Personal development Resources
HR books states
Resilience
Author: Jo Owen
Publisher: Pearson
Business
Price: £9.29
Based on research and
Best
of
original cases from around the world,
Jo Owen reveals the 10 mental habits
that she says anyone can learn to boost
their resilience and sustain high
performance. The book aims to give
employees the tools and techniques
needed to deal with anything from
minor irritations to major events.
Fit to Compete
Author: Michael
Beer
Publisher: Harvard
Business Review
Press
Price: £23.00
During 30 years of working in
corporations, Beer has witnessed how
organisational silence can derail many
a strategic objective. When lower-level
employees can’t speak truth to power
senior leaders miss out on key insights,
he argues. Staff in turn lose trust in
higher ups and become more resistant
to change. To combat this Beer offers
up his Strategic Fitness Process, a guide
to holding honest conversations with
everyone in an organisation.
Invisible Work
Author: John
Howkins
Publisher:
September
Publishing
Price: £18.99
Work depends on personal subjective
ideas and an understanding of what is
going on inside other people’s heads,
says Howkins. Organisations’ ability to
do this relies on ‘smart fast teams’,
where the critical moments will often
be invisible, he argues. To manage this
‘invisibility’ Howkins suggests we
develop a mindset of value-added
thinking, framing and sharing. He says
this goes beyond knowledge or
creativity; rather it’s about learning
how to manage personal interests
and connections.
Physical
Intelligence
Authors: Claire Dale
and Patricia Peyton
Publisher: Simon
and Schuster
Price: £14.99
We often hear about cognitive
intelligence and emotional intelligence,
but this book argues that both of these
are underpinned by physical
intelligence, which can enhance
cognitive function and alter our mood,
emotional responses, stress and
confidence. The authors reveal the
physical intelligence techniques and
life hacks used by the world’s highestperforming
athletes, artists and
businesspeople to get ahead. It also
advises how to influence the eight key
chemicals in our brain that dictate how
we feel.
The 4 Day Week
Author: Andrew
Barnes
Publisher: Piatkus
Price: £14.99
In The 4 Day Week,
entrepreneur Andrew Barnes makes
the case for the four-day week as the
answer to many of the ills of the 21st
century world of work. Barnes
conducted an experiment in his own
business Perpetual Guardian and the
outcomes of this trial were impressive;
people were happier, healthier, more
engaged in their personal lives, and
more focused and productive in the
office. He offers a guide for leaders and
workers seeking to make a change.
Resource
In this series of wellbeing
columns KAREN BEAVEN
offers advice to others in HR
This month I want to talk about ‘resource states’ and
how they can be used to give yourself an instant
wellbeing boost.
When used well, resource states can become part
of your core personal strengths framework and can be
integrated into pretty much any situation. They’re a way
of shifting your perception of what you’re experiencing
and are particularly useful for times when you feel stuck
and can’t seem to break through it, or if you start to fi nd
yourself drawn into a negative thinking spiral.
Start by drawing up a memory of a time when you
had a particularly positive experience. One where you
felt happy and excited about something you were about
to do. For example, you could bring up a memory of a
time when you felt completely focused or engrossed in
a practical activity – baking sourdough bread works for
me. Or you could think of a moment when you felt calm
and relaxed, maybe walking down a beach or spending
time with some close friends. There’s a variety that you
could choose from, but the key thing is to pick one that
puts you in a more positive headspace.
When you have one of these memories that you think
will work well as a resource state, the next step is to
spend a bit of time cultivating it. Give yourself time to sit
with it. Some people do this as part of a daily meditation
or mindfulness practice. Think about how you’re
remembering it. Do you see it as pictures or a movie in
your head? Or is it more of an overall sense that comes
through? Do you remember the sounds associated with
the memory? What about colours, textures etc? The
more detail you can recall the better.
You’ll fi nd that the more you get into the memory the
more you actually start to feel the emotions and the
positive state that you were in at the time. It can’t help
but lift you, even momentarily, and it’s exactly this feeling
that you’ll tap into when you access this resource state
as part of your wellbeing practice.
Let me give you an example of how it works. Imagine
you’re at work and about to slip into that point of
overwhelm where your brain just freezes and you can’t
seem to do anything. When that happens get up, get
away from your desk and go for a walk. Think about your
‘focus’ resource state, the one where you remember
being totally in fl ow and engrossed in a task. Remember
how you took things step by step and work the memory
through to the point where you completed the task and
56 HR February 2020 hrmagazine.co.uk
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