My favourite and the best MindMap Software Tool Today

I don't usually walk around selling anything but today after years and years of using iMindMap for my Tony Buzan "proper mindmaps", and dozens of its other features...I am totally in awe and need to share.

I started using Microsoft (MS) Project in 1995. During my holiday (?) and spare time (??) I worked on a VB OLE project to integrate a packing scheduler algorithm for South Africa's biggest fresh fruit exporter with MS Project. Critical paths, Dependent tasks, Schedule compression, coloured, Start-Stop Dates, Split runs, Merged runs, Faster packing lines, Slower packing lines, More/Less expensive packing lines, Pallets per minute/hour/day, Breakages, Resource balancing, and a lot more was thrown at me, and I, in turn, threw the requirements into the algorithm and nicely displayed useful intelligence between a calendar view (before there was a calendar widget), an MS Access Database (ermmm), and MS Project. And allowed the human packing scheduler to move things around. What used to take him weeks and weeks locked away in small room every year, took a few hours of data entry, and then intelligent drag and drop to test different options at various stages of the year ahead. Power to the people! Power to the user! Organisational resilience was a key factor in why the client wanted this solution - the Planning Manager was getting very close to retirement and this was a massively complex job to succeed with, and critical to business success!

Now...after 24 years of acquaintance, love, hate and other feelings about MS Project (and project management in general, traditional, agile and other perspectives), and many of its competitors in "traditional project management" and "agile" spaces ... I have been settling for years now very comfortably into post-its, string, and/or magnetic whiteboards or cork boards.

Until now - finally a new tool is tickling my interest again in this space. Check out this video - Using iMindMap Time Map Feature - and let me know if you've ever seen any software tool better for planning dynamically and quicker than this! Yes, I will continue to collaborate and facilitate planning with a team using low-fidelity approaches...but then when it comes to digitising, I may take a photo, or I may take a backup photo AND upload the detail into iMindMap. "It depends" as always, on what the value is and to whom.

While you're looking at the Time Map video...consider the Bubble Web, Bubble Group and my current favourite, the Radial Map. It's the fastest way I currently have of converting all my random sometimes linear, sometimes non-linear, thoughts/ideas/memories/questions into something visual and then being able to make better sense of "it all". From essays/term papers I need to submit for my coaching degree, to notes from meetings, to possible options for various things. And especially notes to myself for my own reflections now, later, and much much later.

I don't have shares in iMindMap, but hope to (soon), or it's parent group Open Genius which also has an amazing charity to help youth of today be the leaders and saviours of tomorrow!

When my high school 16 year old best friend introduced me to mindmapping in preparation for our upcoming History exams, I really did not get it. I basically copied his the whole way through our studying together and had MUCH worse marks than him. Then in 2001 I bought


and it changed my world ever since. Slowly at first, but as I got better at drawing and creating something meaningful to me, so my memory of the things I was drawing and pictures I was creating for myself improved radically.

A 3 Minute MindMap On An iPad Notes! Not A Great Example But Return On Investment Is Good Enough For This!

Another 3 Minute MindMap - From iMindMap. ROI Is Good Enough IMHO. See Why I Need All The Help When Presenting My Ideas To Other Folks? :-)

Prior to this, I could never last minute cram for exams. Not that I recommend anyone to do so! But I have discovered that even in crisis of 2 full time jobs and studies on top ... mindmapping got me through and still gets me through a massive amount of work in a short space of time!

And in about 2009 I gave this

to a friend who was also studying part-time and it helped them pass their legal+finance course with its huge volume of content!

I bought these 2

to help my son in 2018. There is some overlap between the 2 books but it seemed like such a solid investment in his lifetime and it turns out he really likes mindmapping also!

My son is only 7!

7 Year Old First MindMap By Hand

My son loves working on computers ...so he HAS to use whatever I use (joys of being a rolemodel?), and so... he did this *quickly* as his first software mindmap.

His First Ever Software MindMap Version Without Much Assistance Or Training From Me. iMindMap Really IS Child's Play! This Took Him Under 10 Minutes

Many more happy mindmapping and learning days ahead! #happyparents #happykids

More Happy Days! When I bought the iMindMap Ultimate Plus edition of the tool, I also received a copy of Tony Buzan's business mapping book. Some food for thought in here also especially if you're new to business and/or management!



If you don't yet know who Tony Buzan is, it's worth checking out his  TedX Talk "The Power Of A Mind To Map" and bits from youtube for example YouTube video "Learn, how to learn" for some sense of where he is coming from.

Thankyou for reading!

My favourite coaching tools: SMART Acronym Another Update

What the heck!? The SMART acronym again?

SMART - 3rd Time Lucky?

I thought I had all this simple stuff figured out. By 2012 I was willing to post my original thoughts and approach to SMART Goals/Objectives in the original post: http://change-challenge.blogspot.com/2012/06/my-favourite-coaching-tools-smart.html. It had evolved from my own practice as a delivery team lead, management student, and, later on, my first 2 years of agile training classes, coaching individuals and teams, and supporting departments through successful transformations.

Through 2016-2017, after supporting more transformations and agile adoptions with much more variety I realised some useful nuances to this multi-purpose tool had emerged by working with it in so many different ways. So I put out my update - http://change-challenge.blogspot.com/2017/10/my-latest-smart-acronym-update.html and thought "that's done now!".

