Training and Development Managers!
PUZZLED about where to find content for your learning program, portal or LMS?
Get 1000+ management and soft skills training resources from Mind Tools Corporate.
Find out more
Quick Tools
Announcing Your Winning Tools !
|
|
|
|
In this issue, we announce the winning "mind tools" from our recent readers' survey. We asked you to nominate your top two favorite tools, and also the one you'd most like to recommend to your boss!
We learned a lot about how readers make good use of "mind tools" in their work and lives. We learned so much, in fact, that we announce the overall winning tools this week - but we're saving your recommended "mind tools" for bosses until the next issue in two week's time.
So, let's roll the drums. It's time to announce the winning tools!
In third place we have Brainstorming. Not surprisingly perhaps, as it’s a great technique to help achieve a whole range of results. So in our article today on brainstorming, we have summarized for you some of the many uses of this excellent and popular technique. We're sure that sometime this week, brainstorming will help you get a better result - whether with decision making, problem solving, planning or pretty much anything else you are working on. Try it and see!
In second place, comes Mind Mapping.
Here’s what readers said about Mind Mapping: “It brings clarity to problem
solving”; “It induces and supports a clearer focus, resulting in higher
productivity and a boost in morale”; and “It helps structure thinking
before dropping into action”.
Mind Mapping is a much-loved tool here too among the Mind Tools team
too (as you saw in last week's "Mind Tools Reviews" supplement.)
As with Brainstorming, there’s a wide range of uses for Mind Mapping:
Use it alongside brainstorming to help structure your decision making,
problem solving, planning or note taking. If you’re not already a convert
to Mind Mapping, try it, and you soon will be!
And finally, in first place, the winning tool from our survey is goal-setting.
One reader summed it up for many of you: “I think goal setting is one
of THE most under-rated activities for the human race – I think it should
be taught to school age children as well as in the business world.“
If you are a parent, perhaps some of you will be inspired to teach this
tool to your children! Whether or not you’re already in the goal-setting
habit, be sure to check out the tools and make progress on your next
goals today!
So all that remains is to announce the prize draw winners from our survey:
The winners are Kristy Wietholter in the US and Juhi Sharma in India.
A gift certificate of US$100 is on the way to each winner. Well done
to our winners, and a big thank you again to every single reader who
replied to our survey!
Enjoy the winning tools!
James & Kellie
|
||||
|
New tools on the Mind Tools site
- 21st Apr 2006 - Impact Analysis - Identifying the "unexpected" consequences of a decision
- 18th Apr 2006 - Mind Tools Review 1 - MindGenius - Think Creatively. Decide Wisely.
- 14th Apr 2006 - Schein's Career Anchors - Understanding what inspires you in your career
Find out about new tools on the Mind Tools site the moment they’re uploaded! Click here to subscribe to the Mind Tools RSS feed (you'll need an RSS newsreader installed), or here to find out more about RSS.
Winning
Tool:
Personal
Goal-setting
Find direction. Live your life your way
Goal
setting is a powerful process for personal planning and it’s the number
one “mind tool” in our recent survey of readers’ favorite tools!
The process of setting goals helps you choose where you want to go in
life. By knowing precisely what you want to achieve, you know where
you have to concentrate your efforts. You'll also quickly spot the distractions
that would otherwise lure you from your course.
More than this, properly-set goals can be incredibly motivating, and
as you get into the habit of setting and achieving goals, you'll find
that your self-confidence builds fast.
Goal setting techniques are used by top-level athletes, successful business-people
and achievers in all fields. They give you long-term vision and short-term
motivation. They focus your acquisition of knowledge and help you to
organize your time and your resources so that you can make the very
most of your life.
By setting sharp, clearly defined goals, you can measure and take pride
in the achievement of those goals. You can see forward progress in what
might previously have seemed a long pointless grind. By setting goals,
you will also raise your self-confidence, as you recognize your ability
and competence in achieving the goals that you have set.
Goals are set on a number of different levels: First you decide what
you want to do with your life and what large-scale goals you want to
achieve. Second, you break these down into the smaller and smaller targets
that you must hit so that you reach your lifetime goals. Finally, once
you have your plan, you start working to achieve it.
