that I needed to go the extra mile for them also, and sometimes unfortunately the ways I wanted to reward and motivate them weren’t always in my power. But what I could do was encourage, engage and give them as much as I could to help them do their job really well.

I would like to put my hands up and say I have always gone the extra mile for my family, both my children and my siblings. It hasn’t always been the case though. Don’t get me wrong, we are a tight knit family and care about each other a lot. I tend to go the extra mile on birthdays, Christmases and holidays. Family occasions feature highly. But do I go the extra mile all of the time?  Probably not, but I am working on it.   (Don’t we so often take our nearest and most loved people for granted?)

In my business I am determined to go the extra mile for my connections, customers and clients, and sometimes it can be a challenge to find out what will make people feel that they have received a brilliant service. Years ago, one of my stock answers would be to of course “Ask them”. That’s a good tactic, although we can get stuck in asking the wrong questions.

So for example asking what people want as an outcome is good: Better than trying to tell them what they need for sure. The really effective question though is along the lines of “What would make you believe that you had received the best and most excellent service from my company?”

Short of asking people, the next strategy is to observe. Try different things and see what delights people. Gauge reaction and be innovative.  Just seeing how people respond is valuable information!

I believe adopting the philosophy of going the extra mile is a great way of living, and there are for me five main reasons why everyone should consider living their lives by going the extra mile.

Going the Extra Mile:

1. Makes you think hard about your contribution and the difference you are making. Our world is a matrix of giving and receiving. By going the extra mile you are bringing a sense of purposefulness into sharp focus.
2. Surprises and delights people, and it’s always good to be a positive influence.
3. Increases your own energy. Energy breeds energy and the additional effort it takes to go the extra mile, helps you to increase your  energy, output and commitment.
4. Attracts great energy back to you. What you give out, you get back. It was Newton who said “for every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction”.
5. Sets a great benchmark for yourself and others to aspire to.

So go on. I am inviting you to email me and let me know. As a reader of my tweets, articles, blog and E-zine, what can I do for you that would make you believe that you had received the best and most excellent service from me? Please do email me at Christina@peoplediscovery.co.uk. And let me know!

Today we are launching our Brand New Monthly E-zine:  The Extra MILE!  The first edition is available now!  To read, simply visit The Extra MILE

Why not sign up to get your  free copy direct to your mail box and when we send you your first issue, we will also send you a copy of our free E-book “Don’t Just Smile – LAUGH” – The 5 Steps to Guarantee You a Happier Life!

Christina has managed people for twenty seven years and led hugely successful teams. She has worked with people at all levels in various organisations to help them achieve their potential, and she has been actively involved in the learning and development field in a number of different roles.

People Discovery is a Leadership Development coaching consultancy,  based in North East England, working globally.

By Christina Lattimer

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Lead Yourself First: 5 Temptations To Avoid

Writing about the “darker” side of our human nature could well be depressing if I didn't wholeheartedly believe the best in people. Make no mistake about it, we all have traits which maybe we need to think about. More often or not, the traits we don’t like are unconscious and we simply aren't aware of them. The beauty of identifying unsavoury traits is by bringing these into our awareness; it gives us an opportunity to change them!

Being a great leader is paradoxical. Leaders have to be pretty special people to be a great, although in order to be great they fundamentally understand that everyone is the same. We are either all special or all ordinary.

In group work, I invariably ask people to give me an example of a great leader. This isn’t always easy. Quite often people quote some of the greats in history, like Lincoln, Churchill, or perhaps Ghandi, Mandela or even Luther King Jr. Sometimes they will tell about one of their parents or even a great friend. Not many are able to easily bring examples of great leaders at work.

I expect there are many reasons why there is a dearth of great leaders at work, but one common thread I believe helps leaders fall short of being great in the workplace is that of falling into the temptation of specialness.

Whenever I ask people what they like to see in their leaders, many will talk about values or behaviours. They want leaders to be open, transparent, and fair; or they want them to be decisive, innovative and successful. Easy you would think? But actually leaders don’t have to be monumentally poor to find themselves out of favour with their people. They just have to, on occasion; succumb to the temptation of specialness.

Specialness can come in many forms, and it’s always a way of saying; one person matters more than another; or one person deserves more than another. Well you might be thinking, isn’t that the case? Well if you are, then you are experiencing a dose of specialness.

