Leader's Digest #79 (September 2023)

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Leader’s Digest is a monthly publication by the Leadership Institute of Sarawak Civil Service, dedicated to advancing civil service leadership and to inspire our Sarawak Civil Service (SCS) leaders with contemporary leadership principles. It features a range of content contributed by our strategic partners and panel of advisors from renowned global institutions as well as established corporations that we are affiliated with. Occasionally, we have guest contributions from our pool of subject matter experts as well as from our own employees. The views expressed in the articles published are not necessarily those of Leadership Institute of Sarawak Civil Service Sdn. Bhd. (292980-T). No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without the publisher’s permission in writing.

Editorial Desk

From the Benchmarking

One way to judge the performance of an organization is, of course, to compare it with others. While every organization is unique and no two corporations follow the exact same path to success, benchmarking gives a starting point for measuring the operations. A process of comparing performance, processes, or products with industry leaders. Benchmarking identify gaps, strengths, and opportunities for improvement. By analysing and making comparisons to the processes or performance of others, organizations would be able to keep up with industry trends and meet the demands of more contemporary industry members.

Benchmarking works for identifying leadership too. Agile leadership metrics can help identify strengths and weaknesses of leaders and the team, set realistic goals for improvement, learn from best practices and successful examples, and motivate and inspire team to achieve higher standards of excellence. Joe Demo in his Leadership Benchmark Report acknowledged the Domain Model of Leadership (Hogan& Warrenfeltz, 2003) that identified Four domains that form a natural overlapping developmental sequence for leaders.

1. How you behave

2. How you relate

3. How you lead

4. How you think and plan

Harder

train Easier

Dr Michael Hall a well-known NLP trainer similarly summarized the understanding of what it takes to lead into 2 mains from the being (attitude, way of being) and the doing (enactment, behaviours) of Leadership. These were benchmarked against good leadership.

1. Attitude: Authenticity, congruence, integrity.

2. Enactment: Contributing, communicating, pioneering, collaboration.

While there may be many more, the first step in the process is to identify what will be benchmarked. Depending on each organization’s core business these may range to include expense-to-revenue ratios, hiring strategies and stakeholder satisfaction. Then the task lays in to pinpoint the areas that need improvement.

Transform your leadership and team’s results with the power of small habits

Your team won’t become a high-functioning powerhouse after one offsite. You can’t be a trusted, influential leader after one week on the job. There are no leadership hacks or shortcuts that will transform your organisation or results. But there is a way to do all these things that’s available to you and every leader: the power of small habits.

A Riddle and a Dream

Let’s kick things off with a quick riddle: What tips the scales at over a hundred million tons, floats, and can inspire daydreams or cause destruction?

Keep thinking about it as we travel back to 1845.

In the mid-19th century, no suspension bridge designed for trains existed. The idea was deemed far too risky, and most engineers wrote it off as an unsafe proposal. Fast forward ten years, the world was introduced to its first railway suspension bridge, connecting the US and Canada over the Niagara River. The story of this engineering marvel begins with a simple picnic and a letter.

While Canadian entrepreneur William Merritt was enjoying a picnic with his wife, they received a letter from their children touring Europe. In this letter, the kids described an impressive suspension bridge they’d seen in Switzerland. This sparked a dream in Merritt –he envisioned a similar bridge across the Niagara River, capable of facilitating rail travel and enhancing trade with the rapidly growing US network.

How Leaders Use Small Habits for Big Results

BY DAVID DYE

Merritt obtained the government’s permission, formed a company, and hired the right talent – in this case, Charles Elliot Jr., a dynamic engineer with a knack for promotion.

A Small Solution to a Big Problem

The initial challenge was how to get a line across the gorge. The simplest approach, one Leonardo da Vinci had suggested centuries earlier, was to use a kite. Elliot saw an opportunity for publicity and staged a competition: a $5 prize to the boy who could first fly a kite across the Niagara Gorge.

The winner, a young boy named Homan Walsh, succeeded on his second attempt. Elliot tied a thicker string to the kite string and pulled it across the gorge. Gradually, thicker ropes were tied and pulled across until eventually, a cable could be drawn across the river. This was the starting point of the bridge that took another seven years and a different engineer to complete.