Starting to Set Personal Goals
This section explains a simple technique for setting personal goals.
It starts with your lifetime goals, and then works through a series
of lower level plans culminating in a daily to-do list. By setting up
this structure of plans you can break even the biggest life goal down
into a number of small tasks that you need to do each day to reach the
lifetime goals.
(Don't forget: If you want to fast-track your goal setting and get the
most from it, then either join our Design Your Life program or talk
to one of our coaches.)
Your Lifetime Goals
The first step in setting personal goals is to consider what you want
to achieve in your lifetime, as setting Lifetime goals gives you the
overall perspective that shapes all other aspects of your decision making.
To give a broad, balanced coverage of all important areas in your life,
try to set goals in some of the following categories (or in categories
of your own, where these are important to you): Artistic; Attitude and
Mindset; Career; Family; Financial; Career; Health & Fitness; Pleasure;
and Public Service.
Once you have decided your goals in these categories, assign a priority
to them from A to F. Then review the goals and re-prioritize until you
are satisfied that they reflect the shape of the life that you want
to lead. Also ensure that the goals that you have set are the goals
that you want to achieve, not what your parents, spouse, family, or
employers want them to be.
Once you have set your lifetime goals, set a plan of smaller goals that
you should complete if you are to reach your lifetime plan. At a 5 year
plan, 1 year plan, 6 month plan, and 1 month plan of progressively smaller
goals that you should reach to achieve your lifetime goals. Each of
these should be based on the previous plan.
Then create a daily to-do list of things that you should do today to work towards your lifetime goals. At an early stage these goals may be to read books and gather information on the achievement of your goals. This will help you to improve the quality and realism of your goal setting.
Finally review your plans, and make sure that they fit the way in which you want to live your life.
Staying
on Course
Once you have decided your first set of plans,
keep the process going by reviewing and updating your to-do list on
a daily basis. Periodically review the longer term plans, and modify
them to reflect your changing priorities and experience.
Setting Goals Effectively
The following broad guidelines will help you to set effective goals:
- State each
goal as a positive statement: Express your goals positively -
'Execute this technique well' is a much better goal than 'Don't make
this stupid mistake'
- Be precise:
Set a precise goal, putting in dates, times and amounts so that you
can measure achievement. If you do this, you will know exactly when
you have achieved the goal, and can take complete satisfaction from
having achieved it.
- Set priorities:
When you have several goals, give each a priority. This helps you
to avoid feeling overwhelmed by too many goals, and helps to direct
your attention to the most important ones.
- Write goals
down: this crystallizes them and gives them more force.
- Keep operational
goals small: Keep the low-level goals you are working towards
small and achievable. If a goal is too large, then it can seem that
you are not making progress towards it. Keeping goals small and incremental
gives more opportunities for reward. Derive today's goals from larger
ones.
- Set performance
goals, not outcome goals: You should take care to set goals over
which you have as much control as possible. There is nothing more
dispiriting than failing to achieve a personal goal for reasons beyond
your control. These could be bad business environments, poor judging,
bad weather, injury, or just plain bad luck. If you base your goals
on personal performance, then you can keep control over the achievement
of your goals and draw satisfaction from them.
- Set realistic
goals: It is important to set goals that you can achieve. All
sorts of people (parents, media, society) can set unrealistic goals
for you. They will often do this in ignorance of your own desires
and ambitions. Alternatively you may be naïve in setting very high
goals. You might not appreciate either the obstacles in the way, or
understand quite how much skill you must develop to achieve a particular
level of performance.
- Do not set goals too low: Just as it is important not to set goals unrealistically high, do not set them too low. People tend to do this where they are afraid of failure or where they are lazy! You should set goals so that they are slightly out of your immediate grasp, but not so far that there is no hope of achieving them. No one will put serious effort into achieving a goal that they believe is unrealistic. However, remember that your belief that a goal is unrealistic may be incorrect. If this could be the case, you can to change this belief by using imagery effectively.