Silly me. When is learning ever done? And so it was again. Late in 2018 I was on a totally non-agile, non-software, non-management, non-"normal" experiential psychology course. As we approached the end of the course we were asked to come up with 1 (I really like 1, and only 1, "there can be only 1!") SMART objective to help us take the next 1-2-3 steps after the course ended.

Whilst I was considering my objective, something else clicked into place for me that I'd been overlooking. Well 2 things actually. :-)

1, The confidence-risk level could be assessed with the "A" for "How Achievable?".
2, The alignment to purpose/direction/bigger picture could be assessed with the "R" for "Really-make-a-difference-in-the-direction-we-are-going?".

The A

An achievableness on a scale of 1-5, from improbable to highly probable ... we get a sense of how much risk the individual, team or group is willing to tolerate/try move through. Often it's okay (great!) to "try" for an easy win with a 4-5 level of confidence. Sometimes it is better, for learning or even to save the company, to try for something harder to do (with a friend, coach or mentor especially to support!) in the 2-3 range. So many "it depends", so little time to elaborate experiences here! :)

The quantification of achievableness is important when considering the alignment of this objective/goal to the purpose of the individual, team or group. Sometimes we could do the easy thing which is highly certain, we are confident in our capability to achieve it, and it will have no,  negligible or insufficient impact on achieving our purpose.

Such highly certain successful outcomes could be a waste of the one thing we always run out of, that no money or anything else in this world can get more of: time.

Using the R to confirm that we're aligned with purpose is really useful. Yet being aligned with purpose could expose us to a context, circumstance, super-ego, mindset or organisation "change anti-bodies" - "historical baggage" often - that do not really make it easy for us to align our efforts to our purpose and pursue that wholeheartedly. And it's good to reflect on this before, during and after - there is so much growth possible by understanding this "stuff" deeply!

The R

Reality. Realisation. Becoming real. That which is real. Turning deep desires (especially one's purpose) described by abstract thoughts or ideas into abstract words and then into "real world". Something really shifted in me that day in 2018, and I don't know why or what the final effect will be. Essentially it was around my previous interpretation of "responsible person assigned".

I really believe something better can be done with the acronym here. I have seen "realistic" in many places in the past - as in "the goal/objective is achievable and realistic". Or "actionable and realistic".

SMART Objectives Aligned To Team or Individual Purpose Creates A Desirable Tension Around Potential Which Then Unleashes Huge "Action" Energy To Achieve The Change In The Real World

What shifted for me that moment was that it could be better used as "really aligned to purpose". This is imho much stronger / more energetic / more focussed. For any objective or goal. And if its a tough thing to change, we absolutely need to believe we're going through the tough bit to get to a better place, else we will give up. And that defeatedness because of giving up can be a really worse place to land up.

With Specificness (as per my 2017 SMART update), it's easy to include the responsible person there as an attribute/quality that makes the change even more Specific. Similarly with tight "Measured by" criterion set that matches that Specificness.

OKR's (Objective, Key-Results) try to approach this slightly differently. But there is overlap that I guess I will draw out in the future when my thoughts and experiences are clearer.

Einstein apparently said something along the lines of - given an hour to solve a problem he'd spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem [in detail, in depth, from multiple perspectives, etc] and 5 minutes attempting to solve it. That way you'd be more certain which part of the problem your solution addresses well or not as well, and what other potential things you could change or try with another attempt later if need be. The solution matches the problem. Often - because it is in our nature, society and expectations from others - we solutionise too quickly and what we come up with may be good, but misses the original problem. A great shot that misses the target...is just a great shot. Same time, same cost, same effort. Miss. Absolutely useless in the context that mattered before the shot was taken.

Thankyou! As always happy to hear your thoughts on the above! Be careful out there, AND don't be too serious - fun provides a lot of goodwill and positive energy to achieve goals!

My favourite coaching tools: Free online Kolb Learning Styles Assessment

Caveats:
As always when dealing with any kind of model that helps us communicate and understand the abstract world of our minds, our existence and relationships with each other, nicely summarised by George EP Box: "all models are wrong, some are useful".

This is a free assessment, and there are several others that you can freely download. I liked this one as it is a "1 stop shop" document that you print out, fill out, score quickly on the reporting sheet, and finally receive additional insights at the end. And anyone can complete this simply and quickly. 

Required:
Internet access
Printer and 8 pages
Quiet space
10-15 minutes

Step 1:
Give the link or 8 page print-out to the coachee: Kolb Questionnaire. Again I think the best time to do the assessment is in the morning, before work really starts.

Step 2:
When the assessment is complete, the coachee and you will have the coachee's 4 Kolb styles - Activist, Reflector, Theorist and Pragmatist allocated to very strong preference, strong preference, moderate preference, low preference or very low preference.

You now have material you can use to support the coaching goals and plans where learning is required. You also have the approach you need when explaining concepts to the coachee - a real time saver and much more enjoyable experience for you and the coachee as compared to approaching from the worst angle.

Personally, once I realised what my preferred/natural Kolb learning approach was, I realised how I could learn better and more quickly in the same amount of time.

The future no longer belongs to those who learn the fastest. The future now belongs to those who learn the right things the fastest. Kolb learning styles assessment is just another practical tool to help me and my coachees discover their best learning method, and give us some "Slack" to identify what are the right things. Really useful stuff!

