Sorry, I haven’t written the blog for ages because I have been busy moving house and dealing with builders.  It’s a good thing that despite teaching memory techniques the memory cleverly fades out the stressful demands of renovating house and home!  But the reality is that it is exciting and also that we, Dr  David Beales (my partner and co-author of Emotional Healing for Dummies) and I created it through visualising exactly what we wanted in the way of house, home, location, life … and it manifested itself with almost no hesitation or effort at all, as those who know me will tell you.

So whether scientists can prove a creator God or not doesn’t prevent you from creating the life you want to lead, the work you want to be involved in, and developing the potential that lies within you to be the person you want to be.  As this new phase of my life has begun and is unfolding I become increasingly convinced that we do create our tomorrows in the personal energy, thoughts, behaviours and actions we focus on today.  If you focus on pessimism, helplessness, or negativity then you can manifest problems (I know from experience!); if you take time to create a real picture of what you are looking to bring in to your life, and begin to act as if you have it, then the more likely it is that this will come into being.  It isn’t infallible but when it does happen, often with very little effort other than a real intention, it feels like magic but in reality you were the creative force within the process.  As Professor Richard Wiseman’s book The Luck Factor points out, luck is made through attitude, action and creating opportunity.

So we owe it to ourselves and others to create a positive energy around us every day.  Not in a mindless way that denies our emotions because experiencing all emotion heightens the good times but in a way that makes each day as good as it can be.  My observation is that this is spirituality, however you personally define the word, as daily practice.  So maybe take time this week to crystallise what you would like to bring into your life.  Begin with reflecting on the life and experiences you have already created; accept and enjoy where you are now and then identify goals that will enhance this further.  Complete the process by developing the thoughts, behaviours, verbal and body language, and personal energy of the person who already has this in their lives.  Have positive expectations of yourself, others and life.  Let go of stress and doubt as these not only block the process, they lower your immune system too.

It’s easy to be cynical about this process - where is the proof of how it works or that it will work?  But Einstein said ‘not everything in the world can be counted and not everything that can be counted counts’.  Despite scientific advances there are still many things in life that cannot be fully understood.  Analysis and cynicism can be helpful in certain situations but not every situation.  So you might like to just give it a go - as Wayne Dyer said ‘you’ll see it when you believe it’.

Healing emotion is incredibly important.  We all experience emotions every day of our lives and each one of us has had happiness but also sadness, disappointment, resentments and anxieties.  Some of these can get ‘stuck’ in our bodies through our emotional memories.  Our body has an intelligence and is constantly monitoring our emotional state for basic survival reasons but also to ensure that our emotional as well as physical needs are met.  The body stores information about how you tensed up when you gave that presentation to your boss, or were told off by a teacher in the classroom, were fearful at night in the dark as a child, were bullied by a colleague, felt dejected at the end of a relationship, or excited by the prospect of a new home.

Descartes separated mind and body, saying that only God was in charge of the mind but he lived before the era of science .  We are one system, mind and body and now that we are able to view the inner workings of the brain and body with fMRI scans we can see that what happens in the mind immediately affects the body by sending out stress alert signals that change our chemistry and what happens in the body immediately affects our mind by altering the balance of oxygen, CO2 and blood that is available to our ‘thinking’ brain.

All of this is highly relevant to each one of our lives whether at work and needing to think clearly about complex things or at home where we are juggling personal relationships and tasks at the same time as trying to take care of our own needs.

I have been thinking a great deal about this recently in writing my new book EMOTIONAL HEALING FOR DUMMIES which I wrote with Dr David Beales, a medical doctor specialising in mind-body and behavioural medicine.  Sharing experiences of clients and patients we realise that people who are having difficulty speaking up either at work or at home may experience problems with their jaw, those who are feeling ‘put upon’ by others may have physical ailments around neck and shoulders as the ‘burden’ of demands becomes too difficult to manage, others who have back problems as they need to stand up for themselves in some way, people who are fearful go into spasm.  So our emotional feelings impact our health and daily wellbeing but we can heal them by focus of mind – exploring the issues, taking a breathing space to reflect on what it is you personally need to do or say in the situation, learning new thoughts and behaviours that will help you to take action to solve the problems.

So roll over Descartes: my argument is that it is you who are in charge of your mind and your health through what you choose to focus on.  If you have emotions that are causing you difficulties – old resentments at the way your parents treated you or what life has dealt you, or anger at a partner who walked out on you then it is likely that it is not only disturbing your everyday life but is also impacting your health in a negative way.

