 Good afternoon everybody. My name is Philip Preston and I would like to welcome you to today's webinar express organized by CIM Greater London. Before we get started, I'd just like to go over a few things so you know how the event will work and how to participate in the Q&A session. The presentation will last approximately 30 to 35 minutes followed by a short 10 to 15 minute Q&A session. You'll be able to post any questions you have by typing into the question chat box in the control panel which you'll see on the right hand side of your screen if you're watching on a laptop or on the top or bottom if you're watching on a tablet or smartphone. You can send in your questions at any time during the presentation and I want to attempt to answer as many as you can during the Q&A session at the end. We have two co-presenters today so if your question is for one of them either Martin or B that's spelled B-E-D-E please add their name when you type into the question box. If you look in the handout section you'll find a copy of the slide deck along with a list of additional reading resources to complement today's presentation. If you want to share your thoughts on social media we're using the hashtag CIM events. Finally the webinar is being recorded and will be available to watch on demand in a few days time on the CIM Greater London webpage and CIM YouTube channel. So I'd now like to hand over to Martin Fan and Bede Brosnan from Gazing Performance Systems who are our guest speakers today. Over to you Martin. Thank you Phil and thanks very much for the invitation and the introduction. I appreciate the opportunity presented through CIM here in the webinar expressed to come and talk to everyone and thank you everyone for joining today's webinar. My name is Martin Fan I'm here with my colleague Bede today and we're going to spend the next 30 to 35 minutes talking to you about a subject that well we started focusing on this about 20 years ago as an organisation working in training in businesses and a number of other areas I'll tell you about in a minute but certainly over the last 12 months if people hadn't thought about what it feels like to be under pressure and how to get going again or start to think about how you do well under pressure they certainly probably have now. It's in the news almost every day the concept of pressure and specifically the impact on people's mentality and mindsets so that's what we're going to spend the next 30 35 minutes talking about we'd be delighted to get some questions from you at the end and as we share our perspective on I'd say two things that we're going to try and cover one of them is how do you help people get really better at what they do but also how do you sometimes it's just about getting going again and being okay in terms of the pressure and the environment that you're in the pressure of the environment that you're in. So just a little introduction to gazing we typically work across a range of sectors business being the one where we've done most of our work but also in sport and in education and healthcare and the military and with the police you'll see some of the clients some of the the organisations that work and use exactly what you're going to go through today so whether you are a teacher or a student in number of schools that we've worked in or whether you're a doctor or nurse in some of the establishments at the NHS we work with or whether you're a member of the all blacks organisation the team that's sort of won two world cups most recently you'll be getting to see the same concept that they use to work with their mentality plus multiple business organisations that you can see so with that in mind as you start to think about how do people do well under pressure how do you sort of get going again or keep going or how do you really perform to the highest possible level I'm going to sort of start to position that in the context of thinking clearly which is the theme the role that thinking clearly plays in the ability to access those things that matter when it comes to performance and getting going but also the connection and we'll try and make a connection to the impact of marketing and brilliant marketing connecting to the impact the point mindset has on how people do well under pressure and we'll take a perspective from your own view as as listening and participating in the webinar today but we'll also try and take a perspective from your customers your future clients your existing clients those people that you're sort of looking to target with your services and products and a good starting point when it comes to performance is to first of all acknowledge the pressure and and normally we would sort of ask people to share where they feel pressure and the impact that pressure has on them there's a lot of you on the webinar today and so we're going to make a bit of a stab at some of the sources that pressure might be sort of that might be creating pressure for you the very obvious area of adapting to the significant change that we've all experienced over the last 12 months and the need to adapt to that change the way we live the way we work the way we interact with with people close to us and also people that we've never met adjusting to the markets for those of you who are in industries and sectors yet the sector will have changed there will be new people arriving there's new innovations those can sort of create pressure new people arriving the pressure as often has been as a consequence of that has created these new innovations that the role of creativity become more important personal pressures that many of us speak about nowadays the motivation to keep going the isolation of the way we've been asked now to work or live and then all of the traditional things from family to everything that goes on with that school and work and those of us have been involved in homeschooling or now the fantastic release as many children went back to school and the impact of just general overwhelming information as people try to keep up with the virus or people try to understand when is it going to change when will we get back to whatever the reality is going to be in the future and the uncertainty associated with that all of those are