My favourite coaching tools: The Mindset Works Online Mindset Assessment

Caveats:

A reminder that all my favourite coaching tools - free, online, or other - need to be applied with the sensible cautionary advice from statistician George EP Box: "all models are wrong but some are useful". Remember also that this is about "the other" and the other's perception - not you and not your perceptions! 

Some time after I posted http://change-challenge.blogspot.com/2017/03/my-favourite-coaching-tools-mindset.html a friend of mine put me onto this fantastic Ted talk by Eduardo Briceno during 2017. Since then I have only looked forward!

I highly recommend it to anyone and everyone to watch - more than once! How To Get Better At The Things You Care About packs a number of important truths and is well researched. 

Upon researching Eduardo Briceno a little more over the months after first watching this talk, I discovered his company Mindset Works, and their online mindset assessment tool: What's My Mindset? (amongst other good things like the courses they give, and their blog site).

And it's as easy and simple as that for this one - 8 questions later there is an easy to understand assessment and some advice to follow!

But why bother? Well...those with open and growth mindsets appear to be living happier and more fulfilling lives, and accomplishing more at work. It seems that's quite important given the speed of the changes we're experiencing, as well as the quantity of changes. Both appear to still be rising exponentially.
For extra insights into how mindsets work, and how to work with them, of all the books I have read so far, this one has 2 excellent chapters on the subject, as well as several other excellent chapters!

The Creative Manager (we could all do with one, work with one, or be one!)

My favourite coaching tools: SMART Acronym Update

So I've been using SMART/S.M.A.R.T. for quite a while (http://change-challenge.blogspot.com/2012/06/my-favourite-coaching-tools-smart.html) to help everyone understand the specific Task / Action / Goal / Objective clearly, so that success can be pursued by several people committed to achieving it together!

SMART Acronym Updated!

And along the way, I've come across Tom Gilb, and his 4 foundation rules for improving Specification Quality:

1. Every word, phrase, sentence and paragraph is clear to intended readers (RB: and lowest common denominator MUST be considered here: the newly joined member of the team)
2. Every word, phrase, sentence and paragraph is unambiguous (RB: so a glossary is a darn good idea, especially in abstract knowledge work, aka software delivery; note glossaries / data definitions / configuration libraries were a big thing in software since the 1960's at least)
3. All qualities are quantified (RB: so not faster/cheaper/better/blah...instead: Unit of Measure clearly defined, the meter clearly defined, the current state or measurement clearly noted, and then the future state survival and/or target and/or stretch and/or wish thresholds are expressed)
4. No solution language unless the document is specifying the solution (RB: keep the language in the problem domain/space ie common business layman's terminology)

And through Tom's teaching, Lord Kelvin's "To Measure Is To Know".

Thinking about all the lessons learned, and helping many individuals and teams move towards their desired future states, I've been modifying the SMART I use to mean the following these days:

    S - Specific (following Tom Gilb's #1 and #2 rules)

    M - Measured By (following Tom Gilb's #3 rule)

    A - Achievable (as a sanity check of the S&M against the R and T coming soon)

    R - Responsible person to agitate that this SMART is delivered is <...> (a single person is a must, if only to remind those who have to do the work, or even better, the person who is going to get the Task / Action / Story / Work Done!)

    T - Timebound on or before  

For Retrospectives

If this is a SMART Action that a team is generating from their Sprint or other Retrospective, as facilitator I encourage the Timebound to be on or before the next Retrospective (which the team commits to knowing and understanding what dd-mmm-yyyy that is!)

For Management Tactical or Strategic Objectives

Again the management team commits to the next planning date dd-mmm-yyyy for the Timebound element and we block out the calendars to ensure that happens! Nothing drains morale and energy than constant slipping of important - especially Strategically agreed important - Tasks/Actions/Objectives.

For Individuals or Delivery/Product Teams I'm Coaching

Exactly the same as Retrospectives or Management: we're all talking about changing the Current Reality to the Future Reality. Usually though, individuals are setting target states for the end of the current or next month - ie shorter windows in which to achieve shifts of consciousness and/or behaviours that impact or lead to the outcome they're trying to achieve.

Thankyou for supporting! Let me know how you do!

My favourite coaching tools: Mindset Evaluation

For sure I was aware of, and thought I understood the meaning of the term "mindset" for a long time. It's only when I went a bit deeper, and upon a great reflective mediation, that I documented all (that I knew of in that moment) of mine. And there were quite a few...over 30.

Then, the hard, but most rewarding work really began.

Evaluating each of them on their merits and on their consequences...which is the first step towards freeing oneself from mindsets that no longer serve the intended positive outcome, but instead have become restrictive to the life that could be led.

As our facilitator told us, before proceeding with the mindset evaluation, look with kind eyes, and be gentle with your self and your mindset. It began its existence to serve a purpose - to protect you and guide you to the future. And it has done its job really well - hence you are alive today, and, if you are reading this and looking at your own mindsets, then it has somehow also guided you to this point where you are given permission to free yourself from this restraining pattern of being.

The 9 simple questions I use to use to evaluate a mindset:

1. How strong (on a scale of 1 to 10) is this mindset?
2. How long have I (or the coachee) had the mindset?
3. What behaviour does the mindset drive?
4. What feelings are behind the mindset?
5. How has this mindset served me (or the coachee) in the past?
6. How has this mindset limited me (or the coachee) in the past?
7. How does this mindset serve me (or the coachee) now?
8. How does this mindset limit me (or the coachee) now?
9. How would I (or the coachee) like it to be?