So take action on this and improve your quality of life by taking a look at our book on EMOTIONAL HEALING FOR DUMMIES – we can offer you a special offer of 25% discount including free postage and packing if you go to http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470747641.html and quote the promotional code VA682.  You can use the same link to get a 25% discount on my book COGNITIVE-BEHAVIOURAL COACHING TECHNIQUES FOR DUMMIES too, quoting the same promotional code.

Let’s not let the endless doom and gloom get to us.  The media and the government seem to love battering us with miserable stories but they weren’t exactly brilliant at predicting the current crisis or protecting us from it were they?  So maybe they are all missing something that’s just around the corner that could actually go right - who knows?!  After all, just after the last recession we got the internet and digital boom … so do get creative and get us out of this one… :>)

Our parents and grandparents lived through far worse, with world wars and a far less generous social system than we have today to support us.  They lived with years of uncertainty that was not just economic but life-threatening.  Talk to them about it, or to your elderly neighbour – you often find that the ‘old dear’ down the road has actually driven tanks and parachuted out of planes… far braver than battling the bugs on the District Line every morning.

But of course misery and negativity depletes our immune system so it is hardly surprising that we have a record number of flu and cold bugs going around.  So focus on the positive and at least you are more likely to stay healthy and live longer as there is now a good body of evidence to show that optimism and happiness increase health, longevity and wellbeing.  (And if you’re worrying about how on earth you’ll afford to live longer then optimism also increases your chances of success in sales and career and it can be learned – through Positiveworks of course! www.positiveworks.com )

The human mind tends to fret about things that may never happen.  So enjoy what is going right.  And if today you have some money in the bank, a job perhaps, a roof over your head, a pet, a friend, someone you love, or someone who knows and understands you then rejoice.  A quick scan of world events shows us that the problems we face in the UK may be difficult but nothing like as bad as in some other parts of the world.

Also can we please have a revival of common sense: it has been under-rated recently and it has a lot going for it.   Many regulations assume we have none of our own – that we have to be warned that we could cut ourselves if we aren’t careful how we use scissors to unwrap our Christmas presents.  Surely we know that this is the case, that life can be risky – that grass is slippery when wet.  Don’t we?

So listen to your heart.  Intuition has been proven by recent research to be spot on in helping us make decisions.  But you knew that didn’t you – you didn’t need a University research project to tell you.  If something feels right, do it; if something doesn’t feel right then don’t.  Intuition usually speaks to you through your body – if you feel tense with someone it is for a reason; if you feel light and happy with another person then there is a message in it.  You don’t need books to tell you this: you just need to tune back into your self.  (But of course do buy my latest book Cognitive-Behavioural Coaching for Dummies http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470713798.html )

The Credit Crunch has raised discussion about excess and ‘affluenza’.  Certainly a rebalancing of what is realistic and sustainable is required at all levels.  But there is little point in waging a war on wealth-creation in itself.   There is no intrinsic goodness in poverty: in fact poverty divides and wrecks individuals and communities.  Several people are now admitting that they ‘always knew’ that what they were doing in lending money to people who couldn’t afford it was wrong but they did it anyway in order to follow a target, gain a perk. Similarly others took on debt that they knew they couldn’t afford.  So follow your own moral compass of what is right or wrong but honest toil is certainly nothing to be ashamed of.  If we make money we are able to employ others, avoid living off the State, be philanthropic and give to charities. I found this quite an interesting article on this subject:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article5391496.ece

New perspectives are what is called for, not a return to what was.  Einstein commented that we can’t solve a problem from the same place in which we created it.  When it comes to your own life get creative and look at situations anew.  Spend 30 minutes identifying as many ways as possible of finding a solution.  The HBDI Herrmann thinking profile works brilliantly to stretch your brain and ensure you integrate creativity and realism, see http://www.positiveworks.com/products/thinkingpref.htm

You can change things: every voice matters.  Even if it is just to develop a positive energy around you at home or at work.  But if you care about something, write a letter to a paper or your MP or to Boris, write a blog, comment on a website, join a lobby group, volunteer for a charity, smile at someone on the tube, do any small thing that expresses what you feel strongly about.  You may not be able to change the world, or your whole organisation, or the government, or the country but you can make a difference to those immediately close to you and surely that is worth doing.  