Specialness is the mistaken belief that we are different, and there are hierarchies of importance in the world. In reality though, it is not true. We are all simply manifesting different experiences and believing and acting in different ways, with different outcomes.

But what about the lazy worker who comes in and doesn’t do anything, compared to the worker who works 24/7 and gets great results? You might ask. Well one may be acting in ways which are in the best interests of the organisation, and one might not be. But that doesn’t make one person more special than another. Not at their core and not as a person.

There may be a million reasons that person doesn’t pull their weight as much as the other. There may also be a million reasons why the worker who works 24/7 is doing so. The trick is of course not to treat people differently, but to respond to their behaviours differently. There is a subtle difference.
To illustrate here are 5 common ways leaders give in to the insidious habit of specialism, and in so doing they diminish the “greatness” they can be.

Favouritism
We all like people who are like ourselves, especially when we can clearly see our best attributes in others. There are also people we don’t like so much or who make us uncomfortable. More often than not, we are most uncomfortable when we can see things in other people which we do not like about ourselves. In both cases we are making judgements about other people and indeed ourselves. At work, we need to be aware of our prejudices no matter how mild they may seem. Leaders often fall into favouritism when they form attitudes about people based on how much they like them. They stop being kind, factual, open and transparent and their views can be biased and weighted towards people they like better.

Special favours

A friend of mine was talking about the CEO who had been in the job for a few months. I had listened to her commentary about him before. It had always been complimentary and enthusiastic. However on this occasion, her tone was one of disappointment. Their company was involved in delivering specific services, the levels of which depended on certain criteria. It had become widely known that the CEO had decided to open up a level of service to someone who didn’t qualify, simply because they were viewed as an important person with clout. In one small but incredibly public decision his reputation had become tainted.


Hidden Bonuses

Great leaders will always have a good solid recognition strategy in place. Some actions might be monetary and some may be non-financial rewards. What I have encountered many times are monetary based bonus systems which have no particular criteria and are conferred in secret.

A friend of mine told me gleefully about a hefty bonus she had received for navigating a particularly difficult downsizing strategy. She had however been told to keep it quiet. I asked her why, and she said that if it was known that she had been rewarded for making people redundant, employees would not be happy. Although there seemed to be some logic in this, to me it said a lot about the integrity of the leader, and also demonstrated a lack of understanding about how to manage an effective reward strategy.

Creating a Valued Role Hierarchy

I worked with a lady who used to work in a major high street store. She had happily worked there for many years. For her and some of her colleagues, the end came quite quickly as many of the team looked for and secured new jobs with different companies in response to a change in strategy by the company.
On the face of it, the change looked fairly sensible in that they decided to give bonuses to their sales people. Under the surface it was one of the most divisive and disruptive moves they had made. What happened was they created a hierarchy of importance, with a disproportionate reward to certain people. The sales support people were not adequately rewarded for their part in the process; and distrust and discontent set in. This dynamic can also be seen where “professional” and “support” employees are given a different status in an organisation.

Excluding people.

Again and again I have seen people be excluded by senior leaders because they are particularly challenging, or simply have different views or beliefs. It can be unnecessarily difficult if you have such a person on your team, but if they are good at their job and are performing well, then their views should be welcomed with open arms. The act of exclusion is more of a statement about the fear of the excluder. Exclusion can be about only inviting certain opinions; not inviting people to meetings; not giving credit for a job well done; blocking promotion; creating succession plans which exclude people with unnecessary criteria.

To counteract such temptations, leaders must develop their own self-awareness and listen to and invite feedback from others. The temptation of specialness challenges all of us, not just leaders, and can sometimes be difficult to recognise or pinpoint. The following values or behaviours can minimise the temptation and keep any great leader on the right track.

• Be open and transparent with everyone
• Be kind to all, even those who seem difficult
• Tackle poor performance or conduct, not personalities
• Focus on commonalities not differences
• Accept instead of judge
• Be comfortable feeling uncomfortable
• Have a systematic and inclusive approach to reward and recognition
• Develop Self awareness
• Understanding your own biases

We are really excited to announce our Brand New Monthly E-zine: The Extra MILE! The first edition is due out at the end of this month. Sign up for your free copy to your mail box and we will also send you a copy of our free E-book “Don’t Just Smile – LAUGH” – The 5 Steps to Guarantee You a Happier Life!
Christina has managed people for twenty seven years and led hugely successful teams. She has worked with people at all levels in various organisations to help them achieve their potential, and she has been actively involved in the learning and development field in a number of different roles.
People Discovery is a Leadership Development coaching consultancy, based in North East England, working globally.