These question seem simple and innocent enough, but "Oh wow!" do they open up some serious thought and feeling provocations...and these of course lead to deeper realisations.

Interestingly I found some mindsets were much fresher due to a significant later life event, than most of mine which stemmed from childhood and teenage years, and in the fresher ones, I found limits, but I was happy with them as they appear to be healthy boundaries.

Also significantly I found this work incredibly exhausting - mentally and emotionally I was drained after evaluating sometimes just 1, but often no more than 3 in 1 sitting. Simple and innocent questions - I am just amazed what the right framed question does at the right time and place!

Also interestingly, several of my answers to number 7 were - "it does not!", and several answers to number 9 also converged on a similar pattern. I believe these patterns in number 9 were more indicative of my true self trying to be authentic - and hence I am doing this work, so there is quite a bit of synchronicity I believe in this exercise, if it is performed as intended: open heart, open mind, quietly and extensively.

Thank you for reading and your support!

My favourite coaching tools: No Time To Improve Agile Retrospective Cartoon

This is a short and sweet one that always brings a little smile to my lips (and some or many team members) when I bring it up in front of the "we're too busy with important stuff" teams during agile retrospectives, or preceding an agile retrospective due to too much resistance because "we are too busy"!

From http://i2.wp.com/ecbiz168.inmotionhosting.com/~perfor21/performancemanagementcompanyblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/tobusytoimprove.jpg

It seems no one is currently sure where the original is, or who created it. For more modern updates there have been plenty, just search Google!

No Time To Improve / Retrospect As We're Too Busy!

Once we all get past the uncomfortable "Gulp" moment after this cartoon is presented, the team discusses what things are keeping the team members too busy to think about or to reflect or to introduce improvements to the way(s) they are working.

I might even throw in the original Albert Einstein quote:

“If I had an hour to solve a problem I'd spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.”

And/or I might put this one in front of the team to reflect upon:

"Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe."
- Abraham Lincoln

No Time To Improve Because Strategies Are In Conflict (Usually, Deliver! Deliver! Deliver! Unintentionally Making That Axe Blunt, Blunter and Bluntest Of All!!)

If there are still some people needing deeper understanding of the situation they are in, I would introduce them to, and request them to, complete the Covey Time Management Usage Matrix (also known as self-study lightweight time and motion study). After this step is complete, especially including the lunch breaks, random web surfing, tea breaks, urgent phone calls and all the other really important things everyone does with intention or with serendipity at work as normal Business-as-Usual, then people are open to the message, and a humble inquiry!

Respect The People You Are Trying To Help - It Is Their Life!

Always respect the people you are introducing this too, and respect it is THEIR context and THEIR experience that matters, not yours, as external coach / observer / non-invested in the focussed business outcome! And remember why you are introducing this to them - something they are doing must be wasting energy in YOUR ?humble? opinion - not in theirs! Be careful and go very gently and respectfully!

Thankyou for reading! :-)

My favourite coaching tools: The CIA Of Any Situation

Control Influence Accept was taught to me a few years back by one of the team leaders I was coaching in agile mindset and approach to team and delivery. I am not sure where it originated as a consequence and searches on Google have been non-satisfactory.

CIA For Control Influence Accept Any Situation

Essentially, as the C-I-A was explained to me, every situation that one finds oneself in (as I explain to coachees), one asks upto 3 questions in the order Control - Influence - Accept (CIA):

Question 1: Can I Control this situation?

If yes, then Control it (by using your management position or leadership)!
If no, then ask the next question,

Question 2: Can I Influence this situation?

If yes, then Influence it (by working with your network, expanding your network, orchestrating and asking your network for assistance in changing the situation)
If no, then ask the next question,

Question 3: Can I Accept this situation?

If yes, then Accept it (by opening your heart and open your mind and embracing it, so that your new personal reality becomes your new personality)
If no, then you have only 1 healthy choice - to leave the situation.

Failure to Accept the situation, and not leave this situation will cause you stress and all the negative consequences that stress brings. It will lead to negative behaviours and cynical comments leaking out, causing you to be mis-labelled further deepening the pygmalion effect and negative vicious reinforcement cycles. (see my post on labels being applied to people and more importantly how you can help the team "fix" the problem)

So you can use the CIA for personal coaching, and you can use it for team coaching quite effectively as well. I typically use it for helping teams understand if the potentially SMART-ifiable productivity improvement and/or happiness improvement actions they have proposed within the team's periodic Retrospectives are actually Achievable.

I did see several parallels in Stephen R Covey's excellent The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People where he discussed the 3 spheres that we live and work within as concentric circles. The Control Sphere is the smallest space, followed by the Influence Sphere, followed by the Accept Sphere. Basically we need to realise how little in life we do control, versus how much we think we control. An example he uses is the common illusion of control when driving in our carefully selected vehicle...and getting stuck in a traffic jam. We think because we can control our music selection, volume, air temperature and fan speed, we have control, but actually we have to accept that the dynamic system of the traffic on the roads is in control, we have very very little in reality.

I am planning on adding another 2 posts to extend the conversation and observations I've had about this CIA over the past 5+ years, so keep an eye out for the followups!

Thankyou for reading! I bumped into a previous team member after 6 years, and he is still using this fantastic tool with his own teams ever since!