factors that sort of contribute to pressure and all of you I'm sure will have your own stories around the pressure how you feel the people around you how they feel the impact on your organization the job you have and just generally sort of the the the effect that that's had on on both keeping going and the pension doing well so if you sort of take a step back from that pressure for me a good place for us to start is to to think about what you might put your attention on in order to try and generate that ability to keep going that ability to get moving again that ability to adapt and often people talk about thriving under pressure well that doesn't happen by accident doesn't happen just because you wish it and sometimes there's a real risk that organizations and people humans just succumb to the pressure so when you reflect to that we we sort of have a way of breaking the ability to move down to three buckets three areas of focus and and one of those and you have heard that there's been a lot of advice in the last 12 months that will actually allow us people to support their ability to get going which is the sort of structures that exist that the process that people use to work to live the sort of routines that support that that's the first stage what what what routines do you put in place and there's a lot of advice about how do you re-establish or or reset the routines and that includes both our physical health as well as the work we do and and all those areas but but structures aren't enough without specific skills so what sort of skills do we need to establish the ability to move forward are they the same skills that we've always had or if we had to learn new skills and and our is there in fact different skills that are now critical to us in terms of the way we live or or the way we work and and finally the area that the sort of third bucket the third leg of the stool of being able to do well under pressure to be able to adapt potentially start moving again is mindset and mindset speaks about not just the ability to accept this comfort and we'll talk more about how you accept about doing that today but actually to engage deliberately in it and and one of the things that beat is going to talk to you about is how do you develop the skill needed to start to the mental skill needed to start to allow you to access the new routines access the core skills but be able generally to start to that that movement to the right from and and you know wherever you might put yourself on that scale now in front of you whether you're closer towards the end of being stuck or whether you're further towards i'm adapting and moving towards thriving whatever that might be mindset will be contributing and and and beads gonna ask gonna look at now at mindset area in a little bit more detail and try and describe it as a as a skill that we can access and learn be a beat over to you thanks Martin so yeah look if you just if you have a pen paper with you it'd be really good starting for if you just to draw that line yourself and then put yourself where you think you or your organization or your team are sitting at the moment and the reason that's quite a good starting point is because it's not all or nothing so just to have a sense of movement is really helpful um rather than thinking i'm amazing or it's a disaster when we're under pressure sometimes we've catastrophize things so if you've got a pen paper just draw a line put yourself on that scale somewhere just in terms of how you feel you're doing or how you're performing don't worry about your results just think about general sense and then you know think about structure skill mindset yeah you will have reset things that you're doing you'll be trying to focus on stuff it's familiar you know looking after yourselves really important and then as you're executing your jobs you know or even at home what can we do the same what do we have to do differently and what can we do better in in this context so you know you put a lot of attention on that and there's been a lot of talk about mindset and the impact of the pressure and the changes that have been going on in the context we're in and how it's affecting people's mindset so one of one of the messages today is around how do you accept you know when it's a bit tough and then engage deliberately in it and you know if you step back and you think about a sports team or an orchestra or anybody who's performing corporate business teams we put an awful lot of attention on systems and processes and we train our skills and mindset tends to get treated differently it's often treated as a problem or it's treated as a you know something to go away and work on your coping mechanisms today we're just trying to look at it from one perspective which is you know connected to that word practice and so we're going to treat it like a skill so if you just think about which one of these is most important to you and your job and what you do you know they'll all be important often people gravitate to mindset being the most important but we don't really know how to practice it so let's talk about that most skills will have one big idea behind it so we want to work okay what's the the main thing that everything else flows from in terms of mindset so if you take the pen and paper we'll just tease that out now what I'd like you to do is just draw three circles across your page and it's really important that you do this rather than just think about it what I'd like you to do in the that left hand circle is just list all of the things that you think you can't control so in what context well whatever to you you can do it around your life or you know today or the specific situation at work or you know a big thing coming up in the near future or family situation up to you whatever context you want just make a list of the things that you feel like you can't control you might want more time on that but obviously on the far right hand side if you're ready to move then list the things not necessarily that you do control but what you can control so you think about it and can't control when the virus ends and all that sort of stuff so what can you do and just and it's really important again to write it down so it's staring