Perceptual positions & Halloween

I had a client once that went all out for Halloween. Just about everyone showed up in costumes and there were prizes for individual or team costumes. At the time I was there, it was commonplace for work to be outsourced to India so my group decided to do a team costume of “IT outsourced to Mars”.

Should remote workers have cameras on?

For remote workers, the issue of cameras on or off keeps coming up. There’s no question that having cameras on allows for much richer interactions. We can start to interpret body language and can pick up on so many subtle hints that just aren’t possible when the cameras are off.

Fixation errors

Back in the 1990’s, it wasn’t uncommon for people to check code into the repository that didn’t work. Sometimes it wouldn’t even compile.

All we are is change

We often hear that people are “resistant to change”, and yet as a friend of mine is fond of saying “all we are is change”.

Validating assumptions

I was coaching a team once and I made a suggestion to one of the developers about something they could do differently. The actual suggestion isn’t important to the story so I’ll ignore that.

Fairness

We have a biological need for fairness. If we perceive a situation that is unfair, even if that unfairness doesn’t directly affect us, the anterior insula is activated1. The insula is a key part of our brain, relating to empathy2.

  1. Psychological Safety: The key to happy, high-performing people and teams by Radecki and Hull, 2018 

  2. Uddin LQ, Nomi JS, Hébert-Seropian B, Ghaziri J, Boucher O. Structure and Function of the Human Insula. J Clin Neurophysiol. 2017 Jul;34(4):300-306. doi: 10.1097/WNP.0000000000000377. PMID: 28644199; PMCID: PMC6032992. 

Getting out in nature

Feeling stressed? Getting out in nature might be that quick fix that you need.

Stages of competence

The conscious competence model describes four, or possibly five, different stages that we move through as we are learning a new skill.

Default Mode Network

For us to have those powerful insights or “aha” moments, we need to have a moment of brain pause. From a neuroscience perspective, that means that the Default Mode Network needs to be active.