Get your brain in motion

Author: fracalde (Page 8 of 14)

Collaborative leadership

In this TED Talk, Lorna Davis, explains the difference between traditional “heroic leaders” and “interdependent leaders”.

There are three big differences between the two ways of leading:

  1. A hero sets a goal that can be individually delivered and neatly measured. Interdependent leaders, on the other hand, start with a goal that’s really important, but is actually impossible to achieve by one company or one person alone.
  2. The second big difference is the leader’s willingness to declare the goals before having a plan. The heroes only reveals their carefully crafted goal when the path to achieve it is clear. In fact, the role of the hero announcement is to set the stage for the big win. Interdependent leaders, on the other hand, want other people to help them, so their announcements are often an invitation for co-creation, and sometimes, they’re a call for help.
  3. Heroes see everyone as a competitor or a follower. Heroes don’t want input, because they want to control everything because they want the credit. Interdependent leaders, on the other hand, understand that they need other people.

According to Davis, we don’t need heroes. We need radical interdependence, which is just another way of saying we need each other. Even though other people can be really difficult, sometimes. There’s no recipe here, but time together has to be carefully curated and created so that people know that their time is valuable and important, and they can bring their best selves to the table.

Why does hero culture persist, and why don’t we work together more? Interdependence is a lot harder than being a hero. It requires us to be open and transparent and vulnerable, and that’s not what traditional leaders have been trained to do. However, the joy and success that comes from interdependence and vulnerability is worth the effort and the risk.

Image: PixabayGeralt

10 ways to improve your Brain Fitness

Our brain, in order to work at 100% of its possibility, needs to be exercised and trained. Brain fitness has basic principles: variety and curiosity. When anything you do becomes second nature, you need to make a change. Curiosity about the world around you, how it works and how you can understand it will keep your brain working fast and efficiently.

Here are some tips to help attain your quest for mental fitness:

  1. Play Games: Suduko, crosswords and electronic games can all improve your brain’s speed and memory. You’ll get benefit more by doing these games a little bit every day. Spend 15 minutes or so, not hours.
  2. Meditation :  By creating a different mental state, you engage your brain in new and interesting ways while increasing your brain fitness.
  3. Eat for Your Brain:  Focus on fish oils from wild salmon, nuts such as walnuts, seeds such as flax seed and olive oil.
  4. Tell Good Stories: Practice telling your stories, both new and old, so that they are interesting, compelling and fun. 
  5. Turn Off Your Television: Turn off your TV and spend more time living and exercising your mind and body.
  6. Exercise Your Body: By moving your body, your brain has to learn new muscle skills, estimate distance and practice balance. 
  7. Read Something Different: Not only will your brain get a workout by imagining different time periods, cultures and peoples, you will also have interesting stories to tell about your reading.
  8. Learn a New Skill: Your memory comes into play, you learn new movements and you associate things differently.
  9. Make Simple Changes: To really help your brain stay young, challenge it. Change routes to the grocery store, use your opposite hand to open doors and eat dessert first.
  10. Train Your Brain: The basic principles are memory, visualization, and reasoning. Work on these three concepts every day and your brain will be ready for anything.

Image: PixabayMohamed_Hassan

Stress measurement in less than one minute

In this manual based on the writings of professor Richard S. Lazarus, the authors present the development of the Emotional Stress Reaction Questionnaire (ESRQ). With this tool, psychological stress can be measured in less than one minute.

The first part of the book presents the development of the ESRQ, its theoretical foundation and psychometric properties. The second part illustrates how the instrument can be used in personal coaching focusing on stress management.

Read the full book here!

Image: Pixabay – geralt (CC Creative Commons)

7 Tips for better leadership

What makes you a leader is not a title but your attitude and your actions. Leadership is about how you interact with people and how you motivate them to work with you toward a goal together.

In this article you’ll find practical tips to improve your leadership:

  1. Value every relationship: there’s a person behind every job title. You have the chance to influence him/her by the way you interact with every team member.
  2. Think about your team’s needs before your own: Thinking about your team’s needs could be as simple as saying thank you or as serious as making a trip to the hospital after hours.
  3. Help your team grow: Provide training and opportunities for them to work at their full potential. Encourage and sponsor continuing education.
  4. Share the credit: Make your team look good. Give them the spotlight and let them shine.
  5. Shoulder the blame: If you and your team fail to meet a goal or a project doesn’t go as well as planned, the blame stops with you. If you need to give feedback to people about their performance, do so privately.
  6. Never say that’s not my job: Help with what needs to be done, even if it’s not your responsibility. Even when nobody’s watching.
  7. Be a person of character: Leadership is less about skills and more about living by your values. Your team certainly doesn’t want to follow a leader they can’t trust. Respect takes a long time to earn and a second to lose.

Image: Pixabayrawpixel (CC Creative Commons)

Some investors look for IQ , some other looks for EQ (Emotional Quotient).

In this TED talk, the investor Natalie Fratto explains that she doesn’t just look for intelligence or charisma: she looks for adaptability. She then measures it according to an “adapyability Quotient” (AQ) and shows why the ability to respond to change really matters.

It is also possible to improve adaptability. Each of us has indeed the capacity to become more adaptable.

« Older posts Newer posts »