back at you on the paper now there's a little circle which is about influence and I won't go into that and I want to ask you to do that now but this little exercise is really just a way to illustrate what mental skill is about because everybody knows this story it's logical and it's easy to talk about when you step back during lunchtime and you're on a conference call but when you're in the heat of the moment or when the pressure is getting too much or you're in a new situation more often than not all of our energy and our attention goes into that red circle you know stuff we can't control so even though everybody talks about it and logically we know that we shouldn't do that and we say to ourselves we're going to focus on what it can control it's not what happens sometimes our default position is to you know get caught up in it and try and change the impossible so put a lot of attention on things that just you know have no you know it's not really within our remote or our control where we get caught up in what other people are doing or that sort of stuff that you've written it's normal that that sort of becomes a magnet for for how we feel in our attention so even though logically we know this and it's a well told story we're going to focus on the controllables most humans when they're in genuine pressure don't do it so the part of the skill or mentality is about recognizing when you're getting caught up in stuff you can't control that sounds easy and really obvious but that's what we lose sight of we lose sight of the clarity or the difference between things we actually do or don't control or can or can't control and that's because we're not being honest with ourselves or we've just got these default positions that we like to go to or we haven't prepared well enough for things that we know are going to come at us so the skill is about recognition that's the heart of it and then it's about okay shifting so even though you go there everybody moves back so drawing that line you know you put yourself somewhere on that scale because you won't be new to doing this today you would have caught up and stuff and you would have got yourself back on track so at the heart of this conformance under pressure idea and clear thinking very obvious but the number one thing is about where your attention goes because everything else follows from that how you feel and therefore you know what you do and how you act and how you speak to others and all that sort of stuff so how do you get some control over your attention so just to help us do that and you think about the skill of recognizing when you're losing control and getting some movement you've just got this little picture that helps we call it a map and it's first of all it just says okay you can control your attention you're in charge of that you've got a limited amount it's a big old computer your brain but really you can only think about one thing at a time so it's about recognizing where your attention's going so we just got this little dichotomy it's quite binary and it's very simple and it's deliberate it just says you either got your attention on task or it's not it's diverted somewhere else and we call that red to blue the characteristics of what goes on in your head are different between those two states so when you've got yourself caught up in things you can't control usually it's a very busy space so you'll see in that little picture if you recognize these two heads when we're caught up in stuff we can't control in the red side which we call it there's a lot of dialogue going on it's either I can do it you know get on with it don't worry about it don't think about this just get on with it and there's another little worse going on you can't do it I don't want to do it shouldn't have to do it someone else's job so it's a busy old space and typically when you're in the red you know you call up and stuff that's already happened or you're worrying unhelpfully about what's about to happen so hopefully that's sort of the familiar picture when we're engaged or connected and just sort of doing it there's less going on we're just fully immersed in the task that really comes from having clarity around you know what to do in specific situations now the reason this picture helps is because you go back to the skill it's you know if you want to do well it's something you want to do better now it doesn't mean you'll be absolute disaster you know if you're in the red it doesn't mean you fail or you stop but you're more likely to do well to engage with other people to focus on your jobs to shift your attention between different jobs family and work and well all that stuff if you're you know got a bluehead on you and that that comes from being really clear zooming out when you're under pressure and just being really clear about okay what do I do in this situation so it's a helpful little map just to help you recognize when you're going there to recognize when other people are going there and what it does for me and for others who use it is it normalizes it so rather than saying don't think about this don't be under pressure just says okay yeah that's where I am so you know to keeping your head where your feet are is what the blues about but you're telling yourself not to go in the red is ridiculous it's like saying don't be in this room but you're already in so what the what this little map does just say normalizes it's not a disaster or catastrophe but it's not very helpful so really really think about this as positive or negative it's we sort of see it as what's helpful or unhelpful what's useful not so useful so in some situations it's not that helpful just to be positive so what do you actually need to do so in the red we get stuck we put up in it blue side is about zooming out and then we focusing and we'll show you a few few techniques to do that in a minute thanks Bede so Bede's just positioned what we're what we're talking what we're looking at as a skill and and the first sort of response to that normally is actually that's all of a sudden makes something that has been presented sometimes in a way that is less accessible sometimes complicated or even in a way where it's connected to the value the mental health value of taking