Mind Fit for Success

By Graham Williams

This book challenges the traditional approach to people development in business. It provides a compelling argument and evidence that giving people knowledge alone does not lead to attitude and behaviour change or tangible results.

Today, people need to be agile, flexible, and adaptable to meet the unpredictable future caused by the worldwide economic collapse in 2007. Businesses also need to become more agile.

Developing a can do mind-set is a prerequisite to all subsequent development and actions. It is the driver for change. Becoming mind fit is the start point.



In many years experience, I have always been concerned that something was missing: that magic extra ingredient to ensure the learning would be put into practice. Now with the concept of mind fitness, Graham Williams gives us the answer, challenging the conventional approach to training that, as few acknowledge, doesnt work. As the examples in the book show, learning the Mind Fit way is life-changing!
Paul Holmes, BSc, PhD, FCIWEM, C.Env, MCMI

Mind Fits innovative processes ensure people are engaged from the outset. Its joined up thinking for businesses who want to be better.

Rod Cornwell, international director, Thomas International

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Jun 26, 2012
• ISBN: 9781468579147

Graham Williams

Graham Williams was born in Australia. A concert pianist and teacher, he graduated from the University of Adelaide with a Ph.D. and Grad. Dip. Ed. and taught there for 15 years. While studying in Paris he realised that music was one of the few living traditions of meditation in the West. This led him to over ten years’ training as a teacher in both the Burmese and Tibetan meditation traditions, and six years in intensive retreat. He has concentrated on bringing the advanced techniques of these incredibly rich traditions into an easily accessible form. Graham has created a uniquely Australian form of meditation which embraces the rich natural environment and Australian art and music. He is founder and director of the Lifeflow Meditation Centre and has been teaching meditation for over 25 years. He has trained a team of seven teachers who now work together in the Centre, which has taught thousands of people how to meditate and trained hundreds in the more advanced practices. Graham is also an Adjunct Lecturer in the School of Medicine at Flinders University and a consultant to a national company of corporate psychologists and still teaches piano. His retreats in the mallee country of South Australia, near the River Murray, have engendered a love of this timeless, peaceful land and he has become a passionate advocate for the conservation of this unique part of Australia’s heritage. This book is the first in a series of four based on the curriculum of the Centre.

Book preview

© 2012 Graham Williams. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 07/09/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4685-7915-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4685-7914-7 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

The right of Graham Williams to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

Contents

Acknowledgements

Dedication

Preface

The new reality

Mind Fitness

Putting the record straight

Chapter 1 Mind Fitness

Chapter 2 The Business Case for Mind Fitness

Chapter 3 Performance

Chapter 4 Natural Learning

Chapter 5 Beliefs

Chapter 6 Complex Adaptive Systems

Chapter 7 Strengths

Chapter 8 Our Four Selves

Chapter 9 Personal Profile Map®

Chapter 10 The Core Sources And Science

Chapter 11 Completing The Jigsaw

Appendix A Flow chart relating to business performance

Appendix B Strengths from providers referred to in the book

Appendix C Author’s recommended book list

Background to the author and Mind Fitness

The change that occurred was nothing short of unbelievable. Without exception, the whole team was transformed into a highly productive unit. The problems of the past have been resolved.

Chief Superintendent Tony Thomas

I have seen many action plans work back in the workplace, but this was different. People interacted dynamically and with mutual respect

Tony Bentley, MA (HR).

External verifying for the Institute

of Supervision and Management

Having had little self confidence for many years I attended a Mind Fit programme where my beliefs about myself where challenged. It enabled me to recognise my abilities and personal power, this lead to the fulfilment of an ambition to work for myself. I have gone from part time employee to successful self employed international antiques dealer.

Bryony Theobald

Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge the following people whose contribution has made this book possible. First must be Dr Alan Beggs who I worked alongside for several years researching and developing what is now the Mind Fit process. Next is Caroline Buckley whose enthusiasm, feedback and editing has helped me along the way. Finally, Neville Gaunt whose business acumen has enabled me the time and space to research and write.

