Human Factors and Change strives to provide you with thought leadership. Our thinking about better projects and change straddles three intersections. Organisational change management, behavioural design and coaching psychology.
While we are proud of our publication, we have a long way to go before we are an outstanding resource for the change and project community. So we are thrilled to curate excellent articles like these ones:
Nuanced thinking about mental toughness
Michael Easter’s article “Mental toughness is totally overrated” is our first article. It’s an excellent counter to many articles promoting mental toughness development. Many mental toughness articles implicitly suggest mental toughness development as a panacea. Is mental toughness the secret to being a good leader or professional operator on projects? Not only by itself — although building our toughness is still something to aspire towards.
Because many of us thrive off challenge and persistence, mental toughness does seem appealing. We may treat mental toughness the same way we approach losing weight, building muscle or physical endurance. But as Michael Easter’s article suggests — is toughness per se a simplistic way to overcome modern challenges? While overcoming challenges can improve your confidence, is mental toughness a pseudo-concept?
Michael’s article suggests nuanced thinking about wanting to be “tougher”. For example:
- Addressing an underlying motivation. Why do we need to feel mentally tough in the first place? What is the problem that mental toughness might solve?
- Sometimes trying harder doesn’t work. Look at our technique or inefficiencies from an outsider’s perspective.
- Find an ally with similar goals and working together by suffering together. It breeds a functional dependency on others so that you can work harder.
- Sometimes your innate talents in something can be a drawback. Gifted people often receive positive feedback on their performance. Yet what happens when this feedback isn’t there?
A practical guide to achieving goals
Dr Benjamin Hardy wrote an article called “A psychologist’s extremely practical guide to achieving your goals”. His ten research back strategies for building a specific future make for powerful reading. Many of the articles in this edition of Human Factors and Change draw from these practical strategies.
I use many of these strategies in practice and especially appreciate the last approach within Dr Hardy’s article. I’m not going to spoil it for you 😊
Habits are …. overrated?
Nir Eyal is a gifted writer in the behavioural design space. His article “Habits are overrated” is a brief but compelling article about the caveat behind building a habit. As this month’s edition of Human Factors and Change focuses on sports psychology and the building of habits, Nir’s article is worth reading.
Socrates was right!
Ruchi Das wrote an excellent article of his battle with anxiety — “Using Socratic questioning in CBT to tackle the root of negative emotions”. Ruchi uses anxiety as his backdrop to tell his story. Ruchi explores powerful questioning techniques (Socratic Questioning). This technique is a part of cognitive behavioural therapy treatment. His article is written as thoroughly as a professional psychologist.
Many of the concepts of CBT discussed in his writing are straight from the Master’s courses in clinical psychology. Psychologists often use case reports to examine an individual case. These case reports distil the active ingredients of treatment. To me, telling one’s own story instead of a de-identified patient is more powerful than a professional case report.
The neuroscience of meditation
In this edition of Human Factors and Change, we focused on the power of our attention and where we place it. It was tempting to move the topics in this edition towards a meditation bent. Meditation is one tactic to improve our performance on projects. Yet I kept the focus on changing our thinking and focusing on mental toughness instead.
Mike Perrotta’s article “Shaping your meditation through brain science” covers both compelling stories and meditation neuroscience. I liked his breakdown of focused attention versus open monitoring as two different ways to meditate. Mike covers the neuroscience between these two types of meditation. I was particularly impressed by his statement:
“Simply by sitting down and meditating, you are sculpting the architecture of your brain. You are making physical changes to your own body. You cannot sit down and will your biceps to grow in size, but you can do so to parts of your brain.”
- Mike Perrotta
I hope you enjoy these articles. Our third edition of Human Factors and Change is about business communication. We share:
- Agile video production techniques;
- Better business communications;
- Learning from advertising, copywriters and other industries involved in mass influence.
Our book — The Change Manager’s Companion — is available now. You can also check out our online course on Change Management.