a big step back and meditating and calming down but sometimes you don't have time to do that and whether you are a a student in an exam or whether you are a motor racing driver on the grid about to set off at 180 miles an hour and you need to stay present in order to perform well around the racetrack or whether you're a salesperson or a business leader about to make a major presentation of business strategy or a sales proposal there are moments when you haven't got time to sort of calm down you actually need to just get on with it in and red to blue is positioned as an accessible skill in the moment be able to use it and access it and and the sort of question around that is is once you've normalized the red side and the blue side and people often ask us is there any value in the red side surely we should all just be blue but of course as be just said actually that's not a realistic situation once you've normalized the red side it can provide you with this springboard back to those things that are going to be most useful most helpful whether that's connected to just generally getting moving or whether it's in connected indeed to the delivery of brilliant marketing how do you get back to the blue and it starts as be said with recognizing so this is going to give you a little opportunity to think about it from your own perspective one of the things we like to say about the redhead bluehead map that you've just looked at is it's difficult to forget and so you'll have in your mind now this concept of your attention being focused on the on the red and how useful it would be if you could get it back to blue so just for a moment you can take 30 seconds or so to do this consider the last time you were in the red think about a time when you you know looking at the map last time your attention was distracted you were feeling aggressive or you were feeling very passive or you just want to get out of there and escape how did you respond how did the response impact on the performance of whatever it was you were trying to do at that moment in time and it could well have been sort of getting the kids out of the door school it could well have been preparing for a presentation or delivering a keynote address or it could just have been actually doing your job getting on with doing your job or it could be making a part on the 18th green what could you do next time to avoid you responding like that what could you do that would be less impactful on your performance what could you do to try and regain control of your attention so just take about 30 seconds to think about that okay well typically when when when people have a look at this they want to spend a little bit more time off a couple of things sometimes people try and reimagine a catastrophe or some sort of disaster that occurred that that really brings the red side to life actually most of us will also recognize that the red side kicks in 10 12 15 times a day depends what sort of day you're having our attention gets distracted we need to regain it we need to regather that attention and focus back on what we're trying to do and just the first step in the mental skill is that recognition just the acknowledgement that actually my attention is diverted and it's not helping me do whatever is I'm trying to do at the moment but when it comes to doing well when it comes to getting moving again when it comes to performing and executing under pressure the blue side is where the money is the blue side is where you'll deliver brilliant marketing the blue side is where you'll make your great presentations the blue side is where you'll execute whatever skill and whatever sport it is or you'll be able to keep going and do the things you need to do and and that's where imagine if you were at the top of this waterfall now imagine that there may be some canoeists on the on the the webinar today but even if you're not you could imagine how daunting that might be how much pressure there might be associated with the task of getting down from that waterfall and they're there now so you've got no choice but the question is what approach do you take mentally and and and what we've seen and what we've come across and what we've tried to help people develop is the ability on the blue side to walk towards that pressure to embrace the pressure to actually move from red to blue as you could imagine the particularly understandable feeling would be and to be able to focus your blue head on what it is you need to do now people are able to do that when they have a clear plan as B talked earlier on about the need to be able to zoom out take a bigger picture of you what is my plan where am I doing this where does it fit in what I'm trying to do once you're clear then there will be a series of very specific tasks particularly getting down this waterfall that will allow you if you access those tasks it will allow you to retain control and execute the task of heading down the waterfall to the level of control that you can achieve and and again you don't have to work too hard to imagine that the situation that you're looking at on the screen may well be uncomfortable may well generate feelings of discomfort and and the reason that we persevere in uncomfortable conditions is because the task and the purpose that we're undertaking has a level of significance a level of meaning to what we're doing there may be some on the on the session today who've chosen to run a marathon not sure why but it may well be something that you chose to do it's a long way certainly but but you will have experienced feelings of discomfort I think it's mile 20 but for me it'd be mile one and the reason people keep going is because there's a level of significance in whatever reason it is behind you running that marathon and people keep going and persevere when the blue side is supported by meaning if you like personal significance so I want to now switch to the the discussion of how red to blue connects to marketing and ask B just to introduce a little bit of what might sit on the blue side when it comes to creating and executing really good marketing B. Thanks Martin so look this next bit is just to link that idea of blue side and clarity to what you do and obviously we don't when we