My favourite coaching tools: Zimbardo's Free Personal Time Perspective Assessment

Caveats:
A reminder that all my favourite coaching tools - free, online, or other - need to be applied with the sensible cautionary advice from statistician George EP Box: "all models are wrong but some are useful". Remember also that this is about "them" and their perception - not you! I make sure to tell individual coachees, teams and team leaders these things before giving them homework or some brief presentation on Zimbardo's Time Perspective theory.

I was fortunate in 2014 to attend a Professor Philip Zimbardo talk where he introduced (me) to several topics including the The Time Paradox: Using the New Psychology of Time to Your Advantage (UK) (or US). With the Time Paradox, Zimbardo's research and theory focuses on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) sufferers and how the new theory of time helps them "catch up" with their new current reality. Another great book about PTSD and help for sufferers is from Peter Levine - Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma - The Innate Capacity to Transform Overwhelming Experiences (UK) (or US) - which explains somatic experiencing and was my first introduction to the 3 instincts humans face when stressed - the familiar "fight", "flight" AND the 3rd one "freeze". The research in this space is amazing and continuously evolving to help us understand us and to help those who suffer.

I recommend both books to anyone in any situation - not least because sooner or later you will experience 1 or more of the top 10 stressful events in life and having any knowledge to help you deal with them is invaluable. And also because modern life is so full these days of multiple minor stressors and we've learned that all the minors add up substantially even without a top 10 stressor.

And upon receiving some feedback on this tool, I believe both books are mandatory reading for any coach deploying this free test.

Prof Zimbardo is a wonderful speaker - if you get the opportunity to watch/listen/learn - take it! Stories from his (in)famous 1971 Stanford Prison Study (anyone who studies psychology or those who want to try understand how war atrocities are committed by normal people reads about the Stanford Prison Experiment) and his own early childhood facing near certain death in a hospital ward surrounded by other dying children (amongst other very memorable anecdotes) are incredible.

Here's a much condensed Ted version of his new theory of time talk.

I believe the theory can be applied to anyone no matter what their current psychological disposition is. I mean - who wants to live a half-step behind, or a half-step ahead of current reality? Who wants to be sure they are actually "living in the moment"? I reckon everyone, upon reflection, sees the benefit of being present, preferably present in the moment.

In my coaching practice - I meet a lot of people who want to know. They have deep questions about some past event or current lifestyle "choices" they seem to fall into habitually. They want to know if they are practicing enough mindfulness meditation. They want to know if they are truly self-aware. How does anyone but the Buddha know? Anyway, my clients - like most people - want to know if they're okay! (yes they are, and not because I suggested that they completed an online test!)

Step 1:
Go to http://www.thetimeparadox.com/surveys/ - print the graph manually and keep for later. Or better still, you can save it on computer, my Macbook has a great and good-enough editing tool in the form of Preview!)

Step 2:
Do both free online tests!

• Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory - 61 questions - takes 10-30 minutes
• Transcendental-future Time Perspective Inventory - 15 questions - takes 5-10 minutes

Step 3:
Manually plot the assessments on the survey graph paper or pdf

Step 4:
Discuss the gap between the "Ideal Time Perspective" and the coachee's results.
This is critical to get right - it is the coachee's understanding and interpretation of the gap that matters, and it is the coach's role to suggest options to improve ONLY if required.

With more self-awareness of their time perspective, the coachee opens up possibilities to understand more about their historical events that affect their perspective on their workplace as well as how their vision of the future pulls them to a good place or not based on their behaviours. From there it is possible to figure out the steps to take to change as required.

For the coachee, this view can be used as input to their coaching plan, to set some goals to acquire new skills and new behaviours (eg too much Present Hedonism might be an indicator of too much "good time, live for the moment" attitude and not enough time invested in the future thinking or planning and from there creating).

Step 5:
Several people find watching The River of Time video - inspired by the time theory - calming, reassuring and helps them to slow down enough to catchup with current reality.

I recommend also to complete Johnson's free online personality test as well as the free online Belbin test.

Additional Resources:

• Philip Zimbardo - The Secret Powers of Time is a 44 minute youtube video that has about half of the content I originally learned during the talk I attended.
• RSA Animate: The Secret Powers of Time is a 10 min youtube video that has less content again, is focused on the theory, and the infographic drawn real-time is wonderful!

My favourite coaching tools: Free International Personality Assessment from John A Johnson

Caveats
The elusive quest to find out who we are on the inside. There's no single answer. Or even a set of reliable answers that create a complete picture - not least because we are too complex, but also because we shift around all the time based on our context which also shifts around all the time.

But there are certain behaviours which do get more embedded and fire more repetitively that any others - personality - a great word! A personal reality :)

As usual with any assessment where you are choosing more of one thing and less of another thing, your free personality assessment will shift around (a little) based on your current and immediate context. So a good time to do it is at the beginning of a day, before anything begins to sway your free thinking and feeling.

Required:
Internet access
Quiet space
15-40 minutes

Step 1:
Give this link to the coachee: International Personality Assessment and ask them to do the full assessment in the morning before work really starts....or on the weekend, in the morning, before weekend chores or resting activities take over!

Step 2:
When the assessment is complete, you will have an assessment of the coachee across 5 broad domains and 6 sub-domains in each (again, statistician George EP Box's "all models are wrong, some are useful" applies!). A scoring of Low, Average or High does not mean a guarantee / permanent status of the domain's assessment. I like to think more of trying to evaluate the overall picture and then to evaluate specific incidents within that context.