Monumental projects often start with a simple act. An inconsequential kite string laid the foundation for a groundbreaking bridge. When you’re overwhelmed with massive projects, look for your “kite string”—the smallest action that gets the ball rolling.

A Small Answer to a Big Riddle

This brings me back to the riddle. What weighs over a hundred million tons and can both float and stir up a multitude of emotions?

Clouds.

Clouds are millions of small, almost negligible droplets. Despite their massive cumulative weight, these droplets are less dense than the air around them, which allows them to float. What an incredible metaphor for the power of small activity to make a big difference.

Vincent van Gogh once said, “Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together.” He probably wasn’t contemplating clouds, avalanches, or railway bridges, but his words ring true for leadership. Small habits, repeated consistently, bring transformative results.

But maintaining this consistency is easier said than done. Some days you’re in a hurry. Tired. Feel overwhelmed. And it’s easy to forget to check for understanding, schedule the finish, repeat your team’s purpose, or follow up when someone doesn’t follow through.

And for that one day, it may not make a big difference. That’s the problem with small habits – missing it once doesn’t feel consequential. But miss the habit too often and soon you have a problem.

One skipped “check for understanding” leads to days or weeks of wasted time and frustration. Forget to “schedule the finish” and you waste time you don’t have chasing down projects and frustrating team members who are working on other time-sensitive tasks.

What’s Your Small?

The Leadership Power of Small Habits

Whether it’s a small act of defiance against an unjust system, a brief moment to reinforce a value, or a celebration of progress, each seemingly insignificant step contributes to a larger outcome over time.

In nearly every core leadership development program we lead, we start with six foundational skills you can build on for greater influence and transformational results:

ӹ Show up with confidence and humility

ӹ Focus on results and relationships

ӹ Mind the M.I.T. (know what matters most and the specific initiatives, activities, and small habits that lead to success)

ӹ Communicate Consistently (Communicate key messages at least five times, in five different ways)

ӹ Check for Understanding (Ensure communication happened)

ӹ Schedule the Finish (Discuss priorities and create mutually agreed moments for completion)

These activities are critical examples of small habits with a big payoff. Checking for understanding avoids misunderstandings and wasted time. Scheduling the finish increases accountability and energises your team. Consistent 5 x 5 communication keeps everyone aligned and aware of what matters most.

It’s easy to get discouraged when the big wins seem far away. Your struggle today may not feel all that glamorous but know that every small step matters, especially when it’s a step you’ve taken before.

Each moment of encouragement, each clarification of purpose, goals, and success habits, each kind word, every moment of accountability or clarification with your team has an accumulative effect. Like threads in a towel, each small action weaves into a larger tapestry of leadership, influence, and meaningful outcomes.

So, what’s your kite string? Where can you get small today?

Where can you take that micro step that will make a macro difference?

Small habits are mighty, and incremental changes lead to monumental outcomes.

David Dye

David Dye helps human-centered leaders find clarity in uncertainty, drive innovation, and achieve breakthrough results. He’s the President of Let’s Grow Leaders, an international leadership development and training firm known for practical tools and leadership development programs that stick. He’s the author of several books including Courageous Cultures and is the host of the popular podcast Leadership without Losing Your Soul

The Endless Soundtrack –Rethinking Our Reliance on 24-7 Entertainment

BY JULIET FUNT

Rediscover Mindful Living

Why has it become so hard to do simple tasks without a simultaneous audio entertainment track? I’m sure I’m not the only one to see this trend in myself and my family. There are five of us—me, my husband, and our three teen boys. We have eight pairs of AirPods between us, and we get our money’s worth from them. But I don’t think this trend is our friend.

Collectively, I believe we are developing an intolerance for silence or any gaps in our stimulation over the course of the day. Doing the dishes, cutting vegetables, shaving, working out, taking a walk, and folding laundry seem increasingly incomplete without a podcast, music track, or audiobook. For some people, even doing work tasks or schoolwork requires a soundtrack.

This particular form of escapism is worthy of deeper exploration and caution.

