Musings on selective memory…

I was watching a lot of tennis at the weekend.

General applicability of advice re what works in tennis?

One of the things one of the commentators said interested me about selective memory.

He was basically saying selective memory could be very useful for sportspeople as a way to focus on the good things they’d done rather than the bad times.

Listening idly to various commentators doing pre-match scrutiny there was also a lot about the need to focus on ‘now’ point by point, think process not outcomes or consequences, stay relaxed and zone out inessentials etc. etc.

Listening to all of this it occurred to me bits of it would appear in many management training contexts. It also got me wondering more generally about how memory impacts on us and if selective memory would actually help people achieve things more generally though.

Types of memory

For instance. I have a fairly bad memory for some things. It rarely pinpoint what was 2002 as opposed to 2003 for example. It forgets  the details of holidays and outings.  Actually, it’s almost capable of forgetting entire holidays depending how far back. I know people who have just about total recall and can pinpoint anything in time very exactly. This is somewhere between an amazing magic trick and rather irritating - because it’s not me alas.

I also know people who have what I would call ‘zoned’ memories of different depth and capacity.  They’re incredibly good at retaining anything relating to subjects that actually interest them, but a lot fuzzier on other things that they pay less concentration on. That information often goes in one ear and come out the other. Because it doesn't interest them, they see no need for it.

I also know folk whose memories are very much in the 'now' and recent past.  Folk who don't much tend to spend time rethinking  or remembering the more distant past. They just prefer to get on with now and look ahead.

So what would a selective memory be? It sounds kind of attractive.  Bit like a sieve you can control and tweak? Keep the good, park and semi-forget the bad.

Purpose of memory

The good memories that stand out probably propel us on faster and further on a chosen direction. Which is excellent if what you require is focus and belief and drive.

The bad that stand out though are probably the ones we learn, adapt, and change from more. They might keep us back in some ways, but they’re also the ones if we forgot why we’d discovered that ‘x’ wasn’t such  a good idea we’d probably just repeat time and again.

The good, bad, and indifferent, hopefully balance each other out.

So on the whole I'm content with the memory I’ve got.

I suspect overall that memories that stand out from the general background, for good or ill, are useful, even if sometimes they help to keep us back and at other times to propel us forward. ‘Selective memory’ sounds more attractive than it’d be in practice methinks (though in tennis practice perhaps it indeed works superbly!).

Cartoons and Career Planning

Sometimes you just have to grin.

The instant joys of a picture

I’m looking at the cartoon on page 60 of the June 2012 issue of Harvard Business Review.

If you have a copy to hand in your holdings or happen across one somewhere then have a look at it.  As with the best cartoons it’s instant, and funny, but it also makes quite a lot of points.

An employee is being asked that perennial much-loved question from everything from interview panels to development discussions to career planning days. You know, the one that goes "Where do you see yourself in five years?"

In his thought bubble is the employee’s mental answer to that question.

Where he sees himself is precisely where he is now and as he is now.  Even the coffee cup on his desk hasn’t moved a centimetre. Oddly that’s the bit that concerns me (anal or what!).

So it’s kind of a negative portrayal you might think.

What we don’t see is precisely WHY he’s thinking that though. I’m wondering about the why.

Positive Choices can be either ‘to do’ or ‘not to do’

Lots of people choose to be doing the same things in five years time and for all kinds of reason.  It’s not instantly a bad thing. It could be they simply really enjoy it and feel it’s what they should be doing. It could be because it’s convenient. Perhaps it makes sense under a number of headings that could be anything and everything from finances to fitting in well with commitments like family caring responsibilities. Jobs don’t exist in an abyss, there are other factors that we all have to consider in integrating job and life.

So if it’s been thought through and chosen and works it’s utterly fine.

But there is also the maxim that life is what happens while we’re making other plans. 

Sometimes five years pass in a flash and nothing has changed not because it’s been positively chosen, but because it was okay and attention was elsewhere on other aspects of life.  Or perhaps something was meant to be done about it and wasn’t.  Or perhaps folk don’t always see a clear path forward or way of achieving the change they want and delay things waiting for the miraculous bolt from the blue of total self-knowledge, or decide to just wait ‘until’ some specified other event has happened first. Or perhaps they just resign themselves and forget to try.