work with all of these different people we don't try and advise them on how to be surgeons or all blacks or whatever it is so I'm not about to start doing that around you know the brilliant marketing knowledge that you have but one perspective just to get some clarity around it's how to engage in this when your job's complicated and there's complexity it's just to to zoom out and say okay what's the core principle here so as you know you know your purpose in terms of marketing is to try and influence the way people think about your product or brand or whatever it is you're trying to market to them and you know it's a good starting point the big picture there is just to think that when people make decisions and this is just the theory of decision making it's it's like to psychology of change and you know different therapy models people go through different stages so when you know that you know your campaigns are trying to influence the way they think as they move through that decision making process and if you're engaging people at the wrong time or too early or you know too late whatever it is you know people get stuck so you know when you think about how to really commit and put attention on what you're doing zooming out is just to think okay the end user here the customer is the main thing how do they make those decisions so like in surgery or in sport just to be able to checklist that is really important so you know if you think about what you're doing you're just trying to influence the way people are you're driven towards your product what's important to them service what is it they need you're trying to highlight that they all are basic things that you're doing in your job you know when you're under pressure the idea is just to zoom in and say okay how are we going to do this really well and that's what you will have been doing and when pressure comes on and things change you know okay what do we have to do better or different so you will have been reflecting on that in terms of the red to blue it's worth just taking you know acknowledging what we did at the start there's a context here people are under pressure it's worth acknowledging that you can anticipate that your clients will be under pressure so whether it's pressure to make these decisions or to avoid them or whether you know people are really actually resistant at the moment or really distracted so you know as you think about your core job to go out and engage and doing your marketing and what you what you need to do and as a team getting aligned to doing that just to zoom out and say okay now is pressure affecting our you know customer and how can we respond to that what can we do differently so take away all of that detail which is deliberate under pressure zoom out you know what are the big things that we're trying to do we call this a cross check or a double check because when you're under pressure you know you've got to go back to what the core things that you really really need to get right brilliant so when we're under pressure when we're dealing potentially with difficult tasks oftentimes detail is critical detail is a critical aspect of that but complexity associated with detail can indeed be your enemy and at those moments where you really want to be able to think clearly think your way through a task and an activity to ensure that what you're doing and what you're executing on is as likely to deliver the success and the impact that you want then simplicity and practical simplicity can really help which is why we've established this red to blue is designed to try and do that and as as you can see on the screen now the idea of the cross check just to reflect just a cross check where you've got your focus with regards to your marketing strategy are you engaging your potential clients your existing clients in a way that is most compelling and importantly most connected and just as an example to reflect what beast is taking you through look are you in your engagement reflecting the upheaval that many clients have been through the fact that they've probably been realigning their vision the fact that their priorities will have shifted over the last 12 months and this will not be the first time that you've heard that but it we've tried to position it in a way that it's simply and practically accessible when it comes to reflecting not just on whether the your client is starting from the red side or focused on the blue side but also what their attention might be on and particularly when it comes to them executing their strategy they may have shorter time frames they may well be that there's greater urgency as to what they're doing or the process by which they make decisions around spending and investment and their operational processes and their operational side of the business has shifted those are all things that you can check now we will be sending after the session or sharing with you the cross check tool with some simple steps and questions to help you use this in a way that actually allows you when you've got your attention on the blue side what are some of the questions I can just ask of ourselves myself to validate where we are so so and they'll they'll so they'll be it'll be loaded for you sorry just it's loaded for you now to have a look at so you can start to use the cross check as a way to support it but to bring it all the way back to what we said at the beginning to bring it all the way back to what Bede and I have been sharing with you around mentality and the skill associated with regaining control of your attention a good step a major step forward is to acknowledge that everybody's vulnerable to the red side it doesn't matter whether we are an international athlete it doesn't matter whether we are a student doing an exam whatever age it might be or whether we're just trying to carry out a marketing strategy for our company that we've just joined we are all vulnerable to the red side and recognizing that is a major step forward in building the skill building the resilience associated with mentality and doing well when you're under pressure getting moving again when you're under pressure on the blue side the ability to zoom out to take a slightly broader view will help you