The Hidden Cost of Ever-Present Entertainment

I love audiobooks and podcasts. I have an insatiable interest in personal development and transportive fiction, both of which I consume in audio form. But this endless desire to be plugged in feeds into the multitasking norm all around us. Consequently, we’re forgetting how to be with our own thoughts, how to enjoy simple things—and we’re often running from feelings and realities of our lives that need attention.

What is very clear to me from my experience as both an escaper and one watching the escape is that our “presence” is not where our bodies are but rather where our minds are. There is a name for this phenomenon of leaving the room without leaving the room. It’s called “absent presence,” a concept generally originated by Swarthmore psychology professor Kenneth Gergen. Absent presence is what happens when you’re physically in the room but not “in” the room. It affects our relationships and can have an impact on our enjoyment of life and clarity of mind.

The famous Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh, who I was lucky enough to go on retreat with, once said: “While washing the dishes, one should only be washing the dishes, which means that while washing the dishes, one should be completely aware of the fact that one is washing the dishes.”

Sound boring? Actually, it’s not. I know because when I was on that retreat, we were asked to do everything mindfully. The pleasure of each activity increased to the degree we were successful. When I’m in a Buddhist state of mind and can wash the dishes with full attention, I experience a tremendous amount of satisfaction in the process, from the warm water to the soapy suds to the act of transforming a dirty thing into a clean one.

Source: Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

When it comes to listening to music, or really any audio content, the personalisation aspect introduces another factor—with multiple family members begin plugged in separately to their own devices at the same time. When sitting around on a Saturday, why are we not listening to one thing altogether? Because the bounty of entertainment choices before us has made group compromise seem unnecessary. Why try to agree on a musical genre when I can listen to the Beatles at the same time my husband listens to his Aerosmith favourites, and my kids enjoy Imagine Dragons?

In addition to separating us, the endless soundtrack habit also affects how well we do the task at hand. We all know that multitasking affects our performance at work, making our IQs go down and our mistakes go up. But interestingly, the University of Cambridge found that mental multitasking can even diminish our performance in non-cognitive activities such as athletics. In a study of elite rowers from the university’s boat club who took a recall test while rowing, their rowing power fell by an average of 12.6% due to a phenomenon called the “selfish brain,” where the body directs glucose to the brain over the muscles when both are simultaneously taxed.

And the constant auditory input that many of us now indulge in can have severe implications for our capacity to focus and maintain attention. The mind, continuously toggling between various stimuli, finds it challenging to settle into a state of deep focus, necessary for the cultivation of creativity and complex problem-solving.

Committing to More Mindful Time

I’ve learned over the years that I can only influence my family so much, but our screen-free Sundays (which will be the topic of the next newsletter) have helped, as I can count on at least one day per week where we can’t plug into anything. For course correction beyond this one communal agreement, I’m going to begin with these commitments to myself, adhering to them as best I can:

1. I commit to becoming aware of all the entertainment and stimulation I “grout” into my day. “Grouting” is the tendency we have to see an open moment in our day as something to fill in, like grout that fills in the spaces between the tiles. I’ll watch my craving to “fill in” as it appears and I’ll try to sit with the craving without giving in.

2. I commit to alternating entertainment time with white space. With more awareness and building willpower around my grouting tendency, I’ll try to consciously alternate time for mindfulness and being fully present, time for multitasking entertainment, and time with others (without distractions and devices).

3. I commit to using history to remind myself of what’s possible. I’m grateful for every modern tool that fuels our society today. But the very recent advent of portable entertainment has meant that silence is now a choice, not a fact of life. I will bring to mind the centuries of people who walked through the activities of life with only nature’s soundtrack and be inspired by this contemplation. By imagining the farmer, the baker, the lighthouse keeper, or even the mother of the past, I will inspire myself to step into the uncomfortable silence and trust its gifts.

What we truly value is reflected in what we actually do. If I value thoughtfulness—which I wholeheartedly do—I need to value and re-prioritise the time I give to it. And I know that you do as well. Being present to ourselves, to others, to our purpose is a gift we can give ourselves, our colleagues, and the people we love. I hope you make your own commitment to entertain yourself less and just “be.”

Here’s to the challenge before us. To embrace the glorious landscape of entertainment being gifted to us without losing our presence and connections in the process. I believe that with one small act of mindfulness at a time, we can do exactly that and perhaps even eventually inspire our loved ones to follow suit.

