The Beyond Partnership admin, Author at The Beyond Partnership

Realising Your Year Ahead

15 January, 2016 3:15 pm Comments Off

You may have received some tips about New Year’s resolutions in your early January mailbox from somewhere or other. Often our good intentions fade through the month. Here are a few tips from us to help you stay engaged:

Better to think of (and feel) New Year’s resolve than resolution. Resolve is an on-going state of being determined and focus. Resolution, as a nominalisation, implicitly implies something done and dusted – a result of thinking – it is not a mood or emotion that moves us.
When setting goals or outcomes choose ‘wants’ rather than ‘shoulds’. We often choose what will be ‘good for us’, something ‘we should do’. If your goal is a ‘should’ turn it into a ‘want’, finding the links to a bigger payoff that you want. (NLP offers some great ways to do this.)
Neuroscience research shows us that the use of will to follow through on goals (especially those which are ‘shoulds’ and not ‘wants’) makes a heavy demand on our energy resources. Use your will wisely and with timeliness.
Set small outcomes or short steps on the way to a bigger outcome. One press-up is a start; one less piece of cake is a start. We feel good when we achieve a target.
Change takes place via on-going moment by moment attention, via small steps
Learn to love the plateau. After a while in any change the initial progress stalls, this is a natural part of the learning process, keep faith and carry on.
Let your goal set your direction and intention but do not become attached to it, treat it lightly.
Fixing a goal may limit your possibilities.
It doesn’t serve you to beat yourself up if you don’t make the progress you hoped for, find some compassion for your process.
Pay attention and stay present to your process. There is always something to learn, this is especially important when you find yourself on the plateau and your mind drifts. Curiosity and enquiry help keep you engaging.
If you are bored and your curiosity cannot find anything interesting take a break and do something different.
Choose some fun things in your resolving – see friends more often, get a massage once a month…because you’re worth it. These will be easier to act upon and will help build your energy to follow through on your goals.
Think of developing a quality you would like to have more of in your life as well as achieving external goals. Such a quality might be balance, being determined, focus, patience, compassion. You choose. This is most important. Our inner work provides the foundation for our outer work success.
How can you be a little more of who you were born to be at the end of this year than at the beginning?

Watch for how you may be sabotaging yourself along the way. Enlisting the help of a friend or joining a group can help you keep focussed or if you would like some support to assist you to achieve the changes you want and make the difference you want to make in 2016 please contact us, info@thebeyondpartnership.co.uk

Exploring Gratitude

30 November, 2015 3:19 pm Comments Off

To live with a sense of gratefulness is a way to a healthier and more fulfilled life. Wisdom traditions, positive psychology and neuroscience all point us in this direction . Some of the identified benefits include a stronger immune system and lower blood pressure, higher levels of positive emotions, more joy, optimism, and happiness, acting with more generosity and compassion, feeling less lonely and isolated.

Gratitude brings us into greater relationship with the world around us. Much is written of mindfulness these days and gratitude makes us mindful. Instead of passing by people and things in our busyness and task focus, gratefulness can cause us to reflect and notice.

It is so easy in this world to have the experience of not enough: not enough time, not enough money, not enough recognition, not enough control, not enough support, not enough opportunity and so on., This lack, this sense of scarcity, tends to inhibit gratitude with a, “yes but”. Our sense of scarcity and lack arise from childhood experiences and cultural messages – not good enough, not smart enough, not good looking enough, not slim enough – all limiting beliefs that fuel self doubt, low self esteem and making us smaller than we truly are.

Gratefulness and ‘enoughness’ are not cues to inactivity, complacency or mediocrity. They are affirmations of possibility. We are enough….and there is also always more for us to become and do.

The world needs us to be grateful, and to be all we can be, for our own and everyone else’s sake.

The payoffs of living from a place of gratitude are great and, as is so often the case, it can be easier said, than done.

Whatever you are doing today notice the small stuff and all that this wonderful life has to offer. As the poet W.H. Davies says ” What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare.”

Too Small for You?

10 September, 2015 3:17 pm Comments Off

For a good numbers of years now, we have been working with the well known poet and presenter David Whyte. David speaks to the human condition; to the core challenges individuals and organisations face today. With a unique and compelling blend of poetry, humour and insight, his talks traverse boundaries, making him a sought after speaker at a wide range of conferences, global organisations and literary events around the world.

He uses poetry, his own and others, as a means to connect into deep questions about the many dimensions of our lives, including our work and frequently he gives his audience deep pause for thought. One such example are a couple of lines from his poem Sweet Darkness:

Anyone or anything that does not bring you alive
is too small for you.

That message is a clear reminder about purpose, inspiration and identity, yet it also begs other questions.

For example, how do we make something or someone too small for us? Do we do so to enhance our own sense of worth? Does our busyness or fear lead us away from attending to what we really care about. Who or what is worth our attention and interest?