You will have a free computer generated profile report - and you will need to manually either highlight all the text and paste into a document editor, or print to PDF!

You now have material again to either focus coaching goals and plans on making more use of the personality insights - all up to the coachee and your understanding of the person's needs.

This assessment is really great for all team members to complete and share their results with each other. The quick insights about each other helps the team figure out how better to work to each other's own interests and strengths - in some ways similar to Belbin's team roles and the Work imperatives but this is a lot more indepth personal and less on how to work well with others in the current work context.

My favourite coaching tools: Free work personality assessment

Caveats:
This free strength finders test is really insightful. Everyone I know has gained great benefit from understanding their strengths better! Some folks seek to find the answers of who they are, why they are, and what work are they supposed to be doing. They're seeking confirmation of their talents. Some believe we should be using our talents to achieve our destiny. Others believe we should be developing new skills until they become talents that we were not born with - and that these new talents are the path to our destiny.

If you feel good about what you are doing and you feel good about how you are doing it, then you feel good! When the Who, What and How are all aligned and in the right balance, you have a greater chance of getting into flow.

Success encourages success. Flow is particularly important for changing your life as these new higher level experiences actually change the brain.

As usual with any assessment where you are choosing more of one thing and less of another thing, your free work personality will shift around (a little) based on your current and immediate context. So a good time to do it is at the beginning of a day, before anything begins to sway your free thinking and feeling.

Required:
Internet access
Quiet space
10-15 minutes
An email account you don't mind using for the assessment

Step 1:
Give this link to the coachee: Imperative - bring meaning and fulfillment to work and ask them to do the assessment in the morning before work really starts.

Step 2:
When the assessment is complete, you will have the Who, How and Why the coachee works in the organisation, as well as some insights connected to the archetype/persona that has been matched (again, statistician George EP Box's "all models are wrong, some are useful" applies!). And a couple of hints about all the other imperative archetypes/personas that could have resulted if you had answered a couple of questions a little differently - because you will have an indicator of how many other respondents have been similarly labelled!

And you will have a free online profile you can share with others - friends, family and colleagues! It's very well presented and highly interactive!

You now have found your strengths and have the data to either focus coaching goals and plans on making more use of the work personality insights - all up to the coachee and your understanding of the person's needs. Their strengths and a clue about their weaknesses. Plenty to work with!

This assessment is really great for all team members to complete and share their results with each other. The quick insights about each other helps the team figure out how better to work to each other's own interests and strengths - in some ways also similar to Belbin's team roles.

Thankyou for reading. Let me know how it goes!

My favourite coaching tools: Labels and Believing Is Seeing!

Caveats:
This is a group exercise and great for team building. At certain times during the session some people's emotions might rise due to frustration at being misunderstood.

As coach you MUST manage the level of frustration (a little is good, too much is bad) in order to allow the group to fully experience and gain from the steps below. Most participants however are quick to see the simulation for what it is and self-control themselves accordingly. If you feel unsure, practice with a smaller group of friends, for instance, who can safely give you feedback throughout to ensure you are able to facilitate it correctly to the intended benefits.

Always remain on the safe side - for your sake and for your participants' also!

Required:
- Enough labels to get people into groups of 6 - preferably the labels are on little hats so that the people who are labelled do not know their own label (sometimes I use post-its stuck to foreheads but this does not work in warm sweaty conditions, sometimes paper tape/medical tape but have the same problem with sweaty foreheads, sometimes name badges tied on short strings under people's chins).

- Labels should be written (or use symbols) big enough so that other people can read them from 2-3 feet away.

- Labels suggested in Quick Team-Building Activities for Busy Managers: 50 Exercises That Get Results in Just 15 Minutes by Brian Cole Miller include "laugh at me", "disagree with me", "leader", "brown noser", and many more - *BUY THE BOOK*. I've also used Belbin's team roles for labels, as well as Belbin team role opposites (see Coaching with Belbin for details). Sometimes I just make them up based on the group and behaviours I have observed.
- Printouts for half the group of Stephen R Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (*BUY THE BOOK AND READ FOR FULL DETAILS*) Young Lady:

- Printouts for half the group of Stephen R Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (*BUY THE BOOK*) Old Lady:

- A digital projector and computer in order to show the group Stephen R Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (*BUY THE BOOK*) Both Ladies picture:

- 15 minutes for the first "Label Game" session

- 15 minutes for the second "Believing is Seeing" session

- 15-30 minutes for open group discussion to ensure lesson properly understood and people back to normal

Step 1:

Explain the basics of the "Label Game" to the participants:

- Everyone will receive a "secret" (from them) label that they should not see before the end of the exercise

- No one should tell someone else what their label is

- The groups will be given 7 minutes to plan something (department party, a new fun game, who to choose to evacuate a doomed earth, survive for 24 hours in a desert/artic, etc)

- As the group discusses, the participants must proact/react to the label of the person

- By the end of 7 minutes, people will be asked what they think their label is, before being allowed to look

Step 2:

Break the group into sub-groups of 6, distribute and place the labels on each member so that they are unable to see their own label.

Step 3:

Start the timer! Remind the participants about good timebox strategies to ensure they succeed with their discussion. Help with time keeping.

Step 4:

Time up! Let the groups discuss amongst themselves and get an indication of how many people realised within 7 minutes of simple discussion, what label they were wearing! Usually >75% correctly guess or infer their label based on how others were interacting with them.