This
is something we focus on in detail in Mind Tools’ "Design
Your Life" program, which not only helps you decide
your goals, it then helps you set the vivid, compelling goals you need
if you're to make the most of your goal setting.
Achieving Goals
When you have achieved a goal, take the time to enjoy the satisfaction
of having done so. Absorb the implications of the goal achievement,
and observe the progress you have made towards other goals. If the goal
was a significant one, reward yourself appropriately.
With the experience of having achieved this goal, review the rest of
your goal plans:
- If you achieved
the goal too easily, make your next goals harder
- If the goal took
a dispiriting length of time to achieve, make the next goals a little
easier
- If you learned
something that would lead you to change other goals, do so
- If while achieving the goal you noticed a deficit in your skills, decide whether to set goals to fix this.
Failure
to meet goals does not matter as long as you learn from it. Feed lessons
learned back into your goal-setting program.
Remember too that your goals will change as you mature. Adjust them
regularly to reflect this growth in your personality. If goals do not
hold any attraction any longer, then let them go. Goal setting is your
servant, not your master. It should bring you real pleasure, satisfaction
and a sense of achievement.
Key points:
Goal setting is an important method of:
- Deciding what
is important for you to achieve in your life
- Separating what
is important from what is irrelevant
- Motivating yourself
to achievement
- Building your self-confidence based on measured achievement of goals
When you achieve goals, allow yourself to enjoy this achievement and reward yourself appropriately. Draw lessons where appropriate, and feed these back into future performance.
The Mind Tools Store:
- Design
Your Life
Design the life you want to live. Set the clear,
vivid, powerful goals you need to live it to the full.
More >>
- Make
Time for Success:
Learn 39 essential personal effectiveness techniques that help you
bring your workload under control and maximize your productivity,
so that you can make the most of the opportunities open to you.
More >>
-
The Mind Tools E-book:
All of the tools
on the Mind Tools website in one convenient, easily-downloadable,
easily-printable PDF file. We have excluded advertising to enhance
clarity and have formatted sections to be easy to read, print and
use.
More >>
- How
to Lead: Discover the Leader Within You: Learn
the 48 simple but essential skills you need to become a top leader
in your industry.
More >>
- Personal Coaching from Career Excellence Professionals:Find career and life direction, bring your job under control, build self-confidence and put yourself on the path to long term success with a Mind Tools coach. Our coaches give you the focused personal coaching you need to make the very most of your career and life. More >>
Winning
Tools:
Brainstorming - A Truly "Core" Mind Tool!
by
James Manktelow
Brainstorming is an important and powerful technique, and one that I use regularly, either individually in my day-to-day work or in decision making and planning with other members of the Mind Tools team. I’m pleased that brainstorming is so popular among newsletter readers!
It’s a great tool for developing creative solutions to problems or challenges that you face. If you run up against blockages in your thinking or obstacles that you’re struggling to overcome, it helps you break out of existing patterns of thinking and find unexpected and fresh approaches. More than this, it’s a useful tool for bringing the skills, wisdom and experience of your entire team into decision making, often with impressive results.
Instead of talking directly about the winning tool with you here in the newsletter (you can refresh yourself on it at http://www.mindtools.com/brainstm.html) we decided to talk about some of the ways the technique can be used. Because it’s such a potent technique, it lies at the heart of a surprisingly large number of other mind tools.
So here is a mini-tour of some of the tools that make good use of, or help this great technique!
Impact
Analysis (http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTED_96.htm)
Let’s start with one of this week’s new Mind Tools –
Impact Analysis. This tool helps you explore the likely impacts of making
a change, so that you can better avoid or manage the negative ones.
Brainstorming is used to identify areas that are affected by the change.
Risk
Analysis (http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMC_07.htm)
This tool helps you manage the risks that you or your business face.
An initial step is to identify these threats. We use brainstorming in
conjunction with structured thinking to do this in a thorough and unconstrained
way.
