Archives for July 2014

TIP: Stop unwanted calls and text messages on iPhone

July 30, 2014 By Tom Mungavan Leave a Comment

The phone rings, I interrupt what I am doing to answer the call. A recorded message tells me, “I can reduce the interest rate on your credit card. Press ‘1’ for more information .”

Another bogus call! Does that happen to you? What can you do about all those unwanted calls?

When you receive those calls on an iPhone, you can look at your list of Recents in your phone App; tap the “i” in a circle (see picture on left). The details are displayed. Next, scroll down to “Block this Caller” and tap. Like magic, future calls, text messages and FaceTime calls from this number will no longer bother you. (If you change your mind later, go through the same steps and tap “Unblock this Caller“.)

Forgetting helps you learn

July 28, 2014 By Tom Mungavan Leave a Comment

After a great workshop or other learning experience, we often “see the light” and are energized to use the new insights. So why is it often only a week or a couple of months we have trouble remembering what we learned? I know that I can learn to use a special program for a project and do fairly well even if it is new and slow. When I go back six months later I have to learn things over again. If I do this iteration multiple times … eventually most of it “sticks” to my brain.

It turns out we are better off if we learn, forget, and re-learn. Our natural way to learn is to do something, later make a mistake because we forgot part of what we learned and we need to learn it again. Recent research has shown that is the best way to learn.

Annie Murphy Paul, author of “The Science of How We Get Smarter” notes that boot camps give the false sense of mastery and is actually easier than real learning. Spending 40 hours over three months is a better way to learn than a concentrated 40 hour week on a topic, according to Nate Kornell, professor of psychology at Williams College; as long as a similar intense effort is expended in both cases. An application discussion was in the New York Times personal business section June 28th, 2014.

At Change Masters® we have found a clear result from a concentrated learning with followed-up learning is the most effective. We use an intense learning experience followed by what we call “drip learning™” following the intense learning process. Those that use the additional learning and use the skills over a one year period show meaningful and long-lasting changes.

Another way to solidify learning experiences is to immediately apply the new learning on the job (OJT) over time until it is habit. This is just as true of leadership skills as it is for physical skills. In sports, we would not expect to go to a class and know how to shoot par at golf or kick a ball into the net.

Quote of the Day

July 17, 2014 By Change Masters Academy Leave a Comment

Feelings are scary and sometimes they’re painful, but if you can’t feel pain and fear, you can’t feel anything else. Think of feelings as a garden hose; if you ignore them, it’s like tying a knot in the hose — eventually it will burst. Better to feel the feelings and “bleed” the emotional hose — before it bleeds you dry.

Why Teenagers Act Crazy … at work?

July 10, 2014 By Tom Mungavan Leave a Comment

Richard Friedman’s article in the New York Times (June 29, 2014) explains what is being learned from new brain studies. It informs us how to better deal with teenagers as well as how to better understand them. It may also help explain the behaviors of some of our associates in the workplace because of the long-term impact teenage experiences can have on us as adults.

The new findings include the fact that the teenager’s development of anxiety and fear grows faster than their ability to calm their fears. The fear part in the amygdala grows faster than the frontal cortex, which is designed to reason and manage fear. The other fast-growing part of the brain is the reward center, which can often lead to risky behaviors. When you package those realities with the fact that the main role for teenagers is to separate from their parents and become functioning adults, it’s no wonder so many parents live in fear of their children moving into their teenage years. What if we realized that the teenager is more afraid of this stage than the parents? How might we respond differently?

Often the failure to learn to deal with anxieties as a teenager follows people into adulthood and plays out in the workplace. We see studies that indicate that the average emotional age in the workplace is 13 years old. When you see “craziness” in the workplace … ask what fear might be behind the behavior?