Finally, fun doesn’t have to cost much.  We can enjoy family, friends, good health, kitchen suppers, books, reading, listening to music, making love, dancing, going to an art gallery, playing with the paint pot your aunt bought for the kids, walking in the park, all at minimal cost.  So let’s act to make this year a really good one and prove those doom and gloom merchants thoroughly wrong!

Happy 2009! Helen

The majority of problems raised in coaching and training sessions relate to people issues: difficulties between back and front office; a truculent member of staff; misunderstandings in communication.  Despite the fact that companies will frequently say that their people are their greatest asset the reality is that many managers consider people issues to be too ‘woolly’ to spend time on. They often don’t feel that they add value to the ‘real task of doing business’. 

Certainly it is difficult, as a busy manager, to find time.  Also difficult to fit people into spreadsheets, manage or measure, that may be true: the human being is a unique and complex organism.  But woolly and not worth spending time thinking about: no.

The myth seems to be that it is the ‘hard skills’ alone that make business work.  Hard skills perform an essential function, certainly, and yet how and whether that happens is all down to the management of human minds and emotions.  Think about your own experience for a moment and see if any of this rings a bell.  Has the smooth flowing of your business or work ever been impacted by an individual who is:

·         Fearful for their job security and just sticks by the letter of their job rather than taking initiative or innovating

·         A jealous or territorial empire-builder who doesn’t want to share a piece of information because they want to take the credit themselves, thereby scuppering their colleagues’ efforts

·         Someone who embellishes the figures or sells more than required to a customer in order to meet their targets and gain their bonus, only to be exposed , at a later date, for misleading others  

·         Unable to say that they don’t know how to perform the function that they have been asked to perform so gets it wrong rather than look stupid and ask their boss or colleague for a solution or guidance

·         Fearful of conflict so avoids raising an issue with a colleague, boss or customer thus perpetuating the problem longer than it needs, sometimes to a point where the issue has escalated beyond redemption

The major problems in the business world actually tend to come down to emotions and relationships –

·         People negotiating major deals and unable to find a way for the egos involved to be sufficiently pacified to be able to do the deal.

·         Companies restructuring and trying to bring different cultures of people and work approach together without appreciating how long it takes for individuals to shake off one identity and set of working habits and integrate with another.    

·         Back office and front office issues that lead to misunderstanding, conflict, delay and complexity

·         The project or programme manager who is so task-focused that they forget to share crucial information with their team, leading to the delay of the project.

·         The manager who has their head so full of target-pressures that they forget to stop to acknowledge good performance,  without realizing that demotivation leads to low productivity, resentment, and to the loss of talented staff.

One can plan effective strategies to manage these eventualities in advance.  These everyday people situations are exactly what it is worth taking focused time to consider, not just waiting to address them when things go wrong.  If not addressed, they cost time, money and mental and emotional energy that could be better utilized elsewhere.  However, it is not necessarily a comfort zone for some managers, who may prefer to focus on tasks rather than thinking about behaviours and emotions.  This is where coaching and training can provide a short sharp solution.  Through Personality Profiling (follow the link for a short comparison between HBDI, DiSC, MBTI) it is possible to identify how different individual and departmental approaches are impacting communication between and within teams.  The HBDI Herrmann Thinking Preference Profile http://www.positiveworks.com/products/thinkingpref.htm is the fastest and most practical tool I know to help people gain insight and strategies to bridge diverse communication styles.  Our new training programme  Bridging the Gap Between Departments (follow the link for an overview agenda) applies the Herrmann profile within a Mediation process to enable individuals and teams to recognise and acknowledge common goals and find a way to align their efforts to the benefit of all.  This isn’t ‘soft’ stuff: it is often the hardest stuff of all!  And when managers are courageous enough to tackle these issues in a direct and honest manner the results are generally of great value to morale and productivity.  For more info contact info@positiveworks.com .

I was on a bus yesterday and recently have been observing the different responses that bus drivers take to the various events that they face within their job.  Some seem to take perverse pleasure in driving off just as someone is running to catch the bus; others wait patiently and helpfully for the person to reach the stop.  Some drive like maniacs so that cyclists have to scatter; others are courteous and careful.  Some are really helpful to confused tourists; others are dismissive, rude and obstructive.

