FAQs
If your question is not listed below, please feel free to contact MindFit and we will be happy to answer it for you.
The learning process we use in all MindFit programmes is predominantly natural learning rather than the traditional approach using theories and models. We also work on making people Mind Fit first, as this is the entry point for further development.
It is a whole brain approach rather than cognitive and instead of just playing to your strengths, we help people develop new ones – quickly. Having a ‘can do’ mindset or attitude, leads to drive and determination and ultimately, higher performance.
MindFit is about performing at your best in whatever you are doing – and improving that performance where possible. In the technical sense it is a theory, however it’s not the way we use it when helping people and organisations improve their performance. As our focus is to make improvements to the current situation the theory really isn’t important. What is important is to everyone is the Mind Fit process and how people change negative attitudes into positive ones linked to actions that impact personal or business imperatives.
With each new client we are not testing or exploring a theory. We want people to take action and not focus on learning.
However, this is our pragmatic client facing rationale, as we want people to use the intuitively right aspect of the Mind Fit Map® to identify attitudes and behaviours in different context that makes it unique to them. This in turn leads to negative behaviours being stopped that cause poor performance.
We describe Mind Fitness as ‘choosing to use our natural abilities to perform to our optimum in different situations, through ‘can do attitude and a ‘winning mind’’. Exploring this description, alongside the Mind Fit Map, enables people to quickly identify their own, others and the culture of the organisations in a simple but meaningful way. This easily recognizable form allows people to choose to change their own negative attitudes and behaviours.
Why we avoid the theory route?
If we were to move into the world of science then it would be argued that Mind Fit is a theory as it presents a concept or idea that is testable. In fact, that has been done by Graham Williams and by various Masters students and academics. The Mind Fit Map does provide a model for understanding humans, through emotions and behaviours. Whilst there is a place and a need for Knowledge learning, it generally leads people to ‘learn’ but not ‘do’. Becoming Mind Fit is about doing.
It is an interesting area for exploration and for those of you who like to know the sources here is a list of some of the key theories to be found:
- Flow – Mihaly Csiksentmihalyi 1990
- Deliberate Practice – K Anders Ericsson 1993
- Optimal Performance – Williams & Kane 2000
- Learned Helplessness – Martin Seligman
- Self Efficacy – Albert Bandura
- Locus of Control – Rotter 1966
- Attention Style – Nideffer 1978
- Implicit learning – Berry 1997
- Distraction – Tipper 2005
- Emotional Intelligence – Mayer & Salovey 1997
So if push came to shove we would have to acknowledge that Mind Fit is a theory however; we do not use it as such in the ‘real’ world and we want to avoid people getting sucked into the world of knowledge seeking which as we know does not easily transfer into desired behaviours or business results.
Learned Helplessness – is it an epidemic?
Back in the sixties, Dr Martin Seligman and a group of psychologists at the University of Pennsylvania conducted a pioneering series of experiments to help to better understand why some people seem unable to pick themselves up when the going gets tough.
Their results were revolutionary!
This is an over-simplification of Seligman’s work but captures the principles from it.
The scientists placed a group of dogs in individual cages from which they could not escape. Once in their cage, the dogs were subjected to a series of uncomfortable electric shocks through the wire mesh floor. Eventually they gave up struggling to escape from their cage and just put up with the shocks.
Later the dogs were placed in a different cage from which they could very easily escape and were again subjected to the same series of electric shocks. Quite unexpectedly, most of the dogs did not move; even though they could now escape, they remained passively in the cage and resigned themselves to even more shocks. Seligman called this state of inertia, even in the face of pain, ‘learned helplessness’.
Seligman later tested this concept of learned helplessness on people. Thoughtfully, he substituted a loud noise for the electric shocks, and instead of imprisonment, he substituted a dummy switch that did not turn off the noise. Once again he found that even when a genuine switch which did control the noise was available, most of the people ignored it.
Now, it is easy for all of us to believe that we would simply have flicked the switch and turned off the horrible noise, but the majority of Seligman’s subjects did not. In fact, they were almost exactly the same proportion as his helpless dogs. Somewhere between two-thirds and three-quarters of people and dogs learned to be helpless when a significant degree of control of their environment was removed.