Are there specific activities or times of day when you consciously choose to unplug from audio entertainment? What are they, and what has your experience been like?

Juliet Funt

Juliet Funt is the founder and CEO at JFG (Juliet Funt Group), which is a consulting and training firm built upon the popular teaching of CEO Juliet Funt, author of A Minute to Think.

WHY MENTAL HEALTH CONVERSATION COMPETENCE IS CRITICAL FOR LEADERS’ SUCCESS

BY FLEUR HEAZLEWOOD

Empowering Leaders to Foster Psychological Safety and Mental Wellbeing in the Workplace

Rising levels of stress, burnout and mental illness mean mental health conversation skills are no longer a nice-to-have, but necessary. Leaders are expected to provide psychologically safe and mentally healthy working environments yet often lack the skills and training to support the wellbeing of their people.

The Australian Productivity Commission’s Inquiry into Mental Health recommended in 2020 a series of reforms across workplace, schools and community services to improve people’s mental health and ability to participate and prosper in our country. This was enacted with the April amendments to the Work Health and Safety Act which now requires organisations and leaders are now required to provide both a psychologically safe working environment and manage psychosocial hazards. This includes providing a healthy working environment, actively managing the work causes of stress before they get out of hand and providing support for mental health issues.

We are not currently managing psychological safety well Mental health is a safety risk in the workplace with over 90% of Australia’s mental health compensation claims linked to work-related stress or mental stress. The three most common causes of mental stress are preventable and relate to a lack

of psychological safety at work: work pressure, work-related harassment and/or bullying, and exposure to workplace or occupational violence. We are also seeing increased numbers of people experiencing chronic stress and burnout. Gallup research reveals the top five factors that correlate most to employee burnout:

» Unfair treatment at work.

» Unmanageable workload.

» Unclear communication from managers.

» Lack of manager support.

» Unreasonable time pressure.

of mental health skills is no longer an excuse

Ignorance

While the signs for mental ill health are not easy to see, mental health challenges are natural and common, not a niche issue to delegate to Human Resources. Mental Health First Aid Australia research shows that at least one in five people in our teams right now are experiencing a diagnosable mental illness. More than 50% of people with a common, diagnosable mental illness do not receive professional help. So, people are struggling on their own who don’t need to be. And research shows that the earlier someone connects with help, the easier and shorter their healing journey is likely to be.

Source: Vector image is from freepik.com by @pch.vector

Mental health conversation competence is critical for leader success

Most of us move into leadership and management roles with clarity around the strategies, targets, projects and results we are expected to deliver. There is an investment in training for induction and then ongoing time dedicated to work-inprogress meetings, either one-on-one or in teams, and the performance expectations come with a range of measures for assessing our levels of performance and success.

Less explicit and often more informal, unwritten and unmeasured is an assumption that we will also manage the wellbeing of our team within the cracks of our leftover time. But when we don’t manage the interpersonal dynamics well, leave those who are unwell to struggle, allow interpersonal conflict to fester or accept poor performance, we undermine both our own health and performance and that of our overall team. A mentally healthy environment is one in which leaders protect, respond to, and promote mental health for their people.

While burnout and mental health issues have traditionally been viewed as an individual’s problem to manage, the reality is that these won’t be solved without leaders proactively managing a healthy working environment. This means mitigating the risk of psychosocial hazards by ensuring your people have the clarity, prioritisation, training, support, resources, knowledge, feedback, and supervision they require to perform their jobs healthily and well.

This is still an emerging area of organisational and leadership development. Winc is an organisation that I work with that understands that mental health and wellbeing is a core part of a leader’s role. Winc has trained all people managers in Mental Health Mastery Conversation Skills and has a trained Mental Health First Aid representative across all geographical locations and shifts.

Recognise and respond to early warning signs

The most common challenges I hear is a lack of competence and confidence in recognising the signs someone is struggling, providing psychological safety, knowing what to say, how to respond when someone isn’t ok, what is appropriate support, and how to manage both care and performance.

When we see someone struggling, we need to reach out and make the effort to connect. We don’t have to be experts in mental health to have a caring conversation that connects someone who needs help to support. Someone experiencing mental illness will, most of the time, function well at work with support and professional help.

