Now if the airlines would charge for excess emotional baggage ...

Ryanair seems to have won its place in our hearts as the airline we love to hate. But that doesn't stop us using it - it just enables us to engage in our favourite English passtime of moaning and whinging.

The recent publicity is about the possibility of Ryanair increasing its aircraft capacity by 50% by putting in in "bar stools" in the place of regular airline seats.

And that got me thinking. They could make a lot more money by charging people for the excess emotional baggage that some people drag around with them where-ever they go. Me and my shadow.

Wouldn't it be great if we could clean out our psyche and throw away the old stuff before we got on the plane or train. Then there'd be no emotional eruptions or seething resentments or projections to disrupt the holiday or the team meeting.

Ah well, better stick to finding the holiday books to hide away behind.

The coach as a key member of the professional's support team

My split life between "the day job" as coach and performance and learning consultant and role as Chatelaine of Chateau Colombier brings variety to my life - and opportunities for interesting conversations with clients at Le Colombier.

Le Colombier can also be a great observation post for the "shoes off self" of my professional client base. This week Le Colombier has been hosting a group of cyclists and their assorted partners and children. As friends, the team quickly falls into an obviously predicable set of behaviours and roles.

While preparing the meal for their table d'hote on Saturday, (involving lots of chopping of fresh ingredients) I was reflecting on the role of the coach and learning support, especially in these days of instant gratification of fact and information via the internet; the online world of blogs and twittering; the 24/7 world.

A lot of what we have to bring to our coaching practice is to know where to put the refreshment points for our clients; to predict their likely patterns of need, use and interaction. We also have to provide emergency services to help when people stray off course - or when the conditions change, or sometimes when they need some companionship along their way.

Astrologists tell us that we are now entering the Age of Aquarius. This is the sign of the water carrier. Our clients have to be prepared to carry their own water for our journey. But it's ok to need help; to visit water stations along the route to pick up provisions, to ask for directions, for a chat by the camp fire, to meet new firends and fellow travellers to share the next stage, and for stimulus and debate.

Do drop by and share your stories!

Watching the world go by

“Were you truly wafted here from paradise? No, Luton Airport …”

My house in the south of France (see www.chateaucolombier.com, or follow its comings and goings on twitter lecolombier) gives me a great opportunity to people watch. But at this time of the year I'm busy being the bonne chatelaine, as well as the gardener etc etc ... This, as well as the paper work for the 2 businesses, really work my lesser preferred Sensing preferences.

Looking for the recipe for Melon Gazpacho soup to serve to guests this weekend, of course it wasn't where I thought it might be. (ENTP aside: we make great archeologists and historians and chronologists as daily we have to try and recall which storage system we might have been using when we filed something away. Yes, it's wearysome. But that's the way we are).

What first started as a search for a recipe led me to remember that I'd attached it to an article for the BAPT Typeface newsletter a couple of years ago (autumn 2006 was the copy draft, if I am to believe the file's time stamp.

So here you are - the whole article (and the recipe). I thought about editing it to make it more up-to-the-moment. But I leave it as it was to give a little pre-creditcrunch perspective.

And I do recommend the soup - I recycled the recipe from our favourite restaurant the Petit Caveau in Nyons - it passes the test of time.

Who hasn’t taken a budget airline flight in the last 5 years? Even if the UK hasn’t embraced the euro, the queues through security at any airport attest to the popularity of travel to the ever increasing number of cities across the 27 countries of the EU. Bulgaria and Romania were welcomed as full members of the EU in January 2007; Croatia, Macedonia and Turkey are still candidate countries.

These travellers are not just off for a weekend break to discover the history and culture of Prague, Riga, Zagreb or Sofia. Some will be on the 6.40 flight to Bucharest for meetings with colleagues, customers, clients. Some will be visiting friends and relatives before they return to their financially more secure jobs in the towns and cities of “old Europe”.

As a historian, linguist, educationalist, organisational development consultant and Type and MBTI® practitioner, developing a clear understanding of “culture” is a fundamental starting point for my work. What is culture?: the lens through which an individual views and makes sense of the world, which informs expectations of how things are done round here.

When in Rome, do as the Romans do

This isn’t enough any more for business. You might be in a business meeting in the EUR district in Rome, but your colleagues around the table could be from Italy, Hungary, Poland, Scotland and South Africa. We can’t make any assumptions about first languages or the “mother tongue” of colleagues. The 2000 U.S. Census shows that nearly one out of five Americans speak a language other than English at home — and the vast majority of them speak Spanish. A quick Google suggests that there are over 230 living languages used daily in Australia. I was recently working with a group of 7 people in London with combined language skills in English, Croatian, Serbian, Swedish, German, French, Punjabi, Hindi, Urdu, Arabic. Only 1 used the English language at home.

Unless you only buy a newspaper for the SUDOKU puzzle, you’ll have come across the term “the global village”. The business pages are full of reports of the growth of India as the new “office of the world”, or China as the new “factory of the world”. This means that Cultural Intelligence will have to take over from Emotional Intelligence as a priority competence for leaders and the led.