Dedication

This book is dedicated to:

Lieutenant David Alexander Grant Boyce

1st The Queen’s Dragoon Guards

Killed in Afghanistan

18th September 1986 – 17th November 2011

Preface

The world has changed. Have you noticed?

The 21st century has hit us with a vengeance. Changes are occurring at an unprecedented pace. Yet are we fit to handle this change or are we still reeling under the onslaught of it?

There are many examples around us of a failure to adapt to change. For example, websites are falling behind as social media drives through the new information revolution. Yet many website builders are hanging onto the past with an unshakeable belief that websites drive people to your business. They have not accepted that people drive people these days as relationships are becoming more important and networks grow. Working in collaboration with others in a mutually supportive way, whether locally or internationally, is a major key to growing businesses. This requires an entrepreneurial mindset, not that of a traditionalist.

Classic soft skills training is also under threat. A typical example of its ineffectiveness is time management. How many people attend time management training, yet still struggle to manage time. The transfer of soft skills knowledge training into action has never been great yet it is still prophesised as the route to success. Check out the evidence.

Business consultants may know how to transform businesses through processes and systems but that was before the economic collapse of 2007. The world has changed. How many business owners or consultants are ready for today’s uncertainty?

Human Resource policies, procedures and appraisal schemes do not drive performance or change. They should support it. People who have a purpose, are engaged and have passion drive performance and change.

The new reality

When the environment is relatively stable, the traditional approaches thrive. When it changes rapidly innovators and entrepreneurs, who often live on the edge, expand. Today, the worldwide changes to the economic environment suggest that most of the innovators and entrepreneurs are in the emerging countries. They are clear examples of how people who have lived on the edge are now the forerunners of dynamic new economies. The old traditional economic environment is struggling and stagnating.

Many business people are putting their heads in the sand waiting for the return to a past world where they were the leaders in their field. It is time to stop waiting. The time to change is here now. You can either embrace it or struggle on. The good news is that all of us have the innate assets to change and meet the challenges.

Businesses that fail to adapt will likely die out or, at very best, struggle to survive. The business news is full of such stories of struggling companies whether they are major high tech organisations, camera and film manufacturers or long established holiday firms who continue to seek financial support. The public sector in the UK is a clear example of an organisation that has failed to adapt in a meaningful way for years. It now has to make severe cuts to the services provided and staff. How we operate is also being challenged as some of the larger players like Enron and News International have recently discovered.

This is why becoming Mind Fit is crucial if you are going to survive in the chaos and complexity that has been left by the economic collapse. The evidence that entrepreneurs are making a difference is all around us. Open your eyes and you will see people who are making inroads into new areas; some are creating something new, others are diversifying whilst a few have upped their game. Traditional businesses may bounce back for a while, but in the long run we all need to learn to adapt to change because change is constant.

We can all change, adapt and become entrepreneurial. Neuroscience is informing us how the brain is malleable and therefore can change and grow. We do not have to be stuck in our old habits based on old beliefs of how to do things. We are not what we believe we are. We are more. We have a huge capacity to grow. We can change our beliefs. We can change our personality. We can develop new personal strengths. We can become Mind Fit.

If we are going to change: where to start? We must not lose the learning from the past. We need to take that learning and adopt 21st century methods of development. Some people have already changed and we can learn from them. They needed to do something different to both survive and thrive in their businesses. What caused them to change is the economic climate. This may not have been by choice but out of necessity to survive.

Mind Fitness

This book is about using our innate assets in a dynamic way, to adapt to the challenges by using action based natural learning to make those changes, rather than through knowledge alone. It is an innovative approach to adjusting to an unpredictable future. It is the first step, the entry point that we all need to take to be successful. It is about becoming Mind Fit. Mind Fitness leads to positive actions, to growth, to business improvement. This applies whether you are a small business owner or an employee in a large multi-national.

Doing what we have always done will no longer get us the results that we have always got. The world has changed. So must we. Innovators and entrepreneurs have the ability to adjust to changes by reinventing themselves over and over again in what they do and how they do it. We all have the innate ability to change. We first have to believe it and take action.