What both groups have done is transfer a negative experience into other situations which if consistently repeated reinforces a state of helplessness – hence learned helplessness is a fitting term.
Back in the real world
Like the experimental subjects, the major problem for helpless people is that their present and future actions are based on what they have learnt from the past. Seligman’s work helps us to understand that their life experiences, probably from an early age, will have shaped their understanding of ‘how it is in their world’ and how they use this understanding to live in the here and now, and predict their futures.
Helpless people come to perceive the world in general as a bad place where most things go wrong, most of the time. This state of affairs is further aggravated by the conviction that they are part of the problem. They believe that the dreadful state of the world that they inhabit is largely their fault because there is nothing they can do to put it right. They make statements such as “I can’t do that” or “Everything I touch goes wrong” and, “I used to be confident but I’ve lost it. I can’t remember things. I’m useless”. This toxic trinity of beliefs where the world is a bad place, where everything goes wrong and it’s my fault can lock them into a state of paralysis, condemning them to a life of victimhood. Their focus is turned inwards and it is inevitably on the ‘I’.
Learned helplessness, like every other state, is self-sustaining. It works like this. A lot of us believe we have real or imagined weaknesses. How often do you hear people saying, ‘I can’t use computers’, or ‘I’m no good at presentations’? A lot of people will do something about these weaknesses. They will sign up for a course on IT skills, or deliberately develop their presentation skills. However, people who are feeling helpless tend not to address their weaknesses. Instead they develop, often unconsciously, tools and techniques to avoid exposing themselves to any threat of failure.
This is a disastrous policy. This avoidance means they are removing things they could actually control from their own agenda, and the outcome is that they learn to become even more helpless. This is how people spiral down into deep levels of learned helplessness, all on their own.
Helpless people reinforce their beliefs by hanging around with like-minded people. Have you ever come across a group of people around the water-cooler who ‘moan’ constantly, who only see the negative side of life? The talk is all about the fact that nothing positive ever happens around here and if it does it is just luck. They become stuck in a shared view of a life where nothing is right. And crucially, they fail to run any robust reality checks. The ‘evidence’ for their beliefs is all around them, from headlines in newspapers to constant change at work; but only because they cherry-pick the evidence to suit their own views.
Today, in a world of economic collapse, unpredictability and uncertain future, the state of learned helplessness is being identified in many organisations across the world rendering them incapable of adapting to the changes that are needed not just to survive but more importantly, grow. Some feel that learned helplessness has reached epidemic status.
How to recognise signs of learned helplessness at work
If you feel you are in a negative spiral at work, and that you are incapable of coping with new and stressful situations, ask yourself the following questions:
- Do you feel that bad past experiences still affect the way you think, feel and behave today?
- Do you feel that most of the control over your working life lies with your manager or other people?
- Do you find you have to stick to a fairly rigid ‘script’ or ways of doing things?
- Does your level of commitment to your organisation feel low?
Remember it is learned helplessness, so you can unlearn it.
MindFit is the entry point for further development. If someone hasn’t the right mindset and ready to move further then any intervention will have much less of an effect – “..no better than random chance” according to the CIPD. Once a person understands the key components of how to become Mind Fit then you can add the relevant and useable knowledge.
We also work on two dimensions – not just one to develop people. Having a ‘can do’ mindset leads to drive and determination and ultimately, higher performance and increased productivity.
Do you remember learning to ride a bike? I guess you did not attend a workshop on bike riding but got on it with stabilisers or someone holding the seat whilst you set off. Then suddenly, the support is removed and you are on your own.
You have learnt to ride without knowing how you learnt. It happened naturally and you don’t forget.
There are lots more examples of natural learning: tie a shoelace; tie a bowtie; talking; walking…. the list is endless.
The added difference, we also make it fun and memorable.