The good news is that mental health and wellbeing literacy is something that can be learned and added to our leadership skills toolkit. It also provides us with a performance advantage. In 2017 I partnered with ITW Construction for a whole of workplace resilience and wellbeing capability building program as the foundation for creating a positive, healthy, high-performance culture. Icare sponsored the evaluation which was complete with a team at the University of Melbourne which showed significant reductions in safety issues, absenteeism and turnover while achieving revenue and market share growth.

There are upsides to upskilling our mental health literacy

When we provide a psychologically safe environment at work all of our team members are able to contribute and do their best. Mental health conversation competence strengthens relationships with and within teams, leads to increased trust, improved communication, collaboration, and overall performance. The more openly team members are able to discuss issues as they arise, admit mistakes, and ask for help, the less likely that mental health and wellbeing challenges will turn into performance problems. And research clearly shows that people who feel valued and supported at work perform better, are more engaged and stay longer. To put it simply, people who are well do well.

FLEUR HEAZLEWOOD

Fleur Heazlewood is a leadership expert, speaker, facilitator and founder of the Blueberry Institute and author of Leading Wellbeing - A leaders guide to mental health conversations at work.

Source: freepik.com by @storyset

WHO CONTROLS YOUR DAY? MASTERING EMAIL OVERLOAD

BY MICHELLE GIBBINGS

Navigate Email Overload and Reclaim Your Productivity

Do you remember the memo?

How you answer that question is likely age-dependent. For the uninitiated, the memo was a communication process that has mostly left the workplace. You’d write your message, and everyone who needed to receive a copy would be listed at the top of the page. It was printed out, and each respondent’s name was highlighted. It was then put in the internal mail system and hand-delivered by the mail person.

Once you received your copy, you’d typically have a few days to think about your response. If the issue was urgent, you’d call them, but otherwise, you’d type up the answer, print it out, and put it back into the internal mail system.

Yes, it was a slower process, and the turnaround time would feel like a lifetime in today’s working world. But it gave you the benefit of time to think.

Now everything’s instantaneous. People expect emails to be responded to by the end of the day, at best or worst, within an hour.

When email was first introduced, it felt liberating. I still remember thinking how awesome it was and how it was going to make everything so much more productive. Sadly, that hasn’t turned out to be the case.

Productivity is falling

As the Author Gretchen Rubin laments, “Technology is a good servant but a bad master“.

Many of us have become addicted to emails, with our day controlled by the email inbox. As finance expert Alan Kohler explains in this recent news item, it’s killing our productivity. I found the statistic he shared about the volume of emails produced each day surprising and also unsurprising. According to the research he shared, 350 billion emails are landing in inboxes daily, which equates to about 70 emails per adult across the globe each day.

That’s an enormous figure, and yet, I suspect you’re likely thinking, ‘Yep, that’s about how many I receive’ (or you may receive more).

Emails are helpful, but they’ve also become a crutch for bad workplace habits.

Challenge the bad habits

ӹ People email rather than step into the challenging conversation.

ӹ People email to get the issue off their desk and onto someone else’s desk.

ӹ People email to diffuse accountability and avoid decisionmaking.

ӹ People email because it feels faster than an alternative communication approach.

ӹ People email outside of working hours in an attempt to show people how busy they are.

ӹ That list is certainly not exhaustive, and I am sure you could add to it. What do you think is missing?

Own your role

Emails play a role in our professional and personal life, so you want to challenge the role they play for you.

Ask yourself:

ӹ Does this need to be an email, or would I get a better and more effective outcome if I picked up the phone and called?

ӹ If I am sending an email, is the intent clear as to why I am sending it and what I need from the recipient/s?

ӹ Does each person on the list really need to be a recipient, or am I butt-covering somehow?

ӹ Is the tone of the email clear, or could it be open to misinterpretation?

ӹ Am I engaging in an email war with a colleague, and will this inflame the issue?

Avoid the overload

Avoiding email overload takes discipline, practice and agreed ways of working.

As a team, talk about when email is the appropriate communication method and when other tools or face-to-face conversations are more effective.

