Breakthrough Newsletter

Volume 2 Issue 3

 


 
Breakthrough Newsletter

  Volume II, Issue  3                                                                          Top March 2010

PITAGORSKY
CONSULTING

In This Issue
Don't Panic and React, Respond
Being in the Moment
Is Optimal Performance a principal goal of yours?
Optimal Performance Progran
This program weaves together the critical skills for optimal performance, across weeks or months to enable measurable improvement. It consists of six segments that stand alone as well as build on each other. 

More about the Program
Breakthrough
"Productive insight; clear (often sudden) understanding of a complex situation."  Free Dictionary

Pop the bubble of conditioned thinking and emerge into the creative realm of "no absolutes," continuous change, uncertainty and unlimited possibilities.

Then, there can be innovation, adaptation and optimal performance.
Performance & Open-minded Mindfulness:
Open-minded: questioning everything, accepting diversity and uncertainty.  

Mindful: consciously aware; concentrated. 

Foundation for blending process, project, engagement and knowledge management into a cohesive approach to optimize performance.
This Newsletter
Our aim is to stimulate the kind of thinking, dialogue and understanding that leads to optimal performance.  

Let us know what you think.  Email Breakthrough
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Upcoming Events

Project Management University (PMU) Webinar - Free
Date: April 9, 2010 12:00-1:00pm EST
Event: The Zen of Cultivating Optimal Performance
Presenter: George Pitagorsky
Register now
If optimal performance is not a overriding goal in any organization and every individual, there is something seriously missing.  Optimal performance may seem like an impractical goal but once we define what it means and explore how to achieve it we see that it is not only practical but essential.  In this session we will explore how as an individual one can optimize his or her performance and how this becomes a base for organizational performance excellence.

Learning Objectives:
* Define optimal performance
* Identify the basic elements required for achieving it
* Practice mindfulness as a basis for cultivating optimal performance.

PMI EDSiG Webinar - Free
Date: April 15, 2010  12:00-1:00pm EST
Event: Learning at Work: Training, tacit knowledge, social networking and just-in-time learning
Presenter: George Pitagorsky
Register now
This session addresses formal education as one part of Knowledge Management and identifies how organizations have tended to over emphasize it at the expense of the more important aspects of on-the-job learning, tacit knowledge transfer and, the application of learning and performance measurement. This session explores the critical role tacit knowledge plays in the learning process and how working in teams and in social networks made up of members with different levels of expertise and different perspectives contributes to individual and organizational learning. Just-in-time learning (learning that occurs at the time the knowledge is needed, at work) is defined and methods for enabling it are described.
Don't Panic and React, Respond
By George Pitagorsky
 How often do we find that people do exactly what Janet's grandmother says they do? I don't think she was giving advice, but rather commenting on the tendency that many people have, which is to "freak out" when they are faced with danger and doubt.
 
Of course there might be some benefit to running in circles and screaming - it could scare away an enemy or call attention and elicit help, but I think we can agree that for the most part it is dysfunctional behavior.  
 
Panic is being overcome by a sudden fear; an overwhelming sense of fear and anxiety. When people panic they tend to act irrationally and often make things worse. Panic is an extreme form of reactive behavior.
 
Reactive behavior is dysfunctional. It doesn't directly address the objectives of the people involved.  In some instances it may take care of the present situation, but rarely does it address the long term and the possibility of avoiding recurrence of the events that led to the reaction in the first place.  Reactive behavior doesn't involve much thinking.  
 
When being reactive, there is a tendency to become caught up in an emotional cycle that leads to behaviors that are exaggerated or in other ways inappropriate. They are simply not in-keeping with the needs of the current situation.
 
Being Responsive
An alternative to being reactive is being responsive. "Being Responsive is being in the moment, being aware and being able to discern and differentiate relative priorities and take appropriate, constructive action. Responding is taking responsible action in the moment."[1]
 
Being in the moment, aware and able to analyze, plan and act are the key characteristics of responsiveness. Responsiveness doesn't imply being slow to act. The master performer responds in the moment, integrating years of practice and scaling the degree to which planning and reflection takes place to the needs of the situation.  
 
Cultivating Responsiveness
How do we cultivate responsiveness? We learn to take control of our minds. The simple, powerful technique of mindfulness meditation is a mind training that cultivates these characteristics. Mindfulness brings forth three critical mental qualities, calmness, concentration and witnessing. The three are interrelated.  The simple, powerful technique of mindfulness meditation is a mind training that cultivates responsiveness as well as insight, calm objective thinking and a number of health related benefits.

Of these three mental qualities, witnessing is the most complex and meaningful.  Witnessing is being consciously aware of what is taking place in and around oneself. While witnessing is a natural part of everyone's mind, it often becomes relegated to the unconscious. In the early stages of mindfulness training we become aware of the witness. At first it is like an inner voice objectively perceiving thoughts, feelings, etc. It may seem as if the witness gets in the way of spontaneous behavior. As one becomes accustomed to the witnessing it becomes integrated as a bare awareness so that it not only does not get in the way of spontaneity and total involvement it promotes them.     
 
Responsiveness results from the cultivation of mindfulness. The alternative, reactivity, leads to dysfunctional behavior and that costs in time, money and the quality of relationships.  

Being in the Moment
By George Pitagorsky
 We are often advised to be in the moment so that we can avoid the reactions that come from not being in the moment.  But, what does being in the moment mean?  
 
Of course we are always in the moment. Where else could we be?  Perhaps presence may be a better term to use. While we may be in the moment we may not be fully present, awake and mindfully aware. 
 
All too often we get lost in thoughts of the past and future, thoughts of gain and loss, fame and fortune and we become less aware of what is happening in the here and now. We become open to reactive and often problem causing behavior.  
 
Maybe you have experienced driving or walking along and reaching a point where you became aware and had no idea how you got to where you were.   
 
Or, maybe you were at a meeting and a direct question brought you out of some mind trip and back to awareness of what was happening around you.  
 
Where were you?  Or more precisely, where was your mind; where were your thoughts?
 
Clearly you were operating. There was no accident; you got to where you intended to go without incident. You didn't fall off your chair at the meeting, and probably no one knew you were off somewhere in your mind.
 
Chances are you were lost in thought about something, though you might have experienced a sleep state in which thinking slowed or even stopped. 
 
Either way you were not aware, not mindful of your behavior. 
 
So what can you do about it and why do it?  Well, the motivation for doing something about not being in the moment is the desire for optimal performance.  If you want to perform in a way that fulfills your goals, whatever they may be, then be in the moment.  On the other hand if you are satisfied with being on auto-pilot and relying on luck and past experience and training, then just keep doing what you have been doing.
 
What can you do?  You can cultivate mindfulness and concentration.  You do that by resolving to be aware of everything going on in or around you and to discern the difference between being asleep and being awake.  You simply choose a focal point (the breath or the sensations of your body, for example) and whenever you become aware that you are no longer aware of it bring your attention back to it and reengage in whatever it is that you choose to do.
 
 
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