Everyone Loves A Good Story

Everyone Loves A Good Story

When I first thought about starting a blog I had some pretty grand ideas.  I thought I’d pontificate on government relations.  Dazzle readers with my vast experience in communications and of course, my dynamic background in relations…hmmm; I got pretty bored, real fast too.

Clearly more thought was required…or less. What did I enjoy? What made me giggle, what fascinated me that was also worth sharing?  An idea came to me because of a dinner party I had. After dinner I was sitting with my friends and exchanging stories about our experiences with constituents and clients. We laughed and groaned depending on the story and generally had a wonderful time.

I love a good story. They come in all shapes and sizes, some are short little gems others are long and winding tales of intrigue. Often they are funny, but they can also make you cry.  That’s what makes communications interesting, the stories. Communications in the real world  isn’t about the smooth transfer of knowledge from point “A” to point “B”. No, what makes communications interesting is all the messy ways that it can go disastrously wrong or unimaginably right. What communications reveal more than anything is our core perspectives as human beings.  What we see, what we believe, what we know, what we do and what we intend are all rolled together. Good communications is about psychology and sociology as well as,understanding language and images. Communications, is as much science as it is art and anyone silly/brave enough to call themselves a communications professional, clearly has a sense of humour. I know I do – I laugh at myself and the world around me all the time.

As my one year anniversary as a blogger approaches (November), I’d like to celebrate by hearing from you. I’d like to invite you to share your stories in guest posts. The stories should be about communications. It doesn’t matter if things went just right or horribly wrong. All that matters is that the story struck you as one worth telling. Like the time I showed up for a birthday party late…by about a week, didn’t quite read the invitation. I look forward to hearing your stories and as always, your comments!

I will collect stories over the coming month and share them in December.

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Getting Your Focus Back – Is Closer Clearer?

Getting Your Focus Back - Comm Before The StormLast week I went out with one of our nurses as she did her rounds visiting clients in their homes.  It was a welcome change from what I had been doing, which was planning, printing, publishing,  policy, and promotional work to mention a few of the things on my list.  Don’t get me wrong, I love the tools of my trade and looking at website design, branded items, radio scripts and social media can be fun, but it has to be connected to something. For work to be meaningful it has to be purpose driven.  Getting closer to one of my clients, that nurse and consequently her clients, was a wonderful way to bring another important “p word” back to my work, perspective.

So this week I’m back in Ottawa and while I battle everything from old trade booths to persistent computer issues, my perspective has altered somewhat.  The urgency is gone. It’s hard to get heated up about a booth display or a missed meeting with a publisher when you compare it to folks who are trying to ease pain or make someone’s passing a little more comfortable. My tasks will still be waiting for me when I get up tomorrow, so I’ve got to be patient with the resources I have and understand that what gets done, gets done.

I don’t believe I’m alone in getting distracted, it’s easy for anyone to get preoccupied with the tools of their trade and forget about what they were supposed to be doing in the first place. Whether you are a writer who has been spending too much time managing social media, an artist who has been chasing exhibit space or a CEO trapped behind a desk, it can be easy to forget why you do what you do. When you remain removed from the frontline of the activity or more pointedly, when you forget your reason for being, you risk not just losing site of your objectives, but the joy of your work.

Does it feel better to get closer?

The Proximity Principle in social psychology informs us that we tend to form relationships with those in close proximity.  It remains true even in the context of social media. Most people interact online with people they already know. The proximity principle also shares another tidbit, proximity may mean that we learn that the people close to us have traits we detest, in those instances, then familiarity breeds contempt. These are not earth shattering revelations, yet they are an important feature of life that many of us lose sight of over time. I am pleased to say I know who my neighbours are, but how often is that not true? The artificial distance we can place between those close to us and ourselves can mean that we have a difficult time interpreting our reactions and relations with the people around us. It can also make us misinterpret the relevance of those people in our lives.

Do we get better by being closer?

As I have noted before in this blog, I don’t believe that working in an office makes me more productive.  I can be effective or inefficient anywhere, it’s a question of focus and motivation, but I did wonder about what that physical presence might do to us and really what were the pros and cons of proximity. What numerous studies have shown us is that their is a “social facilitation” effect. Co-workers will become more loyal to one another and are also more likely to help each other out. When people work in front of an audience or co-workers, even if their tasks are unrelated, their performance changes. They are more alert, faster and more motivated. That is, they are all of those things if they are working on familiar tasks. If they are working on something new or difficult, proximity negatively impacts adoption.  The presence of others when managing a new task can be distracting and stressful. It can increase inaccuracy and raise physical symptoms of distress.