As members of the BAPT type community, recognising type differences helps us develop our cultural intelligence. Our explorations of type help us see that people with different personality preferences interpret experiences and beliefs differently.

When working with groups of individuals, we see that even if they come from the same “cultural” heritage (similar nationality, birthplace, ethnicity, age, gender, language, education, physical condition, sexual orientation, religion, profession, place of work and its corporate culture), personality preferences can be a strong predictor of mis-communications, conflicts in working styles, and the lack of common or mutual understanding.

Now with the ever increasing complexity of the global cultural mix, we need to develop our own awareness of the many ways in which cultural differences impact on decisions, communications, team working.

I run a series of open workshops in London for executive PAs (personal assistants). Participants come from across Europe and beyond, as well as Brits and many non-British nationals living and working in the UK.

A high proportion of the PAs show an SFJ type preference. Many find it hard to say no, and do display a common SF motivation for being practically supportive to their bosses and teams. However, other factors are often at play. Sophie from a City financial company felt she had to work long hours because long hours were the working culture, and to leave “on time” would have a negative effect on her annual bonus. While Maria from Zagreb, PA to the CEO of a large supermarket chain, knew she was in a well-paid job – and feared there were plenty of other highly skilled workers waiting to take her job off her; and that she could be sacked for “saying no”.

So as my colleagues and I continue to work with more and more diverse teams, of mixed cultures and across cultures, the question is – where do we begin?

I’m not sure. It will depend on the cultural environment of the individuals, the groups and the organisations. But I know that we have to get back to basics and keep the basics very, very simple.

What’s it really like?

By the time this article appears, I hope to have kicked off a pilot project working with a global electronics organisation, and some of its teams in Hungary, China, Scotland and Mexico. We want to understand how we take type and team building into this complex world of virtual, multi-cultural, linguistic and type diverse teams and organisations.

We want to understand what we can do that will make a difference, (and in a way that won’t involve me spending an ever increasing proportion of my life dashing to and from airports early in the morning or late at night).

How do we build team spirit, trust, and respect “sans frontières”? How do we build truly cross-cultural communities of cooperation and creativity that work together effectively and efficiently, managing conflict and differences, breaking down the cultural barriers of “us” and “them”, with strong and effective channels of communication, and harnessing the power and creativity of true cultural diversity.

One of the advantages of global brands is that they give a sense of continuity and predictability to the traveller. We might not recognise the local fizzy drink, but Coca Cola is Coca Cola, whether it’s made in Nashua or Nepal. Madrid is full of local bars; but in Starbucks we know we can order a cappuccino the way we like it. Perhaps this lulls us into a false sense of security that “foreign” cultures offer more continuity and sameness than they actually do. This can be comforting. It can also be restricting.

For while we seek the security of sameness, we miss out on discovering the new. Once we have discovered the taste of freshly squeezed orange juice in a local bar (and worked out how to order it), or found that iced gazpacho will taste different (but equally delicious) according to the tapas bar we’re in, we are happy to experiment with and actively seek out new experiences.

The Tree of Culture[i]

We can see “the way things are done around here”, the visible cultural differences, as the leaves and fruits that we see on the tree, the branches and trunk shaped by time, natural forces or pruning. The invisible cultural roots are the beliefs, values, attitudes, perceptions, assumptions and expectations that underpin the outward behaviours. These are fed and held in place by the soil, the geological structures, the water and the nutrients – the Jungian collective unconscious.

So the journey to a true appreciation of culture, and cultural intelligence, is to tap into the symbols and manifestations of the collective unconscious.

How do I do that? As a traveller, by exploring the history that has shaped the place where I am, the cultural background of the communities that it’s made up of. By buying a book of local folk tales, sitting in a café with a glass of the local brew, and watching the people go by. By engaging in conversation and passing the time of day with locals and fellow travellers.

And in business – by listening to the stories that the individuals and the groups tell. By looking for signs of difference, as well as of common experiences. By looking through and beyond what is said to what is done. By engaging in conversations and passing the time of day.

And if we can sample the local wines and soups together, so much the better!

---

[i] A phrase used by the anthropologist Ralph Linton as a title to his book The Tree of Culture, 1955

I can't sing soprano

While I was growing up I was told that I couldn't sing and that I was tone deaf because I couldn't hit the right notes. So I didn't sing. Last year singer and song writer Charlie Post was at Chateau Colombier and playing the piano and doing a singing session with my daughter Eleanor. After a couple of glasses of wine I decided to join in and have a go.

Charlie is great singing coach. She quickly identified that my singing range is alto. No wonder I couldn't hit the soprano range. (and also remember that for the Rationalist big picture logical type preferences competence, with an unhealthy dose of an escalating requirement for perfection is a key component of their type). Also, as sports coaching has identified, NT see / watch how things are done first in order to learn how to do it.