regain that that control of your attention and then zoom back in on the task or the activity or whatever it is that you think will actually start to move you forward and keep you moving forward in an effective way and if the first sort of step is quite easy the recognition because I think you'll get a feeling for what that is it is the next step that a lot of people find difficult particularly when you need to do it real time and that's the ability to accept that actually you need to release your attention in order for you to refocus it on something that's useful something that's helpful so a little exercise here we're going to ask you to all do now you'll need a pen or a pencil some way of actually and you need to put your pen or your pencil into your right hand or your left doesn't matter but this is again like being said with the control circles an exercise worth doing and really grip that so your knuckles are squeezed around the pen really grip it hard and when the one I'd like you to do and we can tell whether you're cheating here is to use the same hand and actually grab hold of something else another pen another pencil a coffee cup a phone whatever might be there and if you're really doing the exercise properly there's no way of being able to pick up anything else while you're holding so tightly onto the pen then of course what I'd like you to do then is release the pen and you can pick up the phone the cup what the other pen whatever it might be and that in a way is a silly little exercise but very practical way of demonstrating the need mentally to release the feelings associated with the distraction if you can release those feelings that then that start to regain some control of your attention and you can start to choose where you refocus that awareness the acceptance of it letting go of the of the pen of the associated feelings allows you to put your attention back on something that you've got some control or indeed some influence on and to sort of finish off with a couple of reflections now because we started talking about performing under pressure and the the notion of thinking clearly when you're under pressure and people often reflect on pressure as being unhelpful a lot of the news you'll hear and read nowadays is about this pressure that's been created by the changes to our lives and the negative impact it's having on our mindset on our health and on our ability to do what we do and of course there's there'll be a lot of truth in that and different people will be feeling differently but what you will also know and what you'll also feel at times is that pressure can also not only be an inhibitor but a catalyst for performance sometimes we need a little bit of pressure and that this is our favorite slide the little boy on the bike there and you can even if you look hard you can see the little plaster on his leg where he's just accepted the discomfort of the car on the leg because he's so determined to get the stabilizers off and and and to start cycling on on two wheels sometimes we need a little bit of pressure to generate that movement forward that sort of progress and so there's a sort of thought around that how can you be ready for that well well the starting point is just to recognize that if you are acknowledging the role that pressure plays but you want to not feel those feelings that are unhelpful then the more you resist the red side the greater it is that it's likely to persist it's a common saying I'm sure you've heard it what you resist persists a different a reframing way of looking at that is to accept the challenge embrace the opportunity that comes with changing the way we live the way we work I'm sure by the way that many of you will have done that in your personal lives you will have done it with your working lives just to accept that challenge by the way I'm not suggesting it's easy I'm not for one minute suggesting it's easy it's why we talk about mentality as a skill that's worth investing in like any skill to to develop but if you embrace the opportunity if you can reflect differently on it it'll give you a chance to get moving forward again to start to access what might be on the blue side and although Arthur Ash is a some of you will be old enough on the call to remember him as such a brilliant tennis player he just has a a comment and a statement that he made all those years ago when he was playing at the top of his game that for certainly to be to myself and gazing and I think for me at a family level just been really helpful over the last 12 months start where you are use what you've got and do what you can and if the goal is to get moving and as you get moving you start to focus in on the quality and the impact of what you do that thinking clearly is one of those first steps because that thinking clearly can then release you to put your attention on what brilliant marketing might look like so thank you for today and thank you for the time really privileged to be able to speak to so many people about red to blue and share with you just a practical perspective on mindset and the role it might play in both dealing with the pressure but also doing well under pressure. Phil back to you. Oh that's great thanks very much Martin and Bede so we're now going to have a short 10 to 15 minute Q&A session you can still submit your questions in the questions box and if you have a specific question either from Martin or Bede please add their name in at the start of the question. Also a little reminder that if you're enjoying today's webinar and want to post on social media you can use the hashtag see our events so okay our first question is how would you help someone who is in denial about the amount of pressure that's on them that's a question for either of you. Yeah look it's a good one isn't it because what we tend to do is jump to the blue side and try and get them to not worry about it or not do it and we try and give the answers so you know all the theory says the starting point here is just to just to reflect really so you can't force someone back to the blue so what you've described is pretty typical when you're in the red side it's like wearing a you know a big sign on your head and you can't see it everyone else can see it