Joe Lafferty

Not blogging much while i’m on holiday but took this photo while watching the fireworks on 4th July from Brooklyn Heights with the famous Manhattan skyline in the background.

Stuart Cosgrove and Tam Cowan presented their “the most petty and ill-informed sports programme on radio” – Off the Ball – in a classroom made into a studio at Baldragon Academy this (Saturday 28th June).  This was a part of the BBC Radio Scotland ‘Sound Town’ scheme where they adopt a school for a year.

My wife teaches at Baldragon and it’s been a tremendous success.  The kids have really enjoyed it and engaged in all aspects of the programme making/presenting; learning and building confidence.  The Radio Scotland Staff and partners have all been brilliant working well with the kids.

Today, Stuart and Tam had special guest Lorraine Kelly with a ‘studio’ audience made up of staff, pupils and friends in Dundee.

It was a blast!  They were typically iconoclastic and very little (apart from Motherwell FC!) escaped their acerbic wit.

There were a couple of local Dundee poets there who performed one of their own poems in the Dundee dialect – to hoots and cheers from the very enthusiastic audience!

At one point in the programme, Lorraine (newly given an Honorary Doctor of Laws from Dundee University – ‘for service to lip gloss’ as she put it) spoke about her love of Dundee.  How the city is going through a renaissance, that there’s loads going on in the City.  Stuart added his twopence worth, commenting on the success of the DCA.

Great to see Dundee spoken about positively!!

I spoke to Lorraine briefly afterwards & told her about Go Dundee & she’s agreed to be a part of a future event – so watch this space!

If you are quick you can listen to the programme again by clicking here.

I’m writing an article on FIRO (Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation, if you need to know!), a model/theory developed by Will Schutz in the late 1950’s; and I was sharing Schutz’s definition of personality with my colleague Nikki:

Personality is who you’re choosing to be at this moment in time.

I was musing that although this could look straight from Schutz’s connection with the Human Potential movement (Will Schutz developed his FIRO theory weaving together two key elements, his work with the US Navy in the 1950’s and also his engagement with the ‘Human Potential Movement’ in California in the 1960’s.), actually, it has more depth than it first seems.

At the same time as this conversation, we were listening to KD Lang’s rendition of the Bruce Cockburn song ‘One Day I Walk’ – and this refrain caught our attention:

I have sat on the street corner
And watched the boot heels shine
And cried out glad and cried out sad
With every voice but mine

How often do we respond in situations with what is expected of us? What we think others want to hear? What impression do we want to give?

So, who are you choosing to be today?

I got a nice present in the post today - my friend Dick Axelrod sent me a copy of his workbook and double audio CD, ‘How to Engage People When you Don’t have Time’ (click on image above or see link)

Everyone knows that engagement is important. Engaged people are more productive, have less absenteeism, and provide better customer service compared to their disengaged counterparts.

But many organizations pursue engagement strategies through big fancy programs that take years to implement.

Engagement doesn’t take years — it can occur in minutes.

HOW TO ENGAGE PEOPLE WHEN YOU DON’T HAVE TIME, an integrated CD and workbook program, teaches the secrets of instant engagement and how to engage others even when there are many demands on you.

I’m looking forward to listening / reading the finished article! A while ago Dick emailed me and asked me to do mindmaps/illustrations for the workbook & he has one of my mindmaps on his website. It was fun to do & I produced a summary mindmap, along with four more detailed mindmaps of the key concepts (introductory mindmap below).

I love the way Dick puts things - he’s a brilliant communicator, and his workbook is packed with lots of practical ideas to increase engagement.

He’s kindly offered me and my clients discount, so if you are interested in a copy, drop me an email and I’ll get one for you at the cheaper rate!

Been on holiday this last week & took some pictures that I’ll slowly be uploading to my flickr site. Using our Historic Scotland membership (a brilliant deal at £65 for the two of us!), Chris and I have been exploring some of our ancient buildings in and around Dundee…

One of the trips included St Andrews, and a visit up St Rule’s tower at St Andrews Cathedral, where one gets a wonderful 360 panorama of St Andrews and the Angus/Dundee/Fife coastline. I’ve experimented a little with this panorama putting it into a quicktime movie, it comprises of 13 photos stitched together from the coast of Arbroath round to the edge of St Andrews, about a 180 degree panorama. Click on the image above to download the quicktime movie, then use your mouse to move around the panorama.

I’ve also uploaded a short movie (poorer quality but you see the whole 360 as I walk around the tower) taken at the same time on my Vimeo site. What a beautiful country we live in - and what incredible history…

enjoy!

Joe

Hi,

this is a post for Angus Council Staff only, sorry!

if you are a Head of Service in Angus council and are attending the “Coaching in Leadership” one day event, please click on the link below to see a short video which gives the background and the purpose of the event.

Joe Lafferty

Coaching in Leadership - background from Joe Lafferty on Vimeo.

The other day I was at the Bield near Perth, for a writing/reflection day. As I began to settle down, the old window frame and the old distorted glass caught my attention. I took my camera out and took these photos.

When I focused on the faults and flaws, the imperfections, then the background became blurry and out of focus. I could no longer see the beauty of the trees, the low spring sun covering the fields, the far away farmland and trees… No, I was caught up in the minutia of the imperfections. And the more I looked the more imperfections I saw.

It was as if the trees were not there! The vista, the perspective, the beauty was lost to me.

But, when I lifted my eyes and began to focus on the scene through the window, my perspective changed radically! I could see the beauty, I was drawn into the landscape. Were the imperfections still there? Of course, but now they were not my focus.

So, what will you choose to focus on today?

I’m currently co-creating an innovation module with my friend Niall for the company he works for. We just had a really fast/creative/buzz of a morning ‘innovating’ the design & one of the things Niall shared was this pic he took on his mobile.

Brilliant eh? How often does the fear of failure inhibit us from even starting? I love this quote because it forces us to think with confidence, belief and optimism. Often the mental maps that hold us back are not concious, so we are not even aware of being inhibited! Playing with this quote a little opens up more possibility - why not give it a try today?

Article from today’s Dundee Courier.

A great event last night at the APEX hotel Dundee. We had almost 300 people turn out on a bleak January night to hear Tal-ben Shahar from Harvard University speak on Positive Leadership. The title of the event was “Leadership and the Positive City” and was run by the Go Dundee Network in partnership with the Centre for Confidence and Well Being.

Along with Tal, Iain Macwhirter (from the Herald and the Sunday Herald) chaired the event. Jacquie Roberts (Chief Executive of the Care Commission, based in Dundee) gave a response from a public sector perspective, and Tom Shephard (CEO of CXR Biosciences) gave a response from a private sector perspective. At the beginning of the evening, I told the story of Go Dundee, how it all started, what we have achived and what we want to do next.

I have uploaded the pictures from the event onto my Flickr site and you can see the pics here.

I’ll write more on this when I get the opportunity.