Your personality is partly hardwired in before birth and continues to develop through your experiences throughout your life. It is a collection of consistent patterns relating to how you think, feel and behave in different situations. Some of your personality can be changed if you choose to do so. By becoming Mind Fit that is in your control enables you to make those choices. You will be able to handle many of those issues that you face with confidence.
There are some, but many are often short term or they may fix the way a person responds to every situation. For instance, a person may adopt a compliant approach at work to avoid taking responsibility or use their anger to prevent people from challenging them. Both do have advantages, but they can become personally destructive as the impact of negativity may result in a person suffering from stress.
For organisations, performance will definitely be compromised.
Our programmes are based on organisational and individual needs and therefore they are all bespoke. They will include those parts that are relevant to meet those challenges that are faced. We avoid a ‘sheep-dip’ approach.
The reality is that for a majority of people changing habits that have been learnt over a lifetime does not happen instantly, although in some cases this is possible if they recognise that those habits are personally damaging.
The good news is that small changes can have a major impact and we have a lot of evidence where people have changed one habit and moved quickly from a negative fixed mindset to one where they feel positive about life and have improved their work performance – and its not forced, its done willingly.Some habits do take longer to change. Bad habits can be stopped immediately if a person chooses to do so.
Research informs us you can change overnight but that it is longer for those deeply ingrained habits which can take up to 3 months. But let’s face it, what’s 3 months in the bigger picture.
We use the MindFit process and embrace it around everyday issues in businesses – different themes that include:Developing the corporate athlete; Developing Mind Fitness; Starting your own Business; Inspirational leadership; Driving change; Increasing performance and productivity; Revolutionising sales; Effective team working; Network leadership; Organisational and personal change; Conflict resolution; Tackling bullying; The human factor and safety in the aircraft industry; Increased personal and organisational effectiveness; Anger management; One-to-one coaching; Stress management for individuals and teams; Preparing for and dealing with redundancy.
The length of these programmes may vary depending on the needs of the organisations and the individuals who may have developed some very negative habits. Look at ‘Mind Fit Programs‘ for information on the programmes on offer.
These are varied but here is a range of examples.
Personal
- I feel more confident
- I became better organised, by planning, reviewing and communicating better
- The insights have been staggering. I now realise I can do so much more and really influence things that are important
Team
- I have become more tolerant which has allowed me to accept people differently
- I have stopped criticising others and respond more positively
- I am able to manage meetings professionally with people who were experts in their job and enjoyed prevaricating
Organisational – added and new value
- Recovered £300,000 by tackling a two-year backlog of cases within seven weeks
- Efficiency improved; one operation was reduced consistently from 2.75 hours to 45 minutes
- Increased productivity by 250% in a white goods manufacturer
Some organisations have adopted an approach where they identify people’s strengths and ensure that those strengths are used appropriately. This undoubtedly is a positive way forward.
The downside is that they ignore the potential strengths that are available to them within all their staff and not just those that have been picked out as having talents. If you only progress people whose potential strengths have been observed, then the remaining staff, which will be the majority, are likely to become disengaged.
In fact, research shows that 80% of UK workers are already disengaged.
Why make it worse?
Some organisations have adopted an approach where they identify people’s strengths and ensure that those strengths are used appropriately. This undoubtedly is a positive way forward.
The downside is that they ignore the potential strengths that are available to them within all their staff and not just those that have been picked out as having talents. If you only progress people whose potential strengths have been observed, then the remaining staff, which will be the majority, are likely to become disengaged.
In fact, research shows that 80% of UK workers are already disengaged.
Why make it worse?
Science informs us that we are all born virtually hardwired the same but we end up with our own unique characteristics. These differences are learnt through our experiences. Bad ones can lead us to have a sense of inadequacies whilst others result in a more rigid and dominant approach. Good experiences can lead to a positive, optimistic and driven mindset. Sitting behind these differences is our beliefs about ourself, the world and how we operate in it.
As Henry Ford said, ‘If you belief you can or you belief you can’t you are right’. Check out your own beliefs when confronted with a challenge. Is it can’t, won’t or can that dominates your thinking. As William James said ‘If you change your attitude (beliefs) you can change your life’.