Fulfilment

Hi!

Did you know that no-one can make us do anything?

In the traumatic situation in which a mugger threatens me with a gun to my head, I have a choice of obeying or disobeying the mugger's "request". While the consequence of disobeying might be fatal, the choice to obey or not remains entirely mine.

This month we write about how we can better manage our communication, relationships, conflict and simply be better people by being conscious of what motivates us. Here's what's on the menu for your enjoyment in this issue of Fulfilment:

   - Editorial: Motivation-based choice: By consciously finding what motivates me naturally -- my values, talents and beliefs -- I've increased personal power in my actions and improved my relationships and productivity.

   - ProMentor's next public workshop: "Improving Motivation": In Rondebosch on Wednesday, June 23^rd, find out how to discover you and your team's motivating drivers and how to improve performance and happiness and work. See the ad below or click here to book. Bookings close June 18^th.

   - Workshops coming up: re-implementing ProMentor's well-proven marketing strategy, we are running monthly workshops again. We make no bones that these workshops help build our business because it's clearly a win-win for ProMentor and our clients: from the feedback, participants get excellent value and the workshops help them make positive changes not just in business, but in everyday life. Now who wouldn't be motivated to get more from where that came from?

   - Article: When Life is Not Good: Marion Adamson, expert life skills coach and facilitator, discusses how we can shift our motivation in order to improve our behaviour and team performance.

Editorial:

Aside from the tiny percentage of events that might be inflicted upon us, like acts of the gods, the overwhelming majority of what happens to us is by our own design.

Something I found enormously empowering is learning and choosing to believe that no-one can make us do anything. I believe that everything we do is because we choose to do it.

Even when we might think we have no choice, we in fact have ultimate choice, as in the extreme example of the mugger's threat. What helps us make intelligent choices is understanding what motivates us and how our motivations manifest in our thoughts, feelings and behaviour.

When taking on this belief of being able to choose everything I do, I began to question how I saw the world and myself in it, especially my language. I found that my "old" language had me giving up control over my thoughts and actions, including my self-talk and communication with others.

Words like "must" and "can't" and phrases like "I don't have a choice," showed up as indicators of my internal paradigm and as forces that disempowered me through their effects on my thoughts, feelings and actions. One of my favourite disempowering phrases is "I don't have time." It tells me that the speaker hasn't prioritised (well-enough) which activities to undertake in the time he / she has.

By consciously finding what motivates me naturally -- my values, talents and beliefs -- and by choosing to replace power-sapping words and phrases with ones like "could", want to" and "I didn't (choose to) make time," I've increased personal power in my actions and I've changed how I am -- my way of being -- in the world.

Compared with how reactive I used to be, with little control over my thoughts, emotions and behaviour, I am now confident and certain, not only in what I want and don't want, but also in how I choose to behave in, the seemingly rarer, occasions in which circumstances seem imposed on me.

For a booster in managing your motivation, communication and conflict mastery, why not join our workshop next week (June 23^rd) on "Improving Motivation"? Bookings close on Friday 18^th June. Or for innovative insights and practical tips on mastering your time, join our July workshop on "Time Mastery for Entrepreneurs and Other Busy People" on July 28^th. Just phone or email me to book.

Related Resources on motivation and communication for entrepreneurs, managers and leaders:

   - Positive Feedback Compass: Corné Mac Kenzie inspires us with 4 quick pointers on giving motivating feedback. (Fulfilment, 27 July 2009)

   - Feedback or Feedforward? That is the Question!: Tania Kapp explains Dr Marshall Goldsmith's 10 benefits of the "feedforward" technique of giving feedback. (Fulfilment, 27 July 2009)

   - Workshop: Conflict Mastery: Conflict is inevitable. It's how we handle it that matters. This workshop is available in-house anywhere in Southern Africa as a full-day, half-day or 2 half-day workshops and is a powerful complement to a get-away team-building experience. R12,500 per day for up to 10 people excluding VAT, venue and catering.

   - Seeing only the world we can describe: Editorial explaining Joseph Jaworski's concept that "We do not describe the world we see, but we see the world we describe." (Fulfilment editorial, 20 November 2008)

Until Fulfilment in July, keep celebrating that beautiful game and keep making SA a place to live with pride!

Brent Combrink
Fulfilment editor and ProMentor's founding owner
Cell: +27 (0)82 425 2708
Email: brent@promentor.co.za

PS: Entrepreneurs, to help you keep focussed on your strategic objectives -- hopefully growing business value is one of them? -- consider joining our next 6-month Small Business Mentoring Program starting in August.

Next public workshop:

Improving Motivation

An experiential workshop for managers and team leaders to create productive and happy teams

on Wednesday, 23^rd June, 2010, 08h30 for 09h00 - 12h00
at Belmont Conference Centre in Rondebosch
facilitated by Marion Adamson.
Bookings close on Friday June 18^th

Conflict does not necessarily mean fire and brimstone, conflict is the experience of departing from a space of "life is going well to a space of "life is not going well". Depending on which stage of conflict we are in, sometimes the fire and brimstone are present, though not always.

Marion, your workshop facilitator, has this story from less than a fortnight ago:

"In the work context, I observed a manager become aware that, even though he had moved through his conflict sequences and had returned to his position of 'life is good', this was not the same for a colleague of his, who was still in conflict stage 1 and remained there for a few days. My client's insight: an awareness that his behaviour, even if not directed at his colleague, left his colleague in a space of 'slife is not good'.

"This awareness helped my client deal with his unknowingly de-motivating effect, which he was able to turn into positive, motivating behaviour and improve his team's performance."

Join our half-day Improving Motivation workshop and discover how to get your team motivated and moving.

What you will get from this workshop:
+ How to find out what really drives you and your people. (Hint: it's more than just preferences and prejudices).
+ A way to answer the question, "What makes me do or say what I do?"
+ Explore the link between these individual motivators and team performance.
+ Find the right language to engage and activate your team.
+ A 10-minute introduction to ProMentor's 2-day Improving Workplace Relations workshop for managers and teams. (Get a special discount on these programs by attending this workshop.)

Requirements:
+ R570 including VAT, payable in advance via EFT or direct debit + Ideal participants: this workshop is best-suited to entrepreneurs and senior, middle and junior managers in any domain e.g. sales team managers, office managers, team leaders and project leaders / managers + Also benefits aspiring entrepreneurs, managers and leaders

Book by Friday, June 18^th or enquire:
+ phone Brent: 082 425 2708
+ email brent@promentor.co.za

ProMentor workshops and programs coming up

Programs

When Life is Not Good
By Marion Adamson, expert life skills coach and facilitator
15 June 2010

Is there a win-win formula to improve relationships both in the workplace and on a personal level? Is there a way to help grow and develop people so that relationships improve and prosper? Are there ways to improve on the process of how we relate to each? Do businesses have the courage and the savvy to explore the 'soft stuff'?

Read more...

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