Working remotely?

Interesting to see the discussion on remote working taking place.

 

BBC News - Teleworking: The myth of working from home

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Doing thinking

I read a primary school newsletter this morning and was really taken with the reference to learning.

To quote

Design Technology is not a subject Mr Gove rates highly. It didn’t figure in his EBAC plans and I doubt it will be the lynch pin of the new Primary curriculum still in the design stage. However I for one have always believed that children learn best by doing. Let’s face it most of us are kinaesthetic learners. We are designed to do. The old Chinese proverb comes to mind; I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand. There has been a lot of doing this week and I am sure a lot of understanding. It is DT Week and the children have been designing, making and evaluating a range of artefacts. I have seen some super sock puppets, marvellous moon buggies and lots of lovely levers and perfect pop ups. What is more I have seen fully engaged and motivated children, inventing, creating, solving problems and above all doing thinking! That’s what one Year 3 child said when I asked what DT stood for! DT is literally Doing Thinking.

There is a strong link between hand and brain. I am told we have more memory in our muscles. (It’s how we learn to drive.) The act of doing not only makes learning more memorable but also strengthens the connections in the brain. It is the problem solving aspect that is the key as brains and fingers combine in trial and error; model makingmodelling cognitive development and the way our brains have evolved. Problem solving reinforces the learningin a way that a paper exercise does not. But of course the beauty of this brain friendly approach is that itenhances the paper work as well. Doing Thinking Week has been full of English and Maths too. Making a sockpuppet makes you want to write about it. Planning a moon buggy provokes careful calculations. DoingThinking in a practical and meaningful context is what Education is all about. DT rules OK. TB

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Microsoft Office 2013 subscription?

I am amazed at Microsoft because their latest offer on Office 2013 seems too good to be true! 

What's the catch? For a small home based business the Office 365 Home Premium looks like a dream solution.

I will investigate and make a decision next week.

What the heck is happiness at work?

Really interesting little video with some key messages on taking responsibility for being happy at work, and why it's important to the bottom line.

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How much of your energy do you squander on internal politics?

Thanks Trimmy for great HBR article and there is a lot that I take from that article.

Last week I was brought in at short notice to be the 'team builder' for a kick off meeting on a major IT project. There were limitations on how much I could do with them as there was a lot of information sharing that had to be done, but when I left them they seemed to be in a good place.

My final messages to them was that they need to be positive and think how they can make it work, not why it can't. To work as one team caring enough about one another to challenge what they don't believe will work, and to do this in the spirit of openness and trust.

To end with a quote from Tony Schwartz ....

I'm convinced that it's the strength of our community at The Energy Project which has allowed us to become a truly high-performing team. The safety and trust we feel with one another has freed us to focus our efforts on our mission. We have a small full-time staff — 14 of us, along with another dozen working part-time — but we've been able to work at senior levels in some of the world's largest companies. One reason is that we squander almost no energy on internal politics. We're in this together, including when one or another of us is struggling and needs help.

I've always thought of our core team as a living laboratory for the practices we teach our clients — whether it's the power of renewal, or focusing on one thing at a time, or learning to deal more skillfully with conflict. What I now realize is that I've been overlooking one of the most powerful elements of our work.

Each of us is far less likely to succeed by forever pushing to stand out from the pack than by building communities of care and trust committed to raising the bar for everyone.

Transformation takes a village. None of us can truly do it alone.

 

 

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Visual Leaders book

Amazon delivered my copy of David Sibbet's latest book 'Visual Leaders' and it looks great, all in full colour. I really look forward to reading it over the coming days.

 

 

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My Belly-Basement

I'm reading 'Gone Girl' on my iPad on a train journey from Geneva Airport to Vevey and have just read a few great lines that sum up the issues so many people suffer from.

The words are:-

"I wanted them to go out and search for my fucking wife. I didn't say this out loud, though: I often don't say things out loud, even when I should. I contain and I compartmentalise to a disturbing degree: In my belly-basement are 100s of bottles of rage, despair, fear, but you'd never guess from looking at me."

The guy obviously needs a coach!

 

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