At  Positiveworks our coaching and training courses are based on the principles of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and you may well have read that the Government is wanting to introduce this into schools (see our book FUTURE DIRECTIONS http://www.positiveworks.com/education/futuredirections.htm) and also make it more available to those suffering from depression.  So what is CBT and how might it help a bus driver or anyone else finding it hard to make the most of the situation in which they have placed themselves?  Basically it works on the premise that how you think affects how you feel and that how you feel will drive your behaviours and actions.  For example if I have a large pile of work on my desk and think “I have too much to do in too little time” it makes me feel stressed.  Feeling stressed stops me thinking clearly and the work ends up taking longer and I may damage relationships with colleagues in the process as we communicate very differently when we when we feel stressed, anxious, fearful or angry to when we feel calm and confident.  Similarly we make different decisions when we feel down to when we feel up and it all starts in our mind.

It is not a new concept: it is based on the reflections of the Stoic philosophers and Epictetus in particular, born around A.D.55.  He was born a slave so had experience of hard times himself and yet his words are quoted by Governments all these years later.   You may have heard before the quote “Individuals are disturbed not by events but by the views they take of them.”  Therefore that it is our thoughts, reactions and approaches that unsettle us, not the nature of the event itself.  I am sure we have all seen this in action – one person we know who was made redundant and felt destroyed by the process, another who was delighted that they could now focus on some new opportunity.  Same situation, different response.

CBT is not about ‘Polyanna’ thinking that everything in the garden is roses: it is about constructive reasoning, enabling people to develop thoughts, beliefs and expectations that best support their goals and quality of life.  For example if someone has a sales meeting with a client it is not going to help them if they are doubtful of their ability to achieve the sale.  On the other hand if they are thinking they ‘must’ achieve the sale this also sets up tension so a CBT response would be “I would prefer it if I make this sale but I can manage it if I don’t as there are plenty of other customers out there.”  Or “I have made sales before so there is no reason why I shouldn’t succeed this time.”  It is about finding thoughts that lead to an emotional state that helps you manage the situation.  It is about trying one’s best but understanding that the world is an uncertain place.  It is about accepting one’s fallibility as a human being and yet doing what one can to make the most of oneself, others and all the situations in which one finds oneself.

So CBT can help the bus drivers, or others who get resentful and bad-tempered in their work, to realise that they do, in fact, have a choice in the way they respond to the situations they face every day.  If they are choosing to remain in their current job they can choose, in Stoic fashion, to make the most of things and may well be happier as a result.  It is the flick of a mental switch.  If they choose to leave they will be doing so in strength and not in anger or desperation.  It is not about not acknowledging their emotions.  It is about realizing that their emotions are showing them that they need to review their life and consider what action they could take to achieve greater happiness and fulfilment.  There are always options of approach, though sometimes we don’t see them.  What are your options to make the most of the situations you may face over the next week?

Answer to Comment: I have been asked how to manage if someone is constantly negative.  How do you help someone who can’t see that they have a choice to ‘flick that mental switch’.  Well, the most helpful way I have found is to ask questions and also watch out for generalisations and black and white thinking.  Words to observe are ‘EVERYTHING… goes wrong’ or ‘NOTHING … is working’ or ‘this will NEVER work’ or ‘NOONE ever helps me’.  It is very unlikely that this is the case and the most logical people can sometimes totally lose their perspective when they get into the habit of negative thinking.  You need to help them get specific in order to help them realize that their current thinking is both irrational, unhelpful and  probably out of perspective.  Some questions you could try: “How does that attitude or approach help you to achieve what you are trying to achieve?” “What IS going right?” “Who IS helping you?” “Do you have evidence that it will never work?” “Has any aspect of it ever worked in the past?”  It can also help to show people that they have greater choice by copying other people’s responses - eg “Would everyone respond in this way?”  “How might x manage this situation?” “How might someone else manage this?”  This can show them that there are options.  Help them, also, to consider what it is they really want to achieve - what would success look like, feel like, be like.  This can get them out of the problem and start working on the solution.  Hope that helps! Helen

How is the year going?  I wonder if you got time to think about the questions I asked in my New Year blog? How are the New Year Resolutions coming along – or didn’t you make any?!

It is quite a difficult time of the year in the UK – the grey skies and chilly winds make it hard to keep cheerful.  Recently there has been a survey on happiness trends by the economist Andrew Oswald – see www.andrewoswald.com.  His research has shown that there is a worldwide U-shaped dip in happiness in our middle years, peaking at around 40-44 and possibly accounting for the ‘mid-life crisis’.

