Richard Maun

Category: Uncategorized

  • Take The Ten Minute Challenge

    Flickr Creative Commons: credited to The U.S. Army
    If dogs can do it, you can do it

    When was the last time you took ten minutes out of your day to reflect on progress made?

    We often talk about the need to ‘reflect’ and the truth is that we often fail to do any. I will be the first to hold my hand up and agree to that statement. Luckily for me though, I was reminded of the power of being reflective a few days ago, when meeting with a writing colleague. We talked about my writing progress and although I was pleased to report that I was typing out my next book at great speed, the wrinkle of her brow and the kindly, but thoughtful, smile made me realise that I needed to stop. Stop writing, take a step back and look at the work so far. Like a sculptor gazing thoughtfully at a half hacked marble bust, with his chisel held aloft, paused.

    The key here is that I know how to stop and think. I know how to pause and check a manuscript and hold it up to the light to see how it flows and whirls. I know all this and in my headlong haste I had forgotten to do it. Silly me.

    And that’s the point. It’s no good knowing what to do it if you don’t do it. I needed to spend time with my friend to help remind me of the need to stop.

    So, here is a friendly challenge. When you arrive at work tomorrow, set your mobile phone alarm to bleep later on that day to remind you to go to a new meeting. The only person in the meeting will be you and the agenda has one item on it: Quiet thinking and reflection. It’ll be a great meeting and perhaps the best ten minutes of your day. I’ll be interested to hear how well you get on …and I might have a go myself…sounds like a fun challenge!

  • How To Access Intuition

    Positron emission tomography is one thing you could do
    Positron emission tomography is one thing you could do

    Intuition is a great asset and much undervalued. We often don’t admit to knowing what we really know we know. We prefer to keep collecting information, or to keep making little adjustments, when all the time we’ve had the answer. We’ve caught ourselves in a little loop of anti-intuition, where more ‘facts’ will ease the risk of making a bad choice, or of making a mistake. This is plainly silly and we can trust ourselves; we can trust our intuition.

    One way to access our intuition is to go for a sense of what we would like, rather than an absolute (which of course craves more facts). Within a cloud of thoughts there will tend to be a perfect little snow flake of reason, that can be picked out and used to prompt an action.

    When working as a coach I often ask clients:

    “What would you like to do first? What’s your sense?”

    Invariably they give me an answer that draws heavily on their intuition and I often follow this up with:

    “That’s great; you can do that!”

    …And they smile and relax. So, the next time a colleague of yours is stuck and you have a hunch that they do know the answer, bypass the data and give them permission to give you a sense of things…their apparent fuzziness will be sharper and more accurate than they will realise.

    I used this approach recently and my client ‘discovered’ a complex Lean Implementation Plan already stored in their head. They could now stop data gathering and start focusing on action. Their intuition on where to start was right, they just needed a hand to access it and a friendly smile from me to begin trusting it.