Mindfulness

I am not sure I fully understand what mindfulness is and am curious to know more about it. My mind seems to be full most of the time! BBC Radio 4 programme Woman’s Hour talked a little about it last week and my parents always stressed that I should be mindful of others.  Google presents many ideas and tips for mindfulness, many of which involve sitting meditation. However, in the last two weeks, the horses – and one in particular - has highlighted what mindfulness means for me.

He arrived as a frightened rather anxious two-year-old with a well-reinforced instinctive fight or flight response to everything. With every move I made and he either pawed the ground, reared up or fled if he could. My usual 20-minute morning routine of mucking out and feeding went out of the window. I needed to connect with this chap quickly, reassure that him he was safe and there was no need to be anxious. Our natural instinct is to talk, but of course words are useless for an animal with no verbal language.

I leant over the stable door and watched him; in my mind I asked him what he needed. I noticed his breathing deepen and slow and his head lower, and I concentrated on noticing every little muscle movement. I matched his slow breathing and low head and thought only of what might increase his relaxation. In a very short space of time (I discovered later), the horse in front of me became much quieter, with a softer eye, and to my mind very relaxed. I felt relaxed as well and at the same time renewed. I left the stable and resumed my usual morning rush around, getting home chores done before the school bus run and work.

Over the next few days I did this every morning and night, and even during the day if I was at home. Each time I went into the stable with this young horse, I left my usual rush outside the door and only focussed on making contact with him. By day three he was happy having two years of knots brushed out of his mane and tail and his feet cleaned. I found I was looking forward to stepping into his world and enjoying the moments with him. Strangely, the time I was spending on the routine was getting less each visit and yet we seemed to be having much more connection and communication in those moments.

After a week we were walking out and about and he was grazing the roadside as if he had never had a moment’s anxiety in his life. After two weeks his confidence was so restored he was able to go out in the field with an entirely new group of horses and became part of their herd in minutes.

Reflecting on what I have learnt from the experience: it was the point at which I stopped thinking about all the things I needed to do AFTER seeing to the colt, focussed solely on him and was mindful of our time together, that our connection grew, and he allowed me to groom, clean and lead him. Once my concentration was focussed in the moment on him I was able to get all the routines completed in a very short time. Horses are really great at getting us to be mindful. I believe we all can waste so much energy each day thinking about the next job rather than concentrating on now.

Even if you don’t have a horse to help you, you can practise being mindful – for instance, while you’re washing up. Instead of standing at the sink and thinking about tomorrow or yesterday or whatever, just concentrate on washing up! Think about the feel of the water and the temperature and the shape and texture of what you are washing and notice every small detail about it. It is very grounding and I believe that is my kind of mindfulness!

This Mum is mindful of her newborn as the foal is mindful of her Mum!

Don’t let your projects go Hay-wire!

A week on Thursday (22 May) sees the start of the world-famous Hay Festival of Literature and Arts (www.hayfestival.com) which is down the road from me. From its inception in 1987 when it was just an idea discussed around a kitchen table, it grew from a thousand visitors to now an expected quarter of a million visitors…all to a town with a population of 1,500!

Over the 10 days of the festival, there are a staggering 230+ events, talks and shows. On top of organising all of these, there are over 60 sponsors and partnering companies to deal with, as well as numerous suppliers and providers of various facilities, catering and other services. To get an idea of the scale of this, the event programme is a mere 112 pages long – enough to be a book itself.

What started as handful of friends “wanting something to do of an evening” getting together to organise the first event is now a major project management achievement. And with its continual success, the Hay Festival leadership team can sure show the business world a thing or two about how to manage projects.

I came across this fascinating research conducted by the Standish Group in 2001. They analysed over 500 projects and found out that:

• Only 16% of all projects are fully successful; 84% of all projects fail in some way
• 53% were late or over-budget
• 31% were cancelled prior to completion
• Only 61% of promised features and functions are typically delivered
• The average project goes over budget by 189%, some exceed 400%
• On average, a project lasts 222% longer than it was planned to last.