Additionally, it can help to set protocols for emailing. Some organisations have specific standards and have adopted emailfree days or email-free time periods.

Other organisations are explicit about how to handle emails outside standard working hours. For example, using reminders in the signature block [“Note: I work flexibly, and so this email has been sent at a time that works for me. XX company supports flexible working practices, so please respond to this email during your standard working hours”].

Others have system-administered rules about emailing outside a person’s working hours. For example, if you try to email outside the person’s standard working hours, you get a system-generated prompt asking you – “Do you want to send this message outside the recipient’s standard working hours?”.

Don’t be a slave to the email ding or message alert. Switch messaging alerts off so you can control when and how you engage with email.

As well, consider the following:

ӹ When composing emails, prioritise clarity and brevity. Clearly state the purpose of the email and the desired action to avoid confusion and unnecessary back-and-forth. If you find it hard, apply appropriate email templates

ӹ Have a clear subject heading so recipients can prioritise and categorise emails effectively.

ӹ Only send the email to people who need it, and avoid cc’ing multiple people.

ӹ Where possible, only touch an email once. This means, when it comes into your inbox, decide which ones can get actioned immediately and which ones need more thought.

ӹ Don’t send an email when you are stressed and in ‘reaction mode’.

ӹ Consider when to reply, forward, and loop in specific team members to prevent unnecessary looping in emails and email traffic jams.

Set a quiet zone

When you want to do deep, thoughtful work, you need space and time to think and reflect. It’s challenging to do that when you jump back and forth between the task and responding to emails.

Constantly checking emails disrupts workflow, effectiveness and productivity.

It helps to time block your day and set aside dedicated time to respond to emails. Outside of those times, don’t look at your email.

I’ve seen people with messages at the bottom of their email signatures advising that they have a ‘quiet inbox’ and only check their emails in the morning and afternoon. While that approach may not suit all roles or workplaces, determine what works for you.

Inbox Zero isn’t a magic pill

There is a sense of relief when you have zero emails in your inbox, and many productivity experts recommend striving for this.

The Inbox Zero approach involves regularly processing emails and taking action on them (i.e. responding, filing, or deleting) to maintain a clean and organised inbox. Experts suggest creating folders and labels to categorise and organise emails based on projects, clients, or urgency. However, this approach isn’t a magic pill, particularly when getting to ‘zero’ becomes the main objective of your working day.

At the start of each day, get specific as to where you need to focus and direct your energy. Do the most important thing first when you are fresh, and your brain is at optimal capacity. Check and respond to emails at a time that matches the style of thinking and energy required.

You want to control your working day, not let other elements and technology control your working day.

Michelle Gibbings

Michelle Gibbings is a workplace expert and the award-winning author of three books. Her latest book is ‘Bad Boss: What to do if you work for one, manage one or are one’. www.michellegibbings.com

Source: freepik.com

DO YOU KNOW Y OUR LIM ITS?

BY MICHELLE GIBBINGS

There are things we know and things we think we know. There are also things that we assume everyone else knows.

The critical question is whether we can identify the limits of our knowledge and understanding and the assumptions underpinning our thinking.

Earlier this year, I was chatting with a friend about the inner dialogue we often have running through our heads. This is the voice we hear when we are writing or reading. It can be our voice of self-praise and self-criticism. It can help with self-awareness, planning and a myriad of other activities.

I had assumed, wrongly, that everyone has an inner voice.

It turns out there are people who don’t have an inner voice or inner monologue. This article in The Guardian highlights the work of neuroscientist Dr Helene Loevenbruck of Grenoble Alpes University’s Laboratory of Psychology and Neurocognition in France. Dr Loevenbruck studies language and cognition.

Now, why some people don’t have an inner voice is a question that’s still being explored. What researchers do know is that the inner voice is created in a network of different brain regions, including the inferior parietal and precuneus lobules and bilateral inferior frontal activation.

If you want more, it is worth reading Dr Loevenbruck’s article, which explains the role of our inner voice, and when it can become unhelpful (i.e. rumination, which I have written about before, Reflect don’t ruminate).

Now, all of this is a lovely way to get to the real point of this article…there is so much we don’t know.

It’s impossible to have all the answers, and even with the power of Google, AI and other devices, it’s impossible to have all the knowledge at your fingertips.