but you can't so what your job there really if you want to influence that is just sort of be a bit empathetic and a bit of a sounding board and reflect so no judgments just reflect so you make an observation and one of the ways if you're ever in doubt and how to help people is just to draw that line so draw a line where are you at the moment and just you know try and get them thinking about movement but if you if you tell people and you back them into a corner you tell them they're in the reds and you know people are going to respond like that so you'll see on that map typical ways people respond some people get really aggressive when they're in the red you know well it's rushing too fast going too hard taking everyone else's jobs some people withdraw or get passive so people will respond in different ways if you're trying to influence someone out of it you know that's not within your control but to influence it it's just sort of to reflect you know make observations and just check in on people yeah okay um the next question is um it's a cry from the heart I think uh how would you do with job uncertainty fabulous um well it's Martin here again I'll just like to pick up on that last one because I think there is a there's a correlation between the two so one of them is about where people are denying the red side the other one is about how do you deal with some of the uncertainty associated with uh either retaining the job that you've got or even looking for a new job fill in it they're both very real very real of the moment questions and one of the very practical ways that we suggest people do this is um the exercise that B took you through so so many people nowadays talk about just focus on what you can control you hear it every day from people who are genuinely trying to help uh what we would find is actually if you adopt uh if you do the circles exercise in a way that B described it so actually make it a world lesson rather than a word lesson it can become very helpful so whether you are um trying to help somebody who's clearly in the red or whether you're trying to help uh somebody who or whether yourself is actually worried about uncertainty write down all of the things that are helping contribute that to that feeling that are making you feel nervous anxious angry annoyed whatever it might just write down all the sources of pressure and start to physically locate them in the control circles it moves it from a piece of useful um sort of grandma said type word lesson to an active uh practical way of helping once phil you've got your attention on to regarding your job those things that you can control and i imagine it will be you can't control the macro sometimes you can't control the micro but what you can control is the the job you do the quality of the job that you do the approach that you take the role that mentality plays in your ability those are things within your control then you'll be doing as much as you can do to either increase the likelihood you're keeping the job or increase the likelihood you get the job that you want um hopefully that helps okay great um okay ready for the next question uh how do you recognize the difference between something you can't control at all and something you can actually influence can you and can you share some examples yeah look uh i'm not sure i understand that quick question really if you get because what's confusing here is that it's about recognizing that it's normal so even if it's that job uncertainty thing it'd be very unusual not to feel under pressure around that not to have a bit of anxiety so once you recognize that it's okay i'm in the read about it that's how you let it go when you deny yourself that and you try and you know get on with it not worry about you know that which you resist persists so look in terms of it might just be that one thing so what you see in that picture is when you're overwhelmed it feels like everything's out of your control but it's really just trying to find one little thing that you can do well and it becomes quite contagious so i don't you won't know if it's going to work um until you try it so there's no absolute certainty there's no right or wrong answer about where something fits in a circle and and you know your demeanor how you're feeling that day might change you know where you put things anyway so there's no magic answer but i'd say get started with something just to get moving rather than fixing perfectly it's how you just keep moving forward really all right well that's it answers the question very well okay um this is martin here i've got an example if that's okay because i think many of you on the call may well be involved in one of the things that creates a lot of pressure for people which is making presentations sometimes it's presentations now in fact increasingly they're remote presentations webinars and uh and remote zoom meetings but sometimes you're actually standing on a stage or you're in a meeting room somewhere and you're making a presentation and it's one of the things that creates a lot of anxiety for people and and and very often there are things that are outside our control that will impact on how that presentation goes these are um can be things such as uh big macro associated things that are in the environment that you really can't control there's nothing you can do about it sometimes they're micro things associated with the technology or your knowledge of the people that might be in the room and and that's a really good way of writing as you start to do your preparation write down things that are outside your control but those things that are within your control which for example is the quality of the presentation the preparation you've done in terms of making sure you know the messages you're looking to do that it allows you to build a level of um competence up around what you're about to deliver which breeds confidence people often say confidence is the key well confidence uh built on a lack of competence is going to be fairly brittle but if you can do your preparation around the things you can control all of that stuff around a presentation then when a senior level stakeholder arrives in the meeting and you weren't expecting them or when