When Standish analysed the reasons for poor performance, they came up with this top 10 list of why these projects failed:

• Lack of User Involvement
• Incomplete Requirements
• Unrealistic Expectations
• Changing Requirements and Specifications
• Lack of, or poor planning
• Lack of Executive Support
• Lack of Resources
• Unclear Objectives
• Unrealistic Timeframes
• New Technology Problems

One of my colleagues has conducted numerous ‘Lessons Learnt Reviews’ for the last 15 years for several Fortune 100 and FTSE 100 companies. He defines a lesson learnt as “an action that should or should not be performed the next time a similar project is run.” To capture these lessons in a facilitated team meeting conducted at the end of a project, he asks, “What could have gone better?” The most frequent responses over the years (in no particular order) were related to:

• Poor planning
• Unclear objectives
• Deficient capture of the customer’s requirements
• Poor and infrequent communications
• Little or no risk analysis
• Infrequent/non-existent team meetings
• Discontinuity of team members
• Non-compliance with procedures

When the project team members were asked, “In one word only, what could have been improved to make the project more perfect?” Have a guess what the most common response was…. yes, ‘communication’.

Starting to see a pattern here?

No matter whether your project is a major international collaborative programme, the world’s biggest book festival or a home DIY project – failure is almost guaranteed if communication is poor. (By the way, if you don’t believe me on the last example, try painting on the wrong shade of white and see how your other half reacts!)

Good communication doesn’t necessarily mean a nicely worded email or a colourful corporate newsletter. As I’m sure you’ve heard so many times, real communication has little to do with the words themselves.

Want to know how to improve how communication skills in your business? Well, just ask the ‘experts in their field’….no, that’s not necessarily me! I’m talking about horses - who are intuitively excellent at picking up non-verbal communications and sub-conscious meaning. www.executivehorsepower.co.uk/why-it-works.html

Give me a call on 01497 820520 to find out how we can help you and your business ensure your projects don’t go haywire.

What is Leadership?

A friend asked me the other day for my thoughts on leadership. Quite a broad question, and it has taken me a few days to put my thoughts into words! Firstly, I hadn’t ever considered what leadership means to me or been asked to give my view. So, here are some thoughts.

In just a couple of weeks, many people from around the world will be gathering nearby at the Hay Festival www.hayfestival.com. Nearly half a million people visit the festival to see and listen to those appearing, many of whom are leaders in their field. They range from authors, business leaders, politicians, lawyers, journalists and leaders of faiths. What links them all and why do we recognise them as leaders?

Richard Branson was recently quoted as saying that great leaders, “are great listeners who know their best asset is the people they work with”. I believe that what also sets them apart is their self belief, confidence and - the most important - being true to their own values. No matter how much belief and confidence we have in ourselves, if we are not true to our values, we cannot achieve our greatest potential, nor expect to help others achieve theirs.

Noted ethicist and educator Dr Robert Rue noted that: “Values are the essence of who we are as human beings. Our values get us out of bed every morning, help us select the work we do, the company we keep, the relationships we build, and ultimately, the groups and organizations that we lead. Our values influence every decision and move we make, even to the point of how we choose to make our decisions.”

The best leaders in the world appear to be those who adhere to a strong set of their own beliefs and values. These leaders encourage others around them to do the same, and base their decisions on those values. Someone who based his life on those principles is our son’s idol Nelson Mandela, who said, “What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead.”

A company or individual whose values match our own is more likely to win our trust and therefore our business or our co-operation. A successful company will seek to employ leaders whose personal values echo its corporate values. A successful parent will raise their child to understand what they value and the child will follow their example.

Horses are herd animals, much like us, and use the strengths of each member of the herd. So the older mare of a wild herd may not be a leader when it comes to protecting the herd; this may fall to a young stallion. But she may be the leader in finding the best grazing and watering hole. She has travelled the routes many more years and so the herd use her strengths. The whole herd shares the same values in life, survive and reproduce, and so the whole herd benefits, and has done for many thousands of years. How sophisticated is that? Perhaps we can learn a thing or two about our own leadership by watching horses in their daily life?

As I have said before, good leaders can make others do what they want. Great leaders inspire others to want to do it.