Certainly this is my experience personally, and in my professional work as a coach I find that a large number of my clients are between the ages of 35-45.  I think this is a natural time to review life and work decisions.  In their early years people often adapt to their family, peer and social environment so as to be accepted in society and find work.  After a few years they are in a better position to look back and question whether the lifestyle and career that they have chosen really suits them.  It is as if their inner self demands to come out and find expression in the world.  A good book to help understand this is The Soul’s Code by James Hillman (http://www.positiveworks.com/products/reading.htm ), where Hillman talks about the fact that everyone is born with a unique spark and how at some stage of life this uniqueness that lies within each of us demands attention and release.

Happiness, though, is an ephemeral state and to seek it on a continual basis could be to deny other less comfortable but nonetheless valid emotions.  Emotions are there to give us cues to action.  If people feel less happy in the mid-years it is probably because there is something in their life that their unconscious knows is not in alignment with who they truly are.  This translates into a restlessness for change and so people do radical things like change career, break up relationships, move to another place or country, come out sexually, write a novel or develop their creativity.    It is not easy for those around them and frequently not easy for the individual either, which is why many people choose to have the support of a coach (http://www.positiveworks.com/coaching/index.htm) to help them clarify their decisions. 

I suspect the U-shape of happiness towards the end of life again relates more to a contentment about being able to be oneself, not someone who is adapting to gain the approval of family and society.  Throughout our lives I think we are honing this ability to be the individual we are born to be.  This is particularly observable in teenage years where a child is beginning the major separation process from the parent.  People tend to shift again in their mid-twenties when they have begun to make a place in the world and are no longer financially dependent on their parents so have greater freedom to express themselves with or without the approval of family.  The process, therefore, is not a one-off experience at 40 but frequently the mid-life crisis tends to be the most radical. However, as we are living longer people in their 50s and 60s and beyond are also making major changes.  A good book on this subject is Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes by William Bridges (http://www.positiveworks.com/products/reading.htm).

So, as we start the new year it is a good time to review whether the life you are living is reflective of your inner self or whether there are some minor - or indeed major changes -you could make that could help you to align your outer world of life and work with your inner world.  If so, you may find that a coach can help you through the process of challenge and analysis and at the same time can help you to be gentle with yourself and with those around you.

This week’s survey into social mobility both surprises and depresses me.   I would have said that many of those who are leading organisations of all kinds today have brought themselves up to powerful and influential positions despite what some of them refer to as a ‘humble’ beginning.  It is depressing, however, to learn that there are still many children seemingly unable to lift themselves out of the limitations of their background.

We are good at knocking ourselves in this country – what we have not achieved, rather than what we have achieved.  We knock ourselves for our Empire despite the fact that there were and still are other nations who have wielded Empirical power over others, sometimes to worse effect.  We knock ourselves for our class system despite the fact that there are a majority of societies globally who practice a class system that is equally entrenched.   I would argue that it is the fact that we focus on the negatives and knock ourselves for our inadequacies that plays a part in holding children back from social mobility.

The media in the form of newspaper comment, advertising and television productions perpetuates our now surely outdated class and social system.  How many role models for success are there in our soap operas?  Stereotypes that are 30+ years outdated are the images that our young watch on a daily basis.  It is time that our children’s programmes and soaps gave more examples of children deciding to go for an academic or career challenge that neither their parents nor peers would expect for them.  These programmes would need to demonstrate how difficult this can be – how people, including those who love you, will try to dissuade you and hold you back.  People are sadly so often the result of the expectations of their peer group and their families rather than the reality of the breadth of opportunities that are open to them.  We need to be very careful to whom we listen.

Our educational system is not necessarily equipped to help young people see the opportunities that exist  for them.  Teachers are plagued by government targets and demanding conditions in the classroom – they do not necessarily have the time or experience to look beyond the confines of the traditional when they give advice to young people about careers.  Inevitably it is difficult to keep up with  the large numbers of careers that have come into existence only in the last 5 years due to technological development so young people are still being shortchanged on good advice as to how to develop their potential.