By Christina Lattimer
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Change Your Perception : Change Your Experience

For those of you who read my blog regularly you will know that one of my favourite questions is “Would you rather be right, or be happy?”. This is literally a choice many of us are making every day.  When we judge a situation or someone, we often filter out any information which doesn't accord with our belief or our perception. 

So for example we might want to believe that we have to go to a job we hate because we need the money, when in fact the truth is, we simply don’t want to make the effort to re-train, or search or make the changes needed to do something we like better.  This week’s article is about how changing your perception can change your experience, and in the process, you can become happier

I’ve wanted to write an article on perception for a long time, and for a while, until today, the words haven’t come. Today I had a big personal breakthrough when I was able to see something I had long viewed in a certain way, differently. I feel differently and I know that my experience, has, and will change. The reason we need to understand the way our perception shapes our world is because if we want to experience something different, the change must come from within.

Some time ago a friend of mine, in mid-life, lost her job. She didn’t even see it coming. One day she walked into her workplace and was told, along with the rest of the workforce, that she no longer had a job. After a few weeks she decided to set up a business on her own. After only 18 months she gave up and went to work for a local business in a role which didn’t really reflect her expertise or indeed her valuable experience. A year into the job she came to me for some help.

Describing how she felt, she said she had “lost her mojo”. After some unravelling we got back to the day she lost her job. On the day of the “bombshell”, she took herself off for a walk, numb and stunned, her thoughts went along the lines of “Why me?” “What has gone wrong?” “How am I going to manage?”

Knowing how her family relied on her salary she felt like a failure and even up to the day we discussed the situation, she wondered why this catastrophic change in her life had happened.

She had attempted to pick herself up, starting the new business and then latterly with the new job, but she had lost something valuable inside and her trust and faith had been severely shattered.

During the conversation, I suggested that some people after the initial shock may have thought “Yippee” I can now explore something else, I can use my unique talents I have to do something great with my life”. She looked at me as if I had gone mad, and I could see she thought I was probably out of touch with reality.

But that is the real problem. We think the reality we see and how we interpret it, must be right. But in any given situation, we can look again and interpret it in a different way.

I realised many years ago that the world I was seeing was a reflection of my perceptions. When I was a young single mother I felt unsupported and alone. I had lots of friends and family, but I always perceived them to have busy lives and asking them for help was a big deal for me, so I rarely did it.

Unwittingly, I was fulfilling my perception of: “I am pretty much on my own, and if I need anything, I had better do it myself, because others are too busy to help”. After many months of feeling frustrated, overwhelmed and alone; a back problem forced me to ask for help.

At first it was difficult and uncomfortable; I felt I was imposing my own problems on others. But after a while, something magic happened. I began to see that people around me, cared about me, and wanted to help.

When I asked people for support they overdid the support they gave me. I saw that when people were helping me, they felt connected and were happier helping me than watching me struggle alone.

I finally realised with a great big light bulb moment, that my outworn perception had unwittingly kept others at a distance and not only was my perception wrong, but my need to be right kept my perception in place even when I desperately needed to see things in another way.

When my friend and I started talking about the choices we have and how we can see things in a different way, she realised losing the job was not a personal indictment on her. She eventually also saw she had been holding on to a faulty perception of the job loss and this faulty perception was affecting her life every day.

She decided to look at the situation differently and came to the conclusion it had nothing to do with her, it was simply a change in her life, albeit an unexpected one. I recently received an email from her. She told me that she was becoming quite an expert at switching her perceptions and most importantly, she had her mojo back!

We are really excited to announce our Brand New Monthly E-zine: The Extra MILE! The first edition is due out at the end of this month. Sign up for your free copy to your mail box and we will also send you a copy of our free E-book “Don’t Just Smile – LAUGH” – The 5 Steps to Guarantee You a Happier Life!

Christina has managed people for twenty seven years and led hugely successful teams. She has worked with people at all levels in various organisations to help them achieve their potential, and she has been actively involved in the learning and development field in a number of different roles.