Drill
Down (http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMC_02.htm)
Drill down helps you analyze and solve problems by ‘drilling down’
into several levels of detail. Starting with the problem, you can brainstorm
the possible causes and then drill down on these to look for possible
options. At any level of ‘drill down’, brainstorming can
be used to expand possible solutions and questions, and so expand the
analysis of a problem and its solution beyond the obvious.
PEST
Analysis (http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMC_09.htm)
This tool helps you understand the large scale forces of change operating
in your environment. By understanding this, you can make sure that what
you do is aligned with these changes (and is therefore more likely to
be successful) rather than acting against them. We use brainstorming
to identify the factors in your environment that could affect you.
Value
Chain Analysis
(http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMC_10.htm)
Value Chain Analysis is a useful tool for understanding how you can
create the greatest possible value for your customers. Brainstorming
helps you and your team think about the ways you can improve your service
in creative and less-than-obvious ways.
Cause
& Effect Analysis
(http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMC_03.htm)
Cause and Effect analysis helps you to think about the possible causes of a problem thoroughly. The technique uses brainstorming to generate all the possible causes, with this brainstorming represented as a Cause and Effect Diagram. By brainstorming, you can make sure you consider a whole range of possible causes, rather than just the obvious (and possibly wrong) ones.
Random Input (http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newCT_07.htm)
Random Input is a technique for introducing extra lateral thinking into brainstorming. Rather than just using the current ideas or issues as a starting point, this technique involves “seeding” brainstorming with random words to kick-start idea generation. This is great for getting fresh and stunningly original ideas!
Reverse
Brainstorming
(http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newCT_96.htm)
This tool offers an alternative way of brainstorming for decision making and problem solving. Instead of brainstorming possibilities by asking, “how do I solve or prevent this problem?” or “how do I achieve the results I want?”, you ask the opposite question: “how could I possibly cause the problem?”, or “how could I possibly achieve the opposite effect?” This is another great technique to use when you run dry on “normal” brainstorming!
Winning
Tools:
Mind Mapping
A Powerful Approach for Note Taking
"Mind Map" is a trade mark of the Buzan Organization
How
to Use Tool:
Mind Mapping is an important technique that improves the way you take
notes, and supports and enhances your creative problem solving. By using
Mind Maps, you can quickly identify and understand the structure of
a subject and the way that pieces of information fit together, as well
as recording the raw facts contained in normal notes. More than this,
Mind Maps provide a structure which encourages creative problem solving,
and they hold information in a format that your mind will find easy
to remember and quick to review.
Popularized by Tony Buzan, Mind Maps abandon the list format of conventional
note taking. They do this in favor of a two-dimensional structure. A
good Mind Map shows the 'shape' of the subject, the relative importance
of individual points and the way in which one fact relates to other.
Mind Maps are more compact than conventional notes, often taking up
one side of paper. This helps you to make associations easily. If you
find out more information after you have drawn the main Mind Map, then
you can easily integrate it with little disruption.
Mind Maps are also useful for:
- summarizing
information
- consolidating
information from different research sources
- thinking through
complex problems, and
- presenting information that shows the overall structure of your subject
Mind Maps are also very quick to review, as it is easy to refresh information
in your mind just by glancing at one.
Mind Maps can also be effective mnemonics. Remembering the shape and
structure of a Mind Map can provide the cues necessary to remember the
information within it. They engage much more of the brain in the process
of assimilating and connecting facts than conventional notes.
Drawing Basic Mind Maps
This site was researched and planned using Mind Maps. They are too large
to publish here, however part of one is shown below. This shows research
into time management skills:
Figure 1: Part of an Example Mind Map
To make notes on a subject using a Mind Map, draw it in the following way:
- Write the title
of the subject in the center of the page, and draw a circle around
it. This is shown by the circle marked 1 in the figure 1.
- For the major
subject subheadings, draw lines out from this circle. Label these
lines with the subheadings. These are shown by the lines marked 2
in figure 1.
- If you have another
level of information belonging to the subheadings above, draw these
and link them to the subheading lines. These are shown by the lines
marked 3 in figure 1.
- Finally, for individual facts or ideas, draw lines out from the appropriate heading line and label them. These are shown by the lines marked 4 in figure 1.