Step 5:

Open the discussion up to the whole group. Good questions like "How did it feel to be treating people according to their label?", "How did it feel to be treated according to a label that was not visible to you?", "What about the labels we're treating each other with continuously in the day to day work?", "What are the dangers of labels?", "What are the pros of having labels?", "How do our labels affect us?", "Labels versus Job Title?" and see what thoughts and feelings are provoked by the group.

Be strict with your own time management as there is still the second session to run!

Step 6:

Get people to become 1 group again, this time split them down the middle.

Step 7:

Without making it obvious that there are 2 different pictures being given out, distribute the "Young Lady" above facedown to half the group, and distribute the "Old Lady" above facedown to the other half of the group.

Ask the participants to turn over the picture and stare at it for 30 seconds, and then to put it away. Help them with timekeeping and ensuring they're focussing on their own picture only.

Step 8:

With the pictures away, turn on the projector and show the group the "Both Ladies" picture.

Step 9:

Ask the participants to stick their hands up if they recognise the picture. Now ask 1 "random" person from the "Old Lady" group what they see. Then ask 1 "random" person from the "Young Lady" group what they see.

Step 10:

Now ask the whole group to raise their hands those who see an Old Lady? And then ask those to raise their hands who sees a Young Lady? Act confused and ask how is it possible - surely they're looking at exactly the same, unmoving picture on the screen - how could it be that people are seeing different things? And then ask who sees both an Old Lady and a Young Lady?

The groups are usually quite fun and energised by this time so allow them to discuss and try to resolve the different perceptions they have. People will come up to the screen and start tracing out the different curves, arguing, getting frustrated, getting amused and slowly all or most of the group will eventually see both pictures. (as an aside, what does it mean if someone is unable, even after a lot of help, to see both ladies?)

Step 11:

Now explain it the way Stephen R Covey does: "It's not logical, it is psychological!"..."the way we see the problem IS the problem!" 

Step 12:

And now ask similar questions of the Label Game session. Ask how this kind of knowledge, this insight might have changed how they approached problems in the past, and how they will approach problems in the future? Are the problems restricted to work problems, or are "people problems" also now more approachable? And so on.

Before running this session, I strongly recommend buying both books linked above and reading them properly for more many more details than I've summarised here. 

I find the 2 exercises even more beneficial for individuals I am coaching who attend, especially if they have already covered Belbin's Team Role Inventory Theory, Myers Briggs Type Indicator and Preferred Auditory, Visual or Kinaesthetic Communication Styles. For additional benefit, these sessions, run before coachees attempt their first feedback gathering from peers, also help to give people more self confidence in the collection, in the giving, and in the understanding of the content+emotion they receive from other people. We are all human, even if often it appears we are, or they, are not! ;-)

My favourite coaching tools: Motivational direction discovery and visualisation to achieve

Caveats:
Some people reject/debunk NLP (Neural Linguistic Programming) in its entirety. I find some of it useful to know and to teach to others. I do this by skipping the whole NLP thing and just honing in on the particular tools where relevant - for example below.

Required:
A bit of time to chat through various situations

Step 1:
According to NLP: the New Technology of Achievement humans are motivated in 2 ways:
- TOWARD what we want
- AWAY from what we don't want

For instance:
- Going to pat the friendly happy dog
- Keeping distance/getting away from the angry aggressive dog growling and barking madly

Another way to think about these motivational directions:
- Toward oriented people are goal-directed (outcome focussed)
- Away oriented people are more interested in identifying and solving problems (journey focussed)

Step 2:
Of course, as is clear in the example, humans use both motivation directions depending on a variety of factors - eg environmental, experience, etc.

However, we also, due to the wiring of our brains according to the NLP model, tend to specialise in 1 direction of motivation more than the other, and hence use it in situations where really the other motivation direction is better. And this is where I find many people in coaching situations trying to make changes happen for themselves or for their teams, but just not succeeding.

Step 3:
Armed with the knowledge of motivation direction, we take a look at the goals and rethink what motivation direction is more in play. We do the usual things of listing the pros and cons of making the change...but it is still not enough.

Step 4:
Making use of another tool from NLP, I ask the coachee to describe the image of achieving each of the goals.

Goals that are not so important to the coachee, or are "away from" motivationally oriented are usually described in 2 dimensions, little or no movement, little or no colour, with some distance between the goal description and the coachee describing it - the coachee is an observer.

Goals that are important to the coachee, or are "towards" motivationally oriented are usually described in great deal more richly: 3 dimensions, sound, colour, movement, passion, excitement - it is clear the coachee is engaged in achieving the change. The coachee is part of the scenario.

Step 5:
Now that the list of goals, and the motivational orientation of each has been analysed, there is 1 more tool that NLP provides that helps people perform a change they do not really want to: The New Behaviour Generator.

New Behaviour Step 1: Preparation
Ask the coachee to focus on themselves, to settle in, find quietness and relax. Ask them to imagine another "them" who they are observing.

New Behaviour Step 2: Choose the goal / task required to fulfil the goal
Ask the coachee to select the task which is currently blocking the fulfilment of the goal.

New Behaviour Step 3: Imagine the benefits
Ask the coachee to imagine their imaginary clone reaping the rewards of performing the task.