People Discovery is a Leadership Development coaching consultancy,  based in North East England, working globally.

By Christina Lattimer

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Keeping Complexity Simple: The 5 Step Change Process

Last week I discussed the underlying energy which determines whether a personal or organisational change will be successful or not.  I also linked the most popular change models which can be successfully integrated. Many of my clients know change theory and models.  What they often struggle with is just how to get started.  Today I discuss a 5 step process which can help you get started, helps you integrate the impacts from change into your current systems and develops accountability for success.   

In my capacity as a Leadership and HR Consultant, I am mostly called in when a problem has been encountered or a change is needed.    Consultancy is of course about understanding the problem, so a solution can be found.  Because I understand that organisations have a personality just like people, the problem is always unique to that particular organisation.   And so of course it follows, the solution is unique.

Over the years, I have developed a paradoxically, simple approach, to what can be perceived as complex organisational change.   Using my expertise in Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) and Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) coupled with systems thinking I help leaders get to the crux of the problem, and help them find organisational solutions quickly.

The 5 step process allows leaders to look at the change from a number of different perspectives; zoom in and zoom out; satisfy both intuitive/visionary and auditory/sensor preferences for taking in, assimilating and communicating information. It also encourages a holistic decision-making process which embraces heart and mind, or logic and feeling preferences.

The process in itself is a simple one, which helps maintain focus, although the dynamics within the process helps clarify complexities.  The 5 step process can be used in any organisation to solve problems or to instigate change.

The 5 Step Blueprint

1.   Where are you going?

 There are usually three basic directions, and it’s important to find out exactly where the organisation wants to go and how it wants to travel.  It is vital to determine at the very outset the clear drivers for change.

• A moving towards or progression
• A change of direction – a moving away from
• An alignment to perform better

You may find that there is a combination of ways to move forward, but asking the question in this frame helps uncover what is motivating the change and develops the basis for the next step:

2.   At What level does the change need to be made?

There are 6 basic levels these are linked to 6 logical levels of change used in NLP:

• The purpose or the “Why” of the organisation
• The Identity or the organisational brand
• The level of values, beliefs or concepts of the organisation
• Knowledge, skills and competencies
• Behaviours and culture
• Environment

While this can take some time to establish it is essential appropriate time is taken to identify the starting level.   If your starting point is level one, then it is likely all remaining levels will be affected.  If you start at level 4, depending on what that change involves, will determine whether any other levels are affected.  The next step is:

3.   How does the change affect each part of the organisation?

 In addition to the logical levels above, change impacts each part of the whole.  A successful change process will anticipate those impacts, consult on the detail, and make necessary adjustments ensuring the change is integrated across each identified impact.  The level at which the change occurs will determine the scope and depth of the impact.  Some impacts might be:

• Relationships
• Interdependencies such as linked projects or schemes of work
• Policies
• Processes
• External partnerships and stakeholders
• Resources
• Customers

 4.   How will you know that the change is successful?

 What exactly does success look like?  Ways to frame this question can be:

• Will the organisation be more profitable/deliver better products and or services?
• How often, and with what method will this improvement be measured?
• How will the customers/stakeholders/partners respond to change?
• How will employees respond, what will they be doing differently?
• What will the organisation look and feel like?
• How will existing targets and results change?

5.   How will the changes happen?

If the change is a one-off intervention, a programme or project approach may be beneficial.   If it is more significant, then you may want to build the change into the strategic plan and build in outcomes and ownership accordingly.   For a systematic approach, you need to consider the following elements to ensure success:

• Who will own the change?
• What is the governance around the change? (Where do accountabilities lie?)
• How will the change be communicated?
• Who will be consulted and when?
• When will success be realised?

As you can see, change is only as complicated as you want it to be.  Keeping it simple may not satisfy the more theoretical and analytical minds around, but cutting out complexity is the surest way to get results more quickly and in a way in which everyone understands.

Here at People Discovery, we are really excited to announce our Brand New Monthly Ezine The Extra MILE!  Click the link to sign up now so you don’t miss a copy!

Christina has managed people for twenty seven years and led hugely successful teams. She has worked with people at all levels in various organisations to help them achieve their potential, and she has been actively involved in the learning and development field in a number of different roles.

People Discovery is a Leadership Development coaching consultancy,  based in North East England, working globally.

By Christina Lattimer

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