What do the Proximity Principle, social facilitation and finding joy in work have to do with each other?

1) Getting closer to your audience/clients will reveal amazing things about your work and your focus.

  • Proximity to clients can be invigorating and bring into sharper perspective the reason why you do what you do.
  • If getting closer reveals that clients are exhausting and pull the energy from you, you may want to rethink the context in which you work or focus on the tools. In either instance, you will want to position yourself closer to where you find the joy in your work.

2) Clients are not the only ones to influence your focus. Co-workers will affect your relationship with your work.

  • Be alert to how you feel around co-workers. You may discover that what you like about your work isn’t the purpose, it’s the people. We form intense relationships with colleagues that can affect not just how we work but how we feel about our work.
  • The opposite holds true too. Your colleagues may make you less engaged. If that’s the case, a physical change in location may be all that’s missing to get your motivation back.

How do you get your focus back?  Have you ever worked in an environment where you loved the people, but disliked the job or the other way around?

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7 Tips on Finding Balance

7 Tips on Finding BalanceDo you ever feel like you’re sliding down a rabbit hole of ever increasing demands? I have, in fact I was recently feeling that way. I was juggling a number of activities and starting to wonder which would drop when instead I decided  to create a little more balance. Although I love many of the tasks I set for myself, they add up quickly and before I know it, I can start to feel as lost as Alice. A touch bewildered and overwhelmed and wondering where that Cheshire cat was. I decided that I would have to make some choices if I was going to meet my deadlines and achieve the personal goals I had set for myself. So here are some of the steps I took to get back my balance.

1) Assess: I had to take a close look at what I had to do each day and week and figure out a way to put it in order so that I wasn’t driving myself mad with activity or guilt because I wasn’t getting things done.

2) Prioritize: Next was taking a good look at what had to be done and figuring out what I could delay or cancel.  Bye-bye went my Saturday Morning Chit Chat posts (for a while any way) and slow, slow went the transformations I was doing on the house.

3) Simplify: Simplifying was looking at all the steps in the processes around me and determining if I could remove some.   I love following different blogs and providing comments, but for those blogs that post multiple times a week can be a difficult time juggle, so I decided to visit once a week and look at all the post from that week then. Less chaos and a nice treat when I get there.

For the day job, simplify meant taking the travel out of the job. Working from home means I get more done. There are less interruptions  but, I also get some of those home tasks done because I’m not spending that extra 40 minutes in the car. If you can’t work from home consider asking colleagues to give you a little alone time. Set specific hours to help you  get through some of the bigger or more complicated tasks you have at work.

4) Automate and Standardize: Next I started to look for tools that would help me to bring order to my growing flock of responsibilities. Most of those changes involved using technology to reduce the burden of activities I was carrying at work and home.  That activity is still in progress, but I have high hopes. It also means getting the electronic calendar organized so I’m not moving like a ping pong ball from activity to activity.

5) Acknowledge:  Acknowledging that many of the juggling acts I was facing were brought on by me was a big part of finding some calm. I’m not a rut kind of girl. I don’t like doing the same thing over and over again indefinitely so I am always looking for the new idea, challenge or approach, you name it, I’m on it.  I’m occasionally overwhelmed by change, but I’m rarely afraid of it.

If I’m going to take on new challenges, then I have to accept that some of the things I love won’t get done. It’s my job to ensure that the important jobs are completed and the less critical work is what slides.

6) Strategy: Whatever the solution might be, I know I need the space to think strategically about it. If I’ve taken on a series of activities or been given too many additional responsibilities, I need to get to the root of the problem and deal with it. This may mean putting aside a couple of hours to determine what’s causing the chaos and how I might address it.  It could mean taking a couple of days or weeks.  Whatever the challenge, taking the time required to resolve the situation will inevitably be more productive, cost efficient and sane than trying to manage the impossible.

7) Exercise: It’s important to note that when the time crunch started to be felt I added more, not less exercise to my schedule and I’m looking to incorporate more still. I’m not a fitness guru by anyone’s stretch of imagination, but exercise helps me to stay more alert and agile mentally and physically.

So how do you find the balance between doing what you love, loving what you do and finding time for those you love? 

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