Neuroscience is showing us that the antidote to boredom/disinterest is attention. It sounds kind of obvious but as a person gets curious and interested their felt connection to the other increases. One could say, attention becomes a stimulus for love.

Another dimension to this is, when do we make ourselves too small, or put another way, how do we make ourselves equal to the questions and challenges we face? Rather than contract from them, turn our back, or meet them with aggression. In Ireland they speak of being able, he is able for her, she is able for that work, they are able for that challenge.

So in summary, we want to connect into that which brings us alive, to pay good attention and to be big (but humble) enough to resiliently and skilfully meet the world as it is.

It is tough in today’s world to feel sufficiently resourced. It feels easier and perhaps simply necessary to keep our concerns small and our answers familiar and comfortable.

Our work now is to enlarge personal capacities, to ask the difficult questions, to think differently, to have the courageous conversations and to take the actions we truly need to be taking.

In Defence of Accreditation

3 August, 2015 3:13 pm Comments Off

In the last few years I have been through five accreditation processes.

None them were my kind of fun. So what could have possibly possessed me?

You see, I am not exactly a fan of spending hours trawling through past diaries and files, assembling evidence that I am who I say I am, and I do what I say I do.

I have better ways of spending my time. In actual fact even the ironing looked more interesting and developmental.

Nor do I delight in setting myself up to be judged by people. Particularly people who are, very often, not as experienced or qualified as I am. I think it takes me back to primary school, when some girls started a “club”. Their rules, their criteria – they started it, so they get to choose who belongs and doesn’t. (Wasn’t it Groucho Marx who said that he did not want to belong to a club that would have him as a member?)

In the absence of legislation, in a world of self regulation there is a plethora of organisations giving out certificates and membership to say that you are fit to practice your chosen profession. Some are meaningless – you merely have to pay. Others are a genuine attempt to differentiate in a rigorous and fair way those that make the grade.

As you can see I am not a fan.

However there are a lot of things in life, that whilst not liking, I will defend wholeheartedly and without any discomfort or hypocrisy. Abortion, private healthcare, press self regulation, wind turbines; charitable giving, to name a few. Oh yes, and professional accreditations.

Why? Because, quite simply, the converse is unconscionable.

Without the professional bodies offering an accreditation process there would be even more of a complete free for all than there is at the moment. One can set oneself up as a coach, counsellor or therapist not only without accreditation, but with no training, no qualifications, no experience, no insurance and no supervision.

And whilst none of these in fact make you good – accreditation at least offers some credibility for the professional and some protection for the client in a “buyer beware” market.

So whatever you do for a living, get over yourself and get the credentials.

How do they get it so wrong?

7 June, 2015 3:12 pm Comments Off

Great customer service is easy.

So how do so many businesses get customer service to be so bad?

Don’t get me wrong, I know we all have off days. When a waitress looks like she has been slapped with a wet fish, I will usually go out of my way to help her change her state and in doing so, give me great service. “Had a rough day?” I ask. This is all it usually takes. The result is typically a wry smile (we all like empathy and recognition) and a much better time, for both of us.

We all make mistakes. It’s what we do afterwards that matters.

If your customer says your product or service is “wonderful”, say “thank you for the feedback.”

If your customer says your product or service is “not wonderful”, say “thank you for the feedback”, apologise for getting it wrong for them and put it right.

How hard is that?

Seemingly very difficult.

I recently bought a dog harness on line. It arrived quicker than expected and it really was high quality and just what I wanted – but a size too large. At this point my intent was to send it back and simply ask for an exchange.

There were no return instructions, no form, no label in the parcel – so I go online.

I was met with a long, officious form to complete requiring details they already had, an irritation. Then the company website tells me that the quickest way is to send the item back and ask for a refund, and meanwhile re-order the correct item. It is not clear on the form how to make sure this happens, so I telephone.

Now the truth is, by this stage, I am bored. Never a good thing I confess. But I am still 100% committed to my purchase. Even so I expect my voice tone was a little clipped.

The phone call went like this:

The man I spoke to confirmed that it would be quicker to get a refund and order a new one and I could do this online.

But, no, not with him.

So I said “I think the product is great and very high quality and it is regrettable that the returns process is such a pain”

He said “thank you for your feedback.”

Oh I wish!

What he actually said, at length and whilst constantly interrupting me, was a full description of his company’s processes and procedures and why this was in my interest.

I told him it wasn’t.

He told me I should listen to him and he would explain again.

I told him I didn’t want to listen to him anymore.

I hung up.

I returned the item and haven’t bought another.

He clearly had been reading a “how to lose customers for good …fast” guide, which I fear it gave the instructions:

Argue

Interrupt

Explain

Justify

Blame

And at no point apologise!