New Behaviour Step 4: Imagine the clone performing the task, completing the task, and achieving the benefits

Ask the coachee to imagine their imaginary clone performing the task - going through the troubles, the problems, the challenges, and overcoming each one, all the while becoming more confident and beginning to enjoy the benefits of fulfilling the task / goal. And finally when the goal is achieved, observing how the imaginary clone is enjoying all the benefits and sense of satisfaction that is evident.


New Behaviour Step 5: Integration
Ask the coachee to imagine that the imaginary clone now merges with themself in the observer position. Some people hug to initiate the merging. Some people feel a surge of energy or tingling when this integration occurs.

New Behaviour Step 6: Planning
Now ask the coachee when they will perform the task for real, and followup!

Step 6:
Repeat for each of "away from" goals. I prefer to do this exercise only once per session as the amount of energy required from the coachee can in some instances be great.

These NLP tools do sometimes take a bit of practice to master. The key is "baby steps" and checkpoints full of feedback along the way. The key metric is the quantity and the richness of the description of the description the coachee provides. As coach you can suggest adding music to the scenario if it is missing, to enhance the colours or the movement etc etc to really help manifest the future desirable state. Some of my coachees have also benefited themselves by reading Rhonda Byrne's The Secret .

My favourite coaching tools: Retrospective timeline cartoon

Caveats:

None. Getting a group to draw together, to make and convey meaning in story format by using the retrospective timeline cartoon pictures is an incredibly powerful team building activity. The retrospective timeline often raises team awareness, very gently, with humour, of something some of the team members are experiencing - eg providing feedback about a particular behaviour of one of the team members.

Required:

Large paper and markers.

20-30 minutes to draw

10 minutes to present and explain

Optional:

For distributed team members, the easiest is a way to scan/photograph cartoon contributions and email/upload to a shared space.

Step 1:

Simply give the materials and the instruction to the group. Part of this experience is to allow the group to figure it out for themselves - ie, less is more. A typical instruction is simply:

"Spend the next 20 minutes drawing a cartoon of a couple of frames that capture the key things that occurred during this past sprint/iteration/month/week/year/day"

As facilitator, you can suggest strategies for dealing with the 20/25/30 minute timebox (breadth first, depth second, breaking the timebox into smaller timeboxes, breaking the team into sub-teams after consensus is reached in the initial timebox, good-enough-is-good-enough, etc) 

Step 2:

Sometimes someone will attempt to dominate the effort - as facilitator try to ensure everyone is equally being heard and equally participating in the effort to decide what things to include, and how to depict them. Monitor the work effort and help the group meet the final outcome: a cartoon strip that tells a consistent story!

Step 3:

Something like the below will emerge when all goes well:

Retrospective Timeline Cartoon Drawing Exercise

As agile coach I've seen and heard about many funny cartoons, and seen or heard of fantastic individual or team insights conveyed by using them!

One of my  favourites that I heard about had a character showing up in 2-3 of the frames and asking "What's going on?".

When the Scrum team was asked who this character was, it turned out it was the technical team leader who was also committed to 3 other projects and not really available to the team, and thus was actually detrimental to progress as the team had to keep bringing this "leader" up to speed and could not become truly empowered and self-organising.

Not really Scrum then! And this is a great awakening to help teams go through - many think they are agile or Scrum, but when they understand those 2 terms, and when they understand deeply the evidence in support of or opposition to, this can be quite shocking for some team members, whilst being the "I told you so!" moment for some other team members. You  have to be ready to coach for this situation and help each individual and hence the whole team successfully negotiate this awakening phase.

I suggest helping everyone with calm and focus in the current moment, and hope for the future to envision a future they all want to become the new current reality!

Thankyou for reading! I hope I convinced you to try with your team! It's really good stuff!

My favourite coaching tools: Visual Individual - Squiggle Completion

Caveats:
None. You can do this for group work as well, and I have used it quite successfully for Agile Retrospectives.

Required:
5 minutes to draw
5-10 minutes to explain (per coachee/group member)
Paper
Pens/pencils/colours or not
Quiet space

Step 1:

Take the paper and draw a quick random squiggle on it. In a group everyone can draw a squiggle on a piece of paper.

Eg:

Step 2:
Pass the paper to the coachee, or in a group ask the members to pass to the left/right. Ask the recipient to look silently at the squiggle. Depending on the context, you can choose to ask a question for instance "How has this past week/month/year been for you?" or "How would you like the future to look?" or "What does success look like?"

Step 3:
Ask the coachee or group members to now complete the squiggle they have received as appropriately as possible to reflect their context or their answer to the question raised. Timebox this to 5 minutes - the results are more useful if cognitive thinking has been reduced and instead subconscious knowledge is accessed.

Eg

Step 4:
Now ask the coachee to explain their picture to you and/or the group. The insights from this exercise are extremely varied. Remember to make no judgements, nor allow any in the group to make judgements. Visualising knowledge is extremely subjective and it's up to the drawer to interpret along with guided questions eg: "What does that represent for you?", "That seems far away from this?", "Did you choose red on purpose?", "Who is that big figure?", "The waves seem to grow?" etc

The data gained from this coaching tool is useful for individual coaching plans - sometimes there is the discovery of a motivational factor or an anti-motivational factor. And the insights for a group who use this have a team building effect - especially when people take their masterpieces back to their office spaces with them and leave them on display. Especially if, over time, you use the tool a few more times for different or the same question.

Thankyou for reading! Let me know how your practice goes!