From the desk of Caspar:
Ready, Set …..
The New Year rolls through, vaccines ready to go, teams hopefully refreshed after some time off over Christmas and all ready to go and tackle the New Years Big Bold Goals.
And then the UK flips back to a national lockdown. The kitchen table that was just cleared of the decorations is now being re-purposed for home school doubled up again with home working.
The only certainty is uncertainty. Time to take a deep breath, change gears and adapt to what we have. It’s hard to fight reality.
It will of course pass but that doesn’t make it any easier. As with previous lockdowns there will be a range of reaction - from those who love it to those who find it the most challenging thing ever.
Dial up the empathy for each person in your team, you included. Dial it up and keep moving forward, one step at a time.
Tip: It’s always darkest before the dawn - keep moving forward.
The Foreground vs The Background
What do you notice about the picture?
Here’s what I see - the snow capped plant is in the foreground and the trees are in the background.
As it should be with a Big Bold Goal.
You need to have the Big Bold Goal permanently in the background.
But you won’t achieve that goal by having it on your daily list to do - if it it permanently in the foreground. That has the potential to create a sense of overwhelm.
In the foreground needs to be the single most important thing you and your team need to do in order to move towards the big bold goal.
Orient your team towards the big bold goal and then focus the energy today on what you need to do right now.
Tip: Big Bold Goals start in the future and then have to be translated into daily steps towards them.
What Question
I’m stopping a habit I’ve done for the last decade.
I’ve written a gratitude journal - 5 things I’m grateful for pretty much every single day.
I believe it’s been very powerful in creating the habit of appreciating what I have. Equally important, it was the anchor habit that I developed first and that led to developing a range of daily habits and ritual I follow.
So why am I stopping doing it?
I’ve come to realise that the questions we consistently ask either of ourselves or of our teams are one of the most powerful tools available to us.
The very act of asking a question forces your brain to seek answer to the question.
The choice of question is really important.
Those questions shape the answers that appear, it shapes you as an individual and it shapes the very culture of a team.
I got to a point where I asked myself what is the single best question I can ask myself every day.
For a good while, asking myself what I was grateful for was a super powerful question. That thinking though is deeply ingrained in me and I believe the marginal benefit of asking that question every day is low compared to what other questions I could ask.
Imagine how someone’s world would be shaped if you asked any one of these questions everyday:
- What did I enjoy today
- What did I learn today
- How have I moved my mission forward today
- How have I helped others today
- How have I invested in my future today.
Any one person asking one of those questions consistently I believe will shape their world in very different ways just by the choice of that question.
Here’s my question to you?
What’s the best question you can ask yourself every single day in order to achieve whats most important to you?
Taking the time to reflect on that and choose one question is time well spent.
You could run a trial. Ask that question for all of January and then review it and ask a different question for February, March and so on. Or stick with it for all of 2021. And beyond.
Choose the question well.
What’s my new question? For January I’m running with an experiment of two questions - what did I enjoy today and what did I learn today. I’m curious to see what that will shape.
What’s your experiment?
Both for you and for your teams - at work and at home?
Big Bold Bites
“Can we bring back anonymous questions?” Was a question asked in the team for one client we’re working with. It’s a red flag for a lack of trust. What does lockdown do for the trust levels in your team? Here’s our 2 cents on this…
PS If you like this, you can subscribe to the Big Bold Goals YouTube Channel to get these tips every week rather than just every fortnight.
Thought for the day
“A privilege to have Caspar present at our Financial Services 2020 kick-off event. It’s how an ‘ordinary’ person can achieve the ‘extraordinary’ through thinking ‘big and bold’ which will inspire and motivate all!
BAE Systems Inc”