something happens um means that somebody isn't there that was supposed to be there or the or the technology doesn't work you'll be able to adapt and uh and reflect uh what you should be doing um reset what you're doing because you've done that preparation so uh that's just an example of using the control circles as part of your preparation hopefully that helps great thanks Martin okay um next question is for both of you actually so do you have any particular tips that either of you use on a regular basis to step out of the red zone when you are already fully immersed in it yeah look i've been trying to get this right for 20 years we've we've got these but you know we learn these but you know default positions where we get defensive so it depends on the context i'm in i'm better at it in some contexts than others you know i might be wiggling my tail or finding some sort of way to just back your state you've got to sort of find your happy gilding place so practicing that before it happens and finding what helps you might be just shifting your body breathing all those sorts of things there's lots of techniques out there but you know it comes down to practice um you know i was getting frustrated about the google class response of my daughter to having to do google classroom in the weekend with her dad and i was getting frustrated with her not being so happy to do it so you know i had to just let that go a little bit just put my attention on creating you know the the environment you know with the we made up a pretend Hogwarts at home and all that sort of stuff so there's no magic answer to you're going to find your own little way to break the state but the starting point is to try and just notice how you get yourself in the red so how do you do it what's your favorite way of responding you know and you might write that down how do i how do i go in the red where do i feel it in the body how do i act how do i react and then you know choose your favorite ones to think okay maybe i'll try something different next time okay Martin have you any tips yeah um look like beat i've had to learn over the last two years and i found it extremely valuable and and we we um developed with our partners red to blue in 1998 and i'm still working on the skill but i wish i'd had it before 1998 um because it really would have helped playing and at work and with my family and and the way that i've developed that i found extremely useful is to change the physical location uh if it's possible i go outside sometimes it's just about changing how you're standing or how you're sitting but that's the first step for me uh to then start to take a broader perspective so i find zoom out extremely helpful um i know enough about my responses to the red side to know that it that's the time when i just need to take a step back and and uh you know it's it is a i i joked a little earlier about grandma's advice it literally is sometimes you know it'll be all right the next day it the sun will come up and it will be okay and it can only access that if you feel slightly broader perspective and then that allows you to re-engage in whatever the problem is or whatever it is that you're trying to deal with at that moment in time by taking a broader perspective a very deliberate sort of shift from um a physical location and then zooming out broader perspective and then back in and whatever it is you're trying to deal with okay great no and the only last thing i'd say though is just say it out loud acknowledge it to yourself this is our feeling i'm glad and frazzled say it to your kids just acknowledge it let your kids say it to you this is how i'm feeling it's normal and you'll find yourself having a bit more space than your head when you hit it bottled up yeah i find i find screaming helps as well actually um so if you're faced with a task which is you know you're you're just having got the energy to to do um should you actually look for meaning or purpose in every single task to get the job done or do you or do you just give up on someone look i i wouldn't it be great if every task that we get asked to do has got a really high purpose to it and every activity we get involved in seems to be connected to a sort of wider journey towards nirvana the reality is we just have to do some stuff to get on with it we just have to grit our teeth and i think if if you constantly strive for higher purpose the probability is that will eventually become a diversion in itself so i think there is a case again for perspective and look at some of the stuff that you have to do and and and use the control circles and say look there are going to be some activities a lot of a lot of the red side comes from a breakdown in our expectations we expect this when we find something that doesn't match those expectations it's a big trigger of the red side and so sometimes just resetting expectations around if some of the things that we get involved in not everything and sometimes it is good to look for a higher purpose a more significant purpose but other times you just got to get on with it and get through it and changing your expectation will just help you deal with that sometimes great okay um beat any any final words on that i think you're just recognizing that sometimes to your drivers change and it might not feel like it in the moment but sometimes you just need to put your attention on something else and you know if you want to be content and happy so you maybe it's about changing your situation if you can yeah okay okay brilliant um thank you very much we had some great questions and some great answers there um so that's all the time we have for our q and a session today i'd like to say thank you to martin and to bead for today's presentation uh to see how i'm great at london for organizing the event and i thank you to you for watching um we do hope you found it interesting and worthwhile okay our next webinar express driving competitive advantage through sustainability is on tuesday the 30th of march at 1 p.m hosted by c.i.m midlands you'll find it listed on the events page of the c.i.m website where you'll be able to find out more information and to register for the session finally 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