In the last blog I shared an experiment with you. We looked at ways to read the room and tune your antennae – with a view to making positive changes starting with your meetings or interactions with others.

I shared an experiment to help you do just that.

Here are the kind of things you might notice now that you hadn’t really noticed before (or if you had – you’d not done anything about it).

People committing to things and then not doing them. As one person said ‘When I did the Reading the Room experiment it became obvious to me that commitment was lacklustre at best. I realised we need to understand why we’d got into this pattern and what we need to do with it. It’s almost become accepted that people won’t deliver on time’.

‘It made me realise how much people talk for the sake of it and don’t add anything new to the conversation. This is seriously adding to overwhelm and time wasting for everyone. It also...

‘You’re too soft’ (I know but..)

‘You need to make a decision and stop procrastinating’ (I know but…)

‘You need to sort it out’ (I know but…)

‘You need to have more self-belief’ (I know but…)

‘You need to just do it’ (I know but…)

‘You need to cut him/her out of your life’ (I know but…)

‘You need to stop making excuses’ (I know but…)

‘You need to leave – it’s making you ill’ (I know but….)

Does this sound familiar?

This is your voice inside your head speaking. 

But that conflict between genuinely wanting to do something (not because someone else thinks you ‘SHOULD’ do it) and actually making a start can keep us going round in circles for weeks, months – and dare I say it - even years.

And the excuse you’ll be making to yourself is often ‘it’s not the right time.’

But be honest...

Last week I shared an experiment with you. We looked at ways to read the room and tune your antennae – with a view to effective positive change in your meetings or interactions with others. I shared an experiment to help you do just that.

The article is here if you missed it.

Here are the kind of things you might notice now that you hadn’t really noticed before (or if you had – you’d not done anything about it).

People committing to things and then not doing them. As one person said ‘When I did the Reading the Room experiment it became obvious to me that commitment was lacklustre at best. I realised we need to understand why we’d got into this pattern and what we need to do with it. It’s almost become accepted that people won’t deliver on time’.

‘It made me realise how much people talk for the sake of it and don’t add anything new to the conversation. This is seriously adding to overwhelm and time wasting for...

Over the next four weeks I am going to help you understand how to change your own ‘team culture’ – if it’s not working for you as well as you would like.

I’m using the common definition of culture – ‘the way things are done around here’ – which encompasses how people in the team act, dress, carry out their work and behave.

Whilst organisations are often involved in large ‘culture change’ initiatives across the board (many of which are unsuccessful for a variety of reasons) I’ve sometimes been asked if it is possible to change the culture of one particular team within an organisation – when it’s not the top team.

The answer to that question is, I believe, ‘yes’ but with the following caveats:

• The culture change in your own team has to complement what the organisation overall is trying to achieve;
• The ‘level above’ your team has to be supportive of the initiative (so if you are a...