These young people also need to learn the art of self-promotion and social skills if they are to rise beyond the limited expectations of their community.  We live in a multi-cultural society today and yet the British love of understatement still holds strong and serves us badly in a world where young people from other cultures are able to articulate their strengths more effectively.  Recently I was given two examples of this – in meeting an artist who introduced himself as “I’m an unsuccessful artist” and conversing with a leading gastroenterologist who introduced himself as “I’m really just a plumber”.  As an English person I knew precisely that this meant that the artist was successful and selling at his current exhibition; and that the gastroenterologist spent his day managing state-of-the-art lasers and mind-blowingly precise technical equipment in order to save lives.  But would anyone else know this?  Others may have thought that it was charmingly self-deprecating in that oh-so-British way but the danger is that people who do not know the quirks of our culture will take these statements at their face value.

I am continually dismayed that whenever one suggests to anyone young or old that they need to learn to identify and articulate their strengths in order to succeed that they reject the idea as something too ‘American’.  In running coaching sessions and training courses for people of all ages the majority of them tell me that they have never been taught in any way how to make the best of themselves or identify behaviours that will help them to succeed.   We are letting our young down if we do not do this.  The young from poorer migrant backgrounds will drive their success from a sense of survival and determination.  Those from an education that is more American in style will have learnt how to use their body language, voice and personal information so as to express the specific strengths and skills that they have to offer to an academic college or work organisation. Our children deserve help in this.  We do not have to become arrogant or loud-mouthed but surely we do need to feel confident in expressing those areas in which we are skilled.

Our book FUTURE DIRECTIONS addresses these issues specifically as do our coaching sessions in schools and the workplace  (www.positiveworks.com) but we need to influence matters on a wide scale in order to help children to see beyond the doubts and limitations that others put on them.  It is challenging to break out of cultural traditions and expectations but plenty of people have done this successfully and schools , parents and social workers need to support children by opening their minds to the many possibilities that exist in this life rather than settling for the easy option. In my 50-something years I have seen real progress towards a meritocracy in our society so let’s focus on this progress and build on it further.   If this happens hopefully the next survey will demonstrate that greater social mobility is increasingly achievable in the UK.

“Disgraced” Aitken to head prison reform research run the headlines in the media and surely in this one sentence is precisely the reason why prisoners or those who commit misdemeanours find it so difficult to be rebilitated successfully into our society.  For Profumo it took a lifetime; forever “disgraced” and unforgiven however many good works are carried out after the event.

If we continue to judge and label people for the crime or weakness they committed many years earlier, for which they have paid their rightful penance, what hope is there for them to move on and reinvent themselves as someone who can behave well and be a useful part of society?  This is precisely the prejudice prisoners face and the reason why prison is so seldom a successful means of rehabilitation.  Prejudice drives society’s perceptions of offenders and this in turn drives their own perceptions of themselves resulting in insufficient confidence or esteem to hack it in the world outside prison.  I hold no torch for Aitken but certainly believe that he should be judged for who he is today, not who he was 8 or more years ago, and for prison reform is it not better to seek the opinion of someone who has ‘inside’ knowledge?

The problem of other people’s stuck perceptions is just as relevant to anyone going through personal change.  Colleagues, family and friends frequently wish to label you and see you as who you were rather than who you are today, let alone who you are seeking to become in future.  This is why so many change programmes fail: habitual perceptions, habitual behaviours, however constructive or unconstructive, are what others have become used to and so it is often easier to hold a person into old patterns and block their progress rather than face the discomfort of change.  Very often it is those nearest and dearest to you who hold you back as they are threatened by what you might become and how it will affect them personally.  But equally it can be people who have never met you or know of you rather than know you who refuse to open their eyes to the fact that people can and do learn and change as they go through life. 

How difficult it seems to be for humans to truly and wholeheartedly support another person’s transformation.  Yet it is often when people make mistakes that they learn their hardest but most useful lessons in life and often experience a kind of epiphany.  We only need to look at the lives of saints and great people to see that frequently the early part of their story was a difficult one.  Look back at your own life and consider whether you have not learnt some wisdom over the last ten years?  Would you wish to be labelled for some misdemeanour you committed years ago?

