Keep your planning real - not just dreams

From Psyblog:

We often hear from self-help gurus that just this type of happy dreaming is a good source of motivation. If we can picture our future success then this will help motivate us.

Loosely speaking there is some truth to this: positive thinking about the future is broadly beneficial. But psychologists have found that visualization and fantasy can be tricky customers and research carried out by Oettingen and Mayer (2002) shows why.

Fantasy versus expectation

The researchers wanted to see how people cope with four different challenges that life throws at us: getting a job, finding a partner, doing well in an exam and undergoing surgery (hopefully not all at the same time).

Across four studies the researchers examined how people thought about each of these challenges. They measured how much they fantasised about a positive outcome and how much they expected a positive outcome.

The difference might sound relatively trivial, but it's not. Expectations are based on past experiences. You expect to do well in an exam because you've done well in previous exams, you expect to meet another partner because you managed to meet your last partner, and so on.

Fantasies, though, involve imagining something you hope will happen in the future, but experiencing it right now. This turns out to be problematic.
The researchers found that when trying to get a job, find a partner, pass an exam or get through surgery, those who spent more time entertaining positive fantasies did worse.

Take those looking for a job. Those who spent more time dreaming about getting a job, performed worse. Two years after leaving college the dreamers:

• had applied for fewer job,
• unsurprisingly had been offered fewer jobs,
• and, if they were in work, had lower salaries.

For the full article go here http://www.spring.org.uk/2011/01/success-why-expectations-beat-fantasies.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+PsychologyBlog+%28PsyBlog%29

Willfull blindness

Good coverage on willfull blindness - think this also applies to us in our daily lives - what do you think.

Full article is at Bnet Link to Bnet article

It doesn’t matter whether the company is large or small, old or young, high tech or blue collar manufacturing. The reality is that no leader is fully informed of what is happening on his or her watch.


Ignorance Isn’t Bliss
Of course in theory, this shouldn’t happen. The chain of command should ensure that information reaches the top. Daily reports should flag critical issues. Balance sheets should indicate significant trends. And they all do - up to a point. The problem is that none of them works quite well enough.

Leader or just a rebel?

From HBR this morning a way to tell if your leading or rebelling?

There is a fine line between a rebel and a leader, though we tend to conflate the two. 

A rebel resists conformity. Sometimes the rebel's challenging voice helps an organization to discover a gap, push themselves to innovate, and ultimately to thrive. So the challenging, dissenting voice can, at times, be tied to leadership.


But to be effective, we need to understand key distinctions:

• To rebel is to push against something. To lead is to advocate for an idea.
• To rebel is to say "heck no." To lead is to say "we will."
• To rebel is to deny the authority of others. To lead is to invoke your own authority. 

For the full article go here http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/01/are_you_a_rebel_or_a_leader.html

SMART goals - version 2 video

This has some good info but you need to get over the very American video (there are some laughs) but think the message is sound.  This is a video link http://www.bnet.com/videos/smart-goals-20-leilas-house-of-corrections/376549?promo=713&tag=nl.e713

Solitude and Leadership

This article really struck a chord. Over the years I have seen many leaders who are very ordinary people who have reached a position that does give off the sense of them being a "shark".  The article also speaks about why we should avoid distractions and take time to read, and read books from past times, to improve our ability to set a course.

Here is one of the opening paragraphs (the full article is here http://www.theamericanscholar.org/solitude-and-leadership/ )

Leadership is what you are here to learn—the qualities of character and mind that will make you fit to command a platoon, and beyond that, perhaps, a company, a battalion, or, if you leave the military, a corporation, a foundation, a department of government. Solitude is what you have the least of here, especially as plebes. You don’t even have privacy, the opportunity simply to be physically alone, never mind solitude, the ability to be alone with your thoughts. And yet I submit to you that solitude is one of the most important necessities of true leadership. This lecture will be an attempt to explain why.

Finding the Elusive Work-Life Balance

Leo Babauta over at zenhabits has some practical tips on getting "work life balance".  The full article including his tips can be found here:  http://zenhabits.net/life-balance/

How to Reignite Your Passion for Your Job

workawsome has some suggestions on howe to spice up you life in your job.

If discontent is eating away at you, read on for practical tips to help you renew your enthusiasm and sense of passion at the workplace.


Full list of ideas is here http://workawesome.com/your-job/how-to-reignite-your-passion-for-your-job/utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Workawesome+%28WorkAwesome%29