As you come across new information, link it in to the Mind Map appropriately.
A complete Mind Map may have main topic lines radiating in all directions
from the center. You do not need to worry about the structure produced,
as this will evolve of its own accord.
Note that the idea of numbered 'levels' in Figure 1 is only used to
help show how the Mind Map was created. All we are showing is that major
headings radiate from the center, with lower level headings and facts
branching off from the higher level headings.
You can also see why they are sometimes called spidergrams or spidograms,
even though they usually have far more than eight legs!
While drawing Mind Maps by hand is appropriate in many cases, software
tools like MindGenius
improve the process by helping to you to produce high quality Concept
Maps, which can easily be edited and redrafted.
Improving your Mind Maps
Your Mind Maps are your own property: Once you understand how to make
notes in the Mind Map format, you can develop your own personal conventions
to take them further. The following suggestions may help to increase
their effectiveness:
- Use single
words or simple phrases for information: Most words in normal
writing are padding, as they ensure that facts are conveyed in the
correct context, and in a format that is pleasant to read. In your
own Mind Maps, single strong words and meaningful phrases can convey
the same meaning more potently. Excess words just clutter the Mind
Map.
- Print words:
Joined up or indistinct writing can be more difficult to read.
- Use color
to separate different ideas:
This will help you to separate ideas where necessary. It also helps you to visualize of the Mind Map for recall. Color also helps to show the organization of the subject.
- Use symbols
and images:
Where a symbol or picture means something to you, use it. Pictures can help you to remember information more effectively than words.
- Using cross-linkages:
Information in one part of the Mind Map may relate to another part. Here you can draw in lines to show the cross-linkages. This helps you to see how one part of the subject affects another.
A Final Note From James
Goal
setting, mind mapping and brainstorming: A great set of tools to help
you towards greater successes in your life and career! All three tools
are firmly part of the way I work here at Mind Tools and much favored
by other members of the Mind Tools team. I am thrilled that so many
readers share our enthusiasm: And “well done” to the prize winners Kristy
Wietholter and Juhi Sharma, and to everyone else who participated in
the survey!
Still to come from the survey, we have the tools readers wish their
bosses would use. It’s been quite an insight to see the personal effectiveness
boosters people wish on their bosses! I’m not going to say too much
until next issue - let’s just say that bosses are not immune from problems
of time management, managing email inboxes, prioritizing and so on.
Whether you’re the boss at work or you’re keen to give your boss a few
gentle hints, there’s something for everyone in the next issue.
So leave the Mind Tools newsletter lying around your office today! Better
still, get your whole team or department to subscribe! Before you know
it, you’ll be learning career enhancing tips together as a team. And
bosses everywhere will be hearing the gentle hints and tips their team
have never told them….
Until the next issue!
James & Kellie
James Manktelow & Kellie Fowler
Click here to email
Mind Tools
Essential Skills for an Excellent Career!
Privacy Policy:
Mind Tools will treat your email address with complete respect and will not circulate it to any third party.
To unsubscribe, please click the unsubscribe link at the bottom of the email we sent you.
IIf you are not already a member and you would like to subscribe, please visit the mindtools.com site and subscribe using the form on the right hand side bar.
© Mind Tools Ltd, 2006.
If you have enjoyed this issue, please feel free to email it on to your friends and co-workers. If you think they would benefit from the skills we teach, please pass this newsletter on!
Also, you are very welcome to post this issue of the newsletter to your own web site. If you do, you must leave it completely intact, include copyright information, and include both the URL of the mindtools site (http://www.mindtools.com) and the subscription email address for the newsletter (http://www.mindtools.com/subscribe.htm).
|
Where to go from here:
Newsletter archive 
Free newsletter
Join Mind Tools
Join the Mind Tools Club today and get 4 FREE workbooks!
With the Mind Tools Club, you get much, much more than you do here for free.
And we'll give you the 4 workbooks above when you join!
Find out what you getRelated Resources
What Bugs You?
- Let us know about anything wrong, or anything you don't like about this site, and you could win a US$50 Amazon voucher!
Sponsored Links
Leadership Skills