Whether a prisoner or not people need the support of others in order to successfully change behaviour.  They also need to learn skills both cognitive and behavioural in order to become the person they want to be: it is unlikely to happen without.    Why don’t we open up our eyes to see the potential of what someone could become rather than seeing them as some kind of outdated and faded image of a person they once were?  Until we do this we shall continue to have the problems we have in our society with both juveniles and adults reoffending because people respond to how we treat them.  There is plenty of research to demonstrate that when someone is treated as successful they become successful.  It is for this reason that a coach can support individual and organisational change through constant reinforcement of the new and constructive behaviours that lead to future success.  See www.http://www.positiveworks.com/coaching/executive.htm

None of us knows the truth about what happened to Madeleine McCann so why do so many people think they have the right to judge the ‘correct’ way that Kate McCann ’should’ behave?  The endless conflicting leaks from the Portuguese police and the suppositions of the media feed the worst voyeuristic sides of human nature.  It is similar to slowing down on the motorway to look at a car crash.   As ever, it leads to judgement and criticism of what others ‘ought to’ do or have done but this judgement often comes from ignorance of the detailed reality of the situation.

One thing must be true and that is that Kate McCann is in the middle of a nightmare.  None of us knows the truth but surely we do have a legal system that is based on the presumption of innocence until proven guilty.  In the meantime she appears to be dealing with the situation by trying to achieve some kind of normality in her daily life with her twins.  As a way of relieving stress this is as good a one as any, and those who criticise the fact that she is able to choose a pair of earrings and a decent set of clothes to wear every day could benefit from considering how important it is to hold yourself together for the sake of those around you and dependent upon you, as well as for yourself.  She could well fear that if she lets all this go then she will completely fall to pieces and she surely needs to be as centred as is possible for the twins, for the search for her daughter and to deal with the pending case against her by the Portuguese police.

Many of those who write and criticise her apparent lack of emotion may not have experienced a sudden death or tragedy in their lives or recognise the numbness that can occur as a result of a traumatic event.  Our first son died suddenly at 2 months’ old and people could have accused me of not seeming to care because I did not cry in front of other people.  But it did not mean to say that I didn’t cry in private: every day for a year and often since; in my car, in my home, in my room.   

 People have compared her behaviour with that of Rhys Jones’s parents, whose grief was evident in their interviews after their son’s murder.  Each person shows and experiences emotion differently and a death has a finality about it that allows a person to grieve wholeheartedly and eventually obtain acceptance and closure.  The daily toll of living with a missing child would surely gnaw away at you in a very different manner.  It might be helpful for people to understand that in psychological terms we all tend to project our own deepest fears, insecurities and experiences on to those who are the subjects of a major media story of this kind.  It happened with Princess Diana; it is happening here.

Perhaps we could all try to accept that there is no perfect way to be, no perfect way to grieve and that judgement of others - particularly of those whom we have never met - is generally inappropriate.  Perhaps we could all try to accept that we may never know what happened that night in Portugal and until we do it is neither appropriate nor helpful to criticise. 

I had breakfast with a client this week.  He was telling me that his organisation is now measuring staff performance every quarter and this necessitated fitting aspects of an employee’s behaviour into boxes on the appraisal template.  Predictably he felt that this was undermining the complexity of human beings as even if someone does not achieve a particular target number in one box he or she may be adding immeasurably to the organisation in some other way - eg relationships with colleagues, clients, staff morale, administration, etc.  I find the increasing focus over the last ten years on targets and measurement is demotivating for many people. It is also extremely time-consuming and many managers, whose main skill may well be in a technical expertise rather than in people-related activities, frequently procrastinate in carrying out appraisals.  This can culminate in the further demotivation of their direct reports, who perceive the procrastination as an indication that the manager does not take their personal development seriously.

 Yet governments, management consultants and HR departments continue to insist on treating people like machines that can produce x number of widgets in an 8 hour day.  In my view this undermines the richness of what it is to be human.  It also does not take into account how humans can think laterally and creatively so as to ‘tick the boxes’ but not achieve real progress - take as an example an NHS hospital who met the target of not having patients waiting in corridors by giving the corridor a Ward name!  Another example was that patients should not be allowed to wait on stretchers for a long period - so the wheels were taken off the stretcher and it was called a bed.  There are countless other examples of the futility of targets in education, the police force and in organisations as a whole.  They can limit thinking and over-ride practical common-sense by rewarding the wrong things.  An example of this was a police force who arrested not only the muggers but also victims of ‘have-a-go’ events in order to gain more points through achieving a greater number of (measurable) arrests in order to meet their targets.

I am not saying that targets should be completely discarded, only that they should be seen within a broader context so that other less tangible factors can be taken into account in measuring a person’s performance.   Even John Nash who invented Game Theory eventually came to see that measurable targets cannot be applied to all aspects of life - so why do we continue to do so?  People cannot be reduced to numbers: we are much more than that.