Fast forward to yesterday. My mother is 82 and still sings in the Rossendale ladies choir. They're just trying out a new choir master (and what a richness of change stories choir master comings and goings reveal). She sings soprano.

She commented that she didn't understand why the altos ways needed more repetition to 'get' their part.

And I was reminded of the examples of Malcolm Gladswell in The Outliers. Basically, repetition and practise, as well as time and place (or where the opportunities are aided by time and place) are part of the secrets of successful mastery.

The general 'sing along' range for women, and the 'tune' is soprano. So altos wouldn't have had the same repetition opportunities through their early years as their soprano sisters. So yes, they will need more repetition. Plus alto is never the main tune.

Sadly I'm not sure that I can now make up the requisite 10,000 hours to mastery to develop my singing voice. But there is a lesson here in how to foster and unlock talent both in yourself and in others.

Steve Myers and The Fundamentals of Jung's Theories

The next workshop run by 'London Type' will be on Tuesday, 22 September, at the University Women's Club in Central London. It will be an all day workshop, led by Steve Myers, a renowned expert on Jungian theory and will be on the subject of "The Fundamentals of Jung's Theories".

Contact me to be sent more information on timings and costings, and to reserve your place.
And put the date in your diary!

The topics covered will include the following:

Introduction

Jung and Myers Briggs

- similarities and differences between Jung's and Briggs Myers' theories of psychological type

- consciousness and unconsciousness (personal/collective)

- compensation and the inferior function

- normality, neurosis, complexes and archetypes

- ego, persona and psychological type

Jung's model of normal growth/development

- the key archetypes (shadow, anima/animus, self/god-image)

- myth, symbol and the transcendent function

- otherness, opposites and the integration of evil

- individuation as a natural process

- the role of dreams for non-neurotics

- alchemy and transformation

Religion and Christianity

- Did Jung believe in God?

- Jung's critique of Christianity

- Christianity and Alchemy

- Synchronicity

- Jung's myth of the incarnation of God

Applications of Jung's ideas

- Illustration of some principles through the examination of the impact of President Obama's leadership on international relations

iPhone application screen

On the iPhone you can move your application icons between screens, and into different places on the screen. I fnd that I often set them off moving by mistake. As a perceiving type, and visual, it doesn't really bother me that I then have to scan the screen to find them.

But I would guess that the structured judging types would find it frustrating.

Or do they have a clear plan for where each icon should be, so that they can re-create their ideal structure?

comma or stop, question or exclamation mark?

Came across this article today likening some of the differences between academia and industry as the differences between the comma and the stop, and the exclamation mark and a question.

Do go and read it.

So the and the are about the long view. The and the are about what lives in the short term.

Now it can really be type out and about

Just a very quick note to pat myself on the back. If this works I now can blog from my iPhone. I wonder how things might change? Blogs will be shorter but perhaps more regular?

Giving support to a People person (FJ)

Sometimes, when it can go wrong, it does. A friend of mine does a sterling job of compiling and editing a print journal (4 issues a year) for specialist community of interest. Let's not even go into the job of pulling in the contributions; I haven't done the analysis but I'm sure that an awful lof the contributors are of the big picture, go with the flow preferences (NP).

There's actual never anything 'mission critical' about when the journal actually goes out, but - let's call her Freda - likes to keep her promises.

So stage one of compiling the content is complete. Step two involves graphics, typesetting, printing, distribution etc. She sends the content off; doesn't hear anything; starts to chase and finds out that her graphics person has been rushed into hospital with a serious medical emergency.

A few days down the line I get an email from her giving me the story. A bit tongue in cheek, (we both know type) I respond to her worries along the lines of:

And deadlines don't really matter (especially not to the Ps; and the Is won't know it's late, and the Fs will sympathise with you); and if the TJs want it any different, tough luck!

Yes ok - quite a lot of my Thinking humour here - but it did the trick. The response back was:

Thanks for your observations re the various preferences' reactions to the delayed journal - that actually helped me a lot since I had been rushing around in circles really worrying that everyone would be critical of me not getting it out on time!!

Phew - nice to know I got it right this time!

It's like a compass ...

Everyone's trying to get a new angle on marketing - and writing marketing copy, articles and books - to chase the small amount of business there is out there at the moment.

I noticed a new book on business planning being promoted via Harvard Business Publishing:

In How to Write a Great Business Plan, William A. Sahlman shows how to avoid this all-too-common mistake by ensuring that your plan assesses the factors critical to every new venture:

• The people — the individuals launching and leading the venture and outside parties providing key services or important resources
• The opportunity — what the business will sell and to whom, and whether the venture can grow and how fast
• The context — the regulatory environment, interest rates, demographic trends, and other forces shaping the venture's fate
• Risk and reward — what can go wrong and right, and how the entrepreneurial team will respond.


It struck me immediately that the 4 critical factors mentioned are the 4 Jungian functions .. so once more showing that balance is what we need

People = the feeling function
Opportunity = iNtuition
Context = sensing, the detail
Risk and Reward = logical analysis