There is choice in everything. To do is a choice. Not to do is equally a choice. Some are easy and some are hard. But being aware of and exercising choice is important. 

Moments of Clarity

Where folk often stall is in choosing specifically ‘what’ it is they want and putting structures in place that will get them there. Not knowing ‘what’ leaves them feeling unable to make changes.

I suspect moments of real clarity are actually rare. Clarity is not necessarily more likely or frequent just because you’re on holiday half a continent away than it would be in the mid-morning rush.

So perhaps the answer is to think ‘hurrah, there is no ‘one right’ answer’, and just experiment a bit, somewhere between the Exact Status Quo and the Great Explorer. Worst case scenario you’ve given yourself more information to go on re what does and doesn’t work / appeal to you. Even if it would just move the hypothetical coffee cup...

Having fun with the perennial question

So if you fancy a grin while considering the above, shut your eyes and consider asking "Where do you see yourself in five years?" – not of a subordinate, or yourself even if you don’t want to, but of someone higher up your organisation.  Can you picture that?  It would certainly change the conversation. Could be a funny cartoon…

Piping the (Library) Tradition - the National Piping Centre Library

Right, it occurs to me I never did finish #GLTU4 write-up by covering professional visit number two of the afternoon to The National Piping Centre Library, which is the Highland Library.

Inside the exhibition

The National Piping Centre

The National Piping Centre in Glasgow is concerned with teaching, studying and promotion of the Highland Bagpipe playing and cultural tradition.  It does this through wide ranging instrument tuition options up to degree level and also the likes of the Piping Museum and reference library. It’s a rehearsal and performance space, but one incorporating other elements up to and including a hotel and a lovely bar / restaurant.

A librarian victim in front of shelves

The Tour and Library

James Beaton, the Librarian, gave us a tour round the building itself, talked us through the history and work of the institution, gave an expert tour of the museum, and showed us the library. This has just been totally refurbished with work beginning on populating the shelves from the boxes and getting the collection catalogued.

The Collection

The collection is made up of a whole range of types of items from runs of subject specific periodical material to pamphlets to sheet music and cd’s of pipe music. 


Contextual items are also held that relate to the place of the Highland Bagpipe within the wider culture and history of Scotland. Many items are donations or items long out of print and otherwise difficult to source.

As the overall written knowledge base is fairly small there is a project on-going to try to capture the experiences of people well-known in piping through e.g. audio interviews to increase knowledge available.

Supporting the work of the Centre

The Library collection supports the teaching work of the Piping Centre and is used as part of the resources to support various courses it runs (e.g. that concentrate on the historical or cultural impact of the pipes) or runs in association with other bodies.

Practice what you teach!




The Pipes and after...

As part of the visit we even got James to play his own Pipes for us. I did take a sound recording of this but having problems figuring out where it's been stored to, so an audio file may (or may not) get attached into this to accompany if I ever figure it out. Many thanks to James for looking after us very well.

James playing his Pipes

After which many of us went to the restaurant for an extremely nice meal.

black puding potatoes are divine!

Musings

I suppose three things occurred to me as part of the visit.

The first was the pleasure of seeing vistas of shelf space. Somehow I always see the potential of that. In my own reality trying to find a bit of expansion space and then move stock till it’s in the right place in the classified sequence for where I need it is often a bit of a battle. Law tends to expand fast!

The second was the utter wonderfulness of subject specialists, folk with an expert in-depth knowledge of the discipline that they work in and who are passionate about it and exponents of it. Subject specialists who work in their own areas of interest are very wonderful things. Doesn’t matter what the subject is, you can spot one a mile of once they’re talking about their own discipline. We all share the same characteristics though the subject interests will differ.

The third is very simply I need to remember the Centre is there more often as a place. I’ve been to concerts there, but not for a good while. It is very civilised simply as a drop-in for a coffee for example.