Start with humility

The first step is accepting that fact.

Intellectual humility is recognising that our knowledge is limited and we are fallible beings. It is an acknowledgement that no person possesses all the answers regardless of their role, status and experience. Embracing intellectual humility allows us to remain open-minded, receptive to new ideas, and capable of adapting to novel situations.

Recently, a group of academics came together to study intellectual humility. In their research, reported in Nature Reviews Psychology, Assistant Professor in Psychology at Rowan University, Tenelle Porter and colleagues identified its common trait.

It was the “…meta-cognitive ability to recognise the limitations of one’s beliefs and knowledge”. Their review found that the key factors influencing whether a person has intellectual humility include elements such as relationship security and social coordination.

Intellectual humility is deeply intertwined with the ability to receive feedback openly and accept that wisdom often lies in seeking counsel from others.

Surround yourself with people from diverse cultures, professions, and backgrounds. Engaging in meaningful conversations with others who have different views that will challenge your assumptions and broaden your horizons.

Travel to destinations unknown. Shift your routine. Do something you’ve never done before. Make something you’ve never made before. The options are endless.

These activities will alter how you see yourself, the world and your place in it, and importantly, enable you to see the world through different lenses.

Create space

Elevate the gap

After acceptance comes awareness.

It’s getting curious about what you don’t know. Curiosity is the driving force behind knowledge expansion. Embrace your innate sense of wonder and question the world around you. Be bold, ask questions, explore new topics, and challenge your beliefs. Curiosity paves the way for new experiences and insights, helping you expand your awareness beyond your comfort zone.

Be honest with yourself about what you don’t know, and don’t shy away from seeking guidance from others who possess expertise in areas you lack. This humility allows you to fill those gaps and enhances your awareness.

Embark on learning adventures

As part of this, embrace lifelong learning (and yes, I know this is something I go on about this all the time). When you love learning so much becomes easier.

Learning should not be confined to the classroom or formal education. Read books, take online courses, attend workshops, and engage in discussions with people from diverse backgrounds.

Take time to reflect on what you’ve learned and how it has impacted your awareness. Journal your thoughts, observations, and newfound insights regularly. Selfreflection helps solidify your learning and reinforces a continuous cycle of acceptance, awareness and adaptation.

Mindfulness practices like meditation and self-reflection provide a pathway to deeper self-awareness. By slowing down and observing your thoughts and emotions, you can identify areas where you might be unconsciously biased or limited in your understanding.

As British polymath, Sir Claus Moser said, “Education costs money. But then so does ignorance”.

For me, the cost isn’t just about money. Cost can be time, commitment and energy. Everything we do in life has a cost involved, and it’s about knowing what matters the most so you can spend wisely. It’s hard to do that when self-awareness is missing in action.

Michelle Gibbings

Michelle Gibbings is a workplace expert and the award-winning author of three books. Her latest book is ‘Bad Boss: What to do if you work for one, manage one or are one’. www.michellegibbings.com.

As more organizations are turning to benchmarking as the means for goal setting and the tool for performance measurement Tim Stapenhurst wrote this book on benchmarking observing the increased demands for operational efficiency and process improvements.

Stapenhurst highlights that there has been a surge in interest in Six Sigma and other improvement methodologies in the last few years. The connection between these and benchmarking shows that they are closely related. Indeed, it has been said that benchmarking is a short cut improvement process as it identifies best practices without us having to try to invent them ourselves. This book covers the essential areas important for consideration whenever addressing the matter of benchmarking such as project management and legal issues, giving the step-by-step guide to organizational assessment of processes and performance. He says that benchmarking begins with collecting benchmarking information using personal interviews, site visits, surveys, and archive research.

Stapenhurst discussess how benchmarking also mean using people that have the right mix of experience and analytical skills. The Benchmarking Book shows how to determine what products or processes to benchmark. One thing for sure, identifying benchmarking partners that truly represent the “best-in-class” for exactly the product/process is vital.

DIANA MARIE

Diana Marie is a team member at the Leadership Institute of Sarawak Civil Service attached with Corporate Affairs who found love in reading and writing whilst discovering inspiration in Leadership that Makes a Difference.