Mind Fitness enables a person to perform to their optimum for the benefit of a desired outcome, whether personal or for the business.

One important message to start with. Developing Mind Fitness is not training. The approach does not give people knowledge. The process, which this book outlines, is as different to training as chalk is to cheese. Actions drive Mind Fitness, not knowledge. Mind Fitness drives an innovative and entrepreneurial mindset.

This is a radical new approach which is terrifying many traditionalists in business and people development. Many of those people that have been delivering the same products with the same systems and the same development programmes for decades are struggling. They act as if nothing has really changed. The old thinking, methods and programmes that rarely delivered what clients wanted in the past, will make even less of an impact now.

Mind Fitness is an innovative approach enabling people to change positively, quickly and willingly. It has one very clear aim: to revolutionise people’s performance, and that of the business that they are in or want to build. The approach is both very primitive, which enabled our forebears to survive in hostile and changing environments, yet innovative and 21st century. The gems from the past are linked to some of the latest understanding from psychology, biology, epigenetic, neuroscience and neuroplasticity.

Although science underpins the material in this book, it is very clearly aimed at a down to earth explanation of how we operate as human beings, some of which are positive whilst other ways can be self destructive. You will easily recognise in an intuitive way many of the descriptions that are given in this book in both yourself and others, and the impact that it can have on businesses and our lives.

This book will provide you with intriguing insights, a Personal Profile Map® and introduce you to the core method used to increase Mind Fitness so that you can become an innovator, an entrepreneur and deliver effective performance. It is also a life skill.

Developing Mind Fitness is the prequel to action rather than the traditional approach of giving people knowledge first and hope that they take action back in the workplace. With a ‘can do’ mindset people change their beliefs, attitudes and behaviours and choose willingly to act.

Putting the record straight

Knowledge is beneficial if it is relevant, accurate and useable. The key here is useable. If it is not, then it is a waste of time, effort and money in a business sense. It may be appropriate for personal development but the focus here is to develop people who are agile, adaptable and flexible to meet the challenges of today’s new world.

Mind Fitness does however, when combined with the relevant and useable knowledge, generates in people a sense of Personal Power. Without it people often operate with a ‘can’t do’ or ‘won’t do’ attitude. Mind Fitness produces ‘can do’ people: those innovators and entrepreneurs. Mind Fit people will seek out the knowledge they need when they need it. Not when someone else says they need it.

This book will pull apart the different components of Mind Fitness and explore some of the elements which sit beneath and behind it. It will challenge many of the traditional myths that are regularly expounded by many business consultants and trainers.

The biggest obstacle to discovering something new is the belief that you already know it.

Chapter 1

Mind Fitness

Quote: ‘There is nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so.’ Hamlet, Act II, scene ii

Building a successful business

The traditional approach to building a successful business favoured by many people who work in or support organisations, is that all you need are two parts of the puzzle shown below—Business Fit and Knowledge Fit. The fact that people are involved seems to have been ignored.

First, the components that ensure a business is fit include: vision and mission, a strategy, a business plan with goals and targets, finance, health and safety, HR and training. To implement the plan employees need to have the relevant skills and knowledge so that they are Knowledge Fit. It is simply a matter of connecting the two parts of the jigsaw together, around an organisational structure, policies and procedures, and let it happen.

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Unfortunately, experience tells us it has never worked as well as it should have done. For decades people have been tweaking these two component parts of the jigsaw in an attempt to improve the strength of each and the join that separates them. The missing part of the puzzle, Mind Fitness, has been ignored.

The fact is that today, even after decades of business modelling and training, we still have unacceptable high levels of underperformance, disengagement, stress and conflict at work. Leadership is often criticised and the complexity of working in teams seems to defy explanation. This clearly demonstrates that the adoption and implementation of these various business plans and training inputs are not being actioned in the most effective ways. And in most cases, it is people who do the actioning. People are not that simple.

Neither is the environment simple that businesses and people operate in, particularly today. All of us and the world we live and work in are more complex than most of us can imagine. But there