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Newsletter March 17, 2011 Brain Exercises : The New Caffeine |
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Are you one of those people who cannot start the day without your caffeine fix? It’s what gets you going, gives you energy, sets you up for the day and starts your motivation clock. If so, then you need to read the feature article today - Brain Exercises: The New Caffeine. This is fascinating stuff and is really worthwhile exploring. Much less exhausting than physical exercise!! I also was working with a coaching client during the week on feedback and we were talking about the difference between affirmation and feedback. She is very good at being affirming with her staff but tends to shy away from giving specific feedback. Yet this is what they said they wanted. So I've done a brief summary of the difference between the two. If you want to find out more about actually giving feedback, you can get a copy of our ebook here: Managing Performance: The Importance of Feedback at the special sale price of $7.60. Finally there is my latest blog post. Tell me what you think. Ask Your Questions. I'm going to establish a Q & A in each newsletter. So if you have a question to which you want an answer, please send it to me and I'll answer it. It can be anonymous if you wish. Enjoy the read.  Maree Harris. PhD. |
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Brain Exercises : The New Caffeine. Are you one of those people who cannot start the day without your caffeine fix? It’s what gets you going, gives you energy, sets you up for the day and starts your motivation clock. If you are worried you may be addicted or that it has become a habit that’s costing you too much money, then brain exercises may be worth trying. The claim is that they produce the same, or even better, effect. The Australian Institute of Management here in Victoria recently hosted a forum on brain exercises. In fact, there has been increasing publicity about this “new caffeine” in many business and professional publications in the last few months, including “The Financial Review” and “BRW”.
So Why Would We Do Brain Exercises? Everybody today is very aware of how important physical exercise is, even if we can’t always meet the challenge it poses! Some of us have made a real commitment to keeping ourselves fit. Some of us have built exercise into our lives and it is as much a habit as showering and brushing our teeth. We have an exercise program we do each week. There are gyms all over the place and almost every month a new exercise craze takes hold. Let’s not forget the range of exercise equipment on the market and advertised on TV. The adage: “If you don’t use it, you lose it”, has been popularised and many are taking it seriously. We are living longer and many of us want to be active, mobile and fit in the later stages of our life, avoiding walking frames and nursing homes. While this emphasis on physical exercise has been around for a few decades now, the same “use it or lose it” message is, in recent times, being applied to the brain. There is now a movement towards exercising the brain with exercises that improve memory, attention, language, decision-making, cognition and visual-spatial capacities. Until recent times, it was believed that the brain was fixed by genetics and early development in childhood. We now know that is not so and the science of neuroplasticity has emerged, exploring the way the brain can change and reorganise itself and become more effective and efficient. A book that has highly popularised this view is Norman Doidge’s international best-seller “The Brain That Changes Itself” which is full of amazing stories of just that. Doing brain exercises is not just about preparing for old age or preventing the brain deterioration that sometimes occurs as a result of the ageing process. They are being used in every age group. An area particularly relevant to all of you reading this is the workplace.
Brain Exercises In The Workplace. A number of organisations are now offering corporate programs in brain exercises. They are focused on and target the improvement of particular areas of brain functioning, for example, problem solving or quick thinking or performance. One of the organisations offering these brain training programs is Spark! developed by The Brain Department. It has pilot programs in Australia at the moment. This program is only for organisations and its employers and costs $150 per employer for 6 months or $200 per employer for 12 months. Employees do the exercises for 15 minutes a day 3 times a week. Spark! claims you will be able to concentrate better, remember names, react quicker, increase focus and think sharper. If you want to explore what brain exercises are like without making a financial commitment, another organisation is Lumosity. You can get access to a free program there and then upgrade to a paid program later if you wish. On their website is a very good PDF you can download called “The Science Behind Lumosity” which is really the science behind brain exercises. It has research results they have compiled of their work. Is It As Good As It Sounds? Is It Really The New Caffeine? As with everything there are the skeptics and some with solid credentials. Some believe that people can become good at the exercises but question if it translates across into changes in their daily activities. Certainly Naomi Simson believes it does. Her organisation “Red Balloon” is using the Spark! program. She speaks highly of the results for her organisation and sees it impacting on productivity, as well as memory, among other things. She says she has seen very real changes in both herself and her employees. So if you want to check it out for yourself, here are the details. For Lumosity, go to www.lumosity.com and for Spark! go to www.braindepartment.com
Feedback vs Affirmation. Do You Know The Difference? Many managers get confused between these two processes. Both are important but they have different purposes but go hand in hand. Affirmation is about affirming the good work your employees are doing, acknowledging it. It is about recognising their effort, their commitment, their loyalty and any other quality that they exhibit at work. It is about letting them know they are appreciated and are not being taken for granted. “You did a great job!” “Thanks for the time you sent on that.” “Great effort, team.” “Well done.” “Excellent outcome.” - words repeated often and phrases used frequently. Affirmation is generally non-specific and informal. Feedback on the other hand is specific to a particular behaviour or activity. It is designed to give comment that will lead to improved performance or enhance performance. It gives much more detail. “You did a great job. I was most impressed with the way you handled that conflict with X. By listening and giving him the opportunity to say what he wanted to say without you becoming defensive really brought a turnaround in his attitude.” “You have made a good beginning in this new role. From this 3rd month report you seem to have very quickly grasped what is required. I am concerned, however, that many of your team are not happy with your leadership. I know you are aware of that and that ZZ has resigned citing your leadership as the reason.” You would then let him/her respond, then engage in solution finding, then set a time in the near future to review again and give more feedback. Affirmation is more general and is about acknowledgment of employees’ contributions. Feedback needs to be specific and about improving or enhancing performance. It is outcome focused.
Why Don't I Have Family Photos In My Office At Work. A colleague over a 15-20 year period has therefore been around my workplace quite a bit over the years in a number of capacities. The other day she asked me a question that I actually hadn't thought about for many years. Why don't you ever have photos of your family around your offices? She went on to say that in all the years she's known me and been in and out of my office many times, she's never seen a sign of photos of my family. As a consultant also, she reminded me that she is in and out of many offices with her work and like me, sees many family photos prominently displayed around men's offices. It was a very deliberate action on my part, many years ago when I set up my own business, not to have family photos around my work. Find out why. Read the rest of my latest blog post at www.womenleadingthefuture.com/blog
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