He had such an opportunity as it is well known that customer recovery is the way to create “raving fans” as Tom Peters calls them. As a customer our story then becomes “they got it wrong, but you know they were amazing and put it right straight away.”

Phillip Clarke, Chief Executive of Tesco turned a crisis into an opportunity recently over the horse meat saga when he went public with an apology and a statement saying what they were going to do to differently.

I still maintain that getting it right is that simple.

So as a supplier thank your customers for feedback; and as a customer please do praise people when they give you reasonable service and when it is awful don’t collude – tell them. You can even forward this blog.

Your parents are to blame for everything

28 May, 2015 3:10 pm Comments Off

Allegedly Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits said – “give me the child until he is seven and I will give you the man.” Certainly neuro-scientific evidence, as well my own experience, demonstrates that a lot of beliefs (both enabling and limiting) are laid down in early childhood. As children we interpret the world literally and generalise from each experience. So if a parent laughs at us for our funny singing we may grow up to be a successful comedian or, more likely, to believe we can’t sing.

And so often we tell our story over and over again…. and we believe it. “It’s not my fault that I can’t……” or “other people are so lucky, they didn’t have my upbringing.”

Argue for your limitations and sure enough they are yours.

There is a lovely line in the film Roger Rabbit where Jessica says “I’m not bad, I’m just drawn that way.”

But unlike for Jessica, for us it doesn’t have to stay that way.

William James said “The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes of mind”. And with each year that passes we understand more and more about the neurology of the brain – how limiting beliefs work and how neuro-plasticity means we can change most of these – pretty easily. Some we can change at will, others may need a little bit of help from a skilled practitioner (e.g. using NLP). Change is however possible.

So our parents, or at least life’s experiences, are to blame for everything…………until the moment we realise they are. After that it is up to us.

How wonderful. How daunting. If someone else isn’t to blame then it means I have nowhere to hide. No excuses.

Ignorance may not be bliss but it can be convenient, comfortable, easy, familiar. And sometimes we have built our entire lives around our ‘limitations’.

William James again: “A great many people think they are thinking when really all they are doing is rearranging their prejudices”.

Don’t get me wrong I am not saying you ought to change.

I think we all have the right to be who we are.

What I am saying is that, those of us who are privileged not be engaged in a daily fight for survival and who understand that who we are is a choice; have the responsibility for that choice. As I said, I think we all have the right to be who we are…….and we have the responsibility of managing the behavioural consequences and downsides of who we are.

No one has to be aggressive, bullying, defensive, duplicitous, blaming, dishonest, greedy, placating, compliant, hateful, untrustworthy, demeaning, betraying. Whether in the bedroom or the board room, in a bar or with the kids – we can choose to do things differently.

Wouldn’t it be great if all the leaders in our organisations and countries, as well as parents and partners, got this?

So what stories are you telling yourself? What excuses are you making?

If you do not like something about yourself – change.

Culture is set from the top

20 April, 2015 3:08 pm Comments Off

Fashionable as it still seems to be, to talk about ‘bottom up’ change, culture is never changed that way. The behaviours of the top team (what they say and even more importantly what they do) always dictate what ‘goes’ in organisational life.

Two universal quantifiers (never and always) in as many sentences.

Now, I don’t often speak in absolutes – there are usually so many exceptions – but the cause of my departure from this rule is that this is the exception – I just don’t know of any cultures that have been changed without the executive team changing first.

Whether it is an investment bank or an NHS Trust or indeed the whole of the NHS (to be controversially topical); a global corporation, a SME or a charity – culture is set from the top.

There is an old adage “people do what you count, not what counts”. So, for instance, if we reward individualism we cannot be surprised when people fail to behave as a team or corporately. Just recently I suggested to an executive ‘team’ with whom I am working, that they might consider taking 50% of their own salaries for meeting their individual KPI’s within their directorate and the other 50% for meeting the overall targets of the organisation. They laughed and thought I was joking.

Similarly if we reward ‘sales now’ in preference to sustainable markets we cannot be shocked at those who sold in the sub-prime market.

And omission is just as impactful as commission.

If the CEO turns a ‘blind eye’ to conflict or poor performance in the form of ‘bad’ behaviour – you can be sure that those behaviours will flourish.

As Albert Schweitzer said “Example is not the main thing in influencing people. It is the only thing.”

I am often asked to help to change cultures.

‘So what do you want it to be like?’ I ask.

The answer varies little:
‘We want better employee engagement’ (as an aside: what a classic nominalisation – how different if we talk of ‘engaging employees’)
‘We want to be more corporate and less ‘silos’’
‘We want more to be more strategic and less operational’
‘We want to have a ‘coaching’ management style, rather than directive and telling.’

Fine aspirations. Well intentioned even. A little unspecific, but we can get over that. But…..the 64 million dollar question:

‘What about the CEO and the Directors? Are they engaging employees, corporate, strategic and coaching in their style?’

Too often, I know the answer before I ask the question. And it is obvious really; if they were behaving that way, then they probably wouldn’t need to be talking to me about changing the culture (unless of course I am talking to a CEO who took over in the last 3 months.)

The point is, a fortune can be spent on initiatives supporting managers – from first line to senior – to change their ways. My assertion is that the change won’t stick unless the top team are prepared to do so too, and to lead the way.

So a question for all Directors, MD’s, CEO’s and Presidents – what sort of role model are you for your organisation?

And whilst we may not all be in the position of being able to change the cultures of whole organisations, we have, every day the opportunity to influence the others and to “be the change you want to see in the world” (Gandhi)

Be a better role model today!

Marie Faire

We are used to speaking in metaphors

9 March, 2015 3:06 pm Comments Off

We are used to speaking in metaphors, all of us, and here at Beyond we run whole events that are based on the metaphoric – “Lessons for Leadership from Horse Whispering” and “Firewalking”. So imagine how I felt when I found myself on a “pruning course”. Yes, I do mean something involving autumnal plants and secateurs. I was the youngest there by at least 10, maybe even 15 years! And strangely, I wanted to know about pruning rather than the cups of tea that many were obsessed by.

Our androgynous tutor was great. He (according to a Google search later – although I am still not quite convinced that it does not need updating), was great because he showed exceptional compassion and patience to his elderly, and largely uninterested, audience.

He also knows a thing or two about pruning. Apparently the first thing one must do is the 3Ds. 3Ds? Well the advice is that you start by removing the diseased, damaged and dead. (So obvious when you think about.) Then you can see what you are left with before you restructure.

Now, the mention of restructuring sent me in to a fit of (almost entirely) internal giggles and a spiral of thoughts….none to do with shrubs or apple trees. Rather my musing was about organisations. So many fail to do the 3Ds. In fact all too often, they restructure in order to do the 3Ds!

I considered tweeting about the 3Ds but decided that those who don’t know me may misinterpret this as disrespectful of people. My take on reality in organisational life is that people and roles do “pass their sell by date”. To use another horticultural metaphor some plants get root bound and stop flowering. Some are very high maintenance and others like cacti are better left alone and tolerate downright abuse.

It seems that far too many senior folk avoid having the difficult conversations about performance – or for that matter, anything else. Much of my professional life has been spent helping people to deal with conflict, to naming elephants and to challenge unacceptable behaviours.

Back with the pruning, there was more. While tackling an apple tree, at one point I heard him say, almost to himself, “I will leave this branch to replace that one…” (Talent management and succession planning in one) Putting my best NLP modelling skills to use I asked just how long term he was thinking. The reply? 5 years at least. Wow! What a shame so many leaders don’t do that. Circumstance and politics dictate that most are focussed on the next shareholders’ meeting, the annual targets or the next election.

And what is true of the macrocosm is so of the microcosm too. I am left wondering about my own pruning – what parts of me could do with a trim or radical restructure? Can I maintain focus for the next 5 years not just react to my inbox? What conversations am I not having with me? What aspects of my life and how I spend my time are no longer bearing fruit? As David Whyte says “anyone or anything that does not bring you alive is too small for you”.

Marie Faire

Welcome

8 February, 2015 3:01 pm Comments Off

Welcome to our blog. We are looking forward to sharing ideas and ponderings with you to inspire, challenge and sometimes amuse.

There are many factors involved in Going Beyond – to stepping outside of the normal, as an individual, team, organisation or society.

We have been working at this frontier for more than 25 years and in these blogs we will be exploring in various ways the many facets and dimensions of Going Beyond.

For us Going Beyond includes:

finding teaching and learning in everything – whether from poets or horses, pruning or neuroscience, the body or everyday life
living a life where one’s unique talents are realised – “following you bliss” (Joseph Campbell)
daring to risk – moving beyond habit to do just one thing differently
compassionate, mindful living – living with greater respect for all peoples and in greater harmony with the natural world
becoming a leader worth following – helping facilitate the talent of another
saying no as well as saying yes – stop what you are becoming to create the space for something else to emerge
“naming elephants” – having that “courageous conversation” (David Whyte)
“daring to trust” (Dave Richo)
believing there is another (better) way

This world challenges us at nearly every corner and it is a world to marvel at. As John O’Donohue said, “the real miracle of life is that there is something rather than nothing”.

Life can lead us to withdraw into the comfort and familiarity of our ‘home’. Going Beyond requires us to cross the threshold of that home, to find the courage, resources, inspiration and excitement to venture out……….beyond.

From time to time guest writers and fellow travellers will offer their contributions.

We hope you enjoy the travels.

Please feel free to write to us, we would love to receive your comments.

Marie Faire & Paul King

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