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  <title>Blog Name</title>
  <subtitle>Blog subtitle</subtitle>
  <id>http://blog.url.com/</id>
  <link href="http://blog.url.com/"/>
  <link href="http://blog.url.com/feed.xml" rel="self"/>
  <updated>2017-07-08T01:00:00+01:00</updated>
  <author>
    <name>Blog Author</name>
  </author>
  <entry>
    <title>Pride 🌈</title>
    <link rel="alternate" href="http://blog.url.com/pride-html"/>
    <id>http://blog.url.com/pride-html</id>
    <published>2017-07-08T01:00:00+01:00</published>
    <updated>2018-03-18T09:10:01+00:00</updated>
    <author>
      <name>Article Author</name>
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    <content type="html">&lt;p&gt;"Do you ever stop smiling?", my friend Simon asked me a few weeks ago as I left work with a huge grin about god knows what. Not often, no. I'm happy, confident, powerful, bold, open, alive, enthusiastic and proud in almost everything I do. But it hasn't always been this way.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I sat alone through high school, certain nobody wanted to sit with me. If another child asked my name I asked them why, assuming they were playing a joke. Why would they be interested in me? What a pity party, right? My suspicious attitude didn't draw crowds of friends. But I was 13 years old and just wanted to get through the day without anyone noticing me. I didn't want sympathy, I just wanted to be gone.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;What kept me going was a vision. There was me, an apartment (with fabulous interiors) where nobody could reach me, where I lived with a man who I loved, who loved me exactly as I was. I didn't have to hide or pretend or work hard to be in his presence. No one knew we lived there but we were happy because I was loved, so was he, we had each other and that's all that mattered. Love is all that matters.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I held on to that powerful vision with my fingertips and made it through school, and when I was 16 things at home finally blew up and I left everything behind. The only thing more terrifying than walking out into the world alone as a child with no money, no eduation and no future was staying, and having my authentic self buried in shame by the powerful people I'd loved and listened to my whole life.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I found a bedsit in Southampton for £50/week and a job as a kitchen porter at Yates's. It was hard but I was free, and nothing would make me give that up. I sacrificed my privilege for my freedom. I made friends with gay people, who listened to the words I'd absorbed and they rebuked them. I wanted their rebukes to be truth, but always in the back of my mind was my mum's voice repeating over and over "They would say that, they're gay". It felt better, but it was always like getting crutches for a broken leg. I could stand, but the wounds remained.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;By 21 things were better with my parents, they were more positive. They emphasised how much they liked my boyfriend therefore they were 100% ok and to be forgiven now. It still felt empty, probably because all the love and support was on him, not me. But also because the wounds were in me, not them. I read &lt;a href="http://amzn.to/2tXoFvH"&gt;Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman&lt;/a&gt;, and took a Myers-Briggs personality test (&lt;a href="https://www.16personalities.com/infj-personality"&gt;INFJ&lt;/a&gt;) and begun to understand myself better, with a little less shame and self-disgust.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt;
  &lt;p&gt;INFJs tend to see helping others as their purpose in life, but while people with this personality type can be found engaging rescue efforts and doing charity work, their real passion is to get to the heart of the issue so that people need not be rescued at all.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;By 23 I'd wandered into &lt;a href="http://stevebrewer.uk/its-not-just-about-rights-lgbt-people-still-need-you"&gt;that&lt;/a&gt; abusive relationship, drawn into the battle of blaming myself for my screw ups and winning his approval to undo them, because if this man would only love me I'd finally be ok. He did love me, it was just impossible to really see through his anger and my gaping insecurities.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;How grateful I am my teenage self didn't know that isolated life with a man I loved would be so many nights spent alone at McDonald's in tears, waiting for him to fall asleep so I could go home.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;By 26 I was on my own. I read a ridiculous &lt;a href="http://amzn.to/2tTwd37"&gt;book about getting rich&lt;/a&gt; that emphasised habits, and weirdly it was right. I got into the habit of reading for the first time in my life, and this is where things changed.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I read &lt;a href="http://amzn.to/2sY1SMp"&gt;Power of Habit&lt;/a&gt; to understand these habits better, and make me better at making new ones. I read &lt;a href="http://amzn.to/2tWYl54"&gt;Self-Compassion by Kristin Neff&lt;/a&gt;, which taught me to silence the self-hatred that was burying me long after my teenage years.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I read &lt;a href="http://amzn.to/2tTtc2O"&gt;Presence by Amy Cuddy&lt;/a&gt;, which taught me to own the space around me, to embrace the world with my whole self and allow myself to be wherever I was.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I read &lt;a href="http://amzn.to/2tX2c1U"&gt;Year of Yes by Shonda Rhimes&lt;/a&gt;, my absolute hero, which taught me, along with Cuddy, that we're all faking it til we make it and nobody really has a plan but we just go out and do the best we can moment to moment and love the people around us as we go and the rest follows.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;One of those habits, alongside reading, was coding. I got addicted to &lt;a href="http://blog.teamtreehouse.com/from-teaching-assistant-to-front-end-developer-an-interview-with-techdegree-student-steve-brewer"&gt;Treehouse&lt;/a&gt; and my career &lt;a href="http://stevebrewer.uk/to-futurelearn-and-beyond"&gt;got started&lt;/a&gt;, and has &lt;a href="http://stevebrewer.uk/getting-settled-at-futurelearn"&gt;taken off&lt;/a&gt;. My personality has also &lt;a href="https://www.16personalities.com/enfj-personality"&gt;changed&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt;
  &lt;p&gt;People are drawn to strong personalities, and ENFJs radiate authenticity, concern and altruism, unafraid to stand up and speak when they feel something needs to be said. They find it natural and easy to communicate with others, especially in person, and their Intuitive (N) trait helps people with the ENFJ personality type to reach every mind, be it through facts and logic or raw emotion.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I no longer have time to stop and pick on myself, channelling voices of people who don't love themselves anymore than they love me.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Through hard work, persistence, learned self-compassion and empathy, I've reached a place where I truly love and accept myself exactly as I am, embracing my flaws and nurturing myself to improve the things I want to change lovingly, and enjoy the things I don't.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I can let go of that vision, with that man who loves me as I am, because &lt;em&gt;I&lt;/em&gt; love me as I am and I value and trust that love.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I let myself be present and authentic in my own life without being afraid someone will discover those ugly words that pretend to be truth because I don't speak them to myself anymore. I'm happy and proud, not ashamed. I'm home.&lt;/p&gt;
</content>
  </entry>
  <entry>
    <title>Why we need to praise and nurture ideas</title>
    <link rel="alternate" href="http://blog.url.com/why-we-need-to-praise-and-nurture-ideas-html"/>
    <id>http://blog.url.com/why-we-need-to-praise-and-nurture-ideas-html</id>
    <published>2017-03-13T00:00:00+00:00</published>
    <updated>2018-03-18T09:10:01+00:00</updated>
    <author>
      <name>Article Author</name>
    </author>
    <content type="html">&lt;p&gt;There's a certain amount of confidence building we all need in the work we do, especially juniors, especially recent hires and especially creative people who expose their work continuously, which is an exhausting and often terrifying thing to do.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;That includes designers, but also developers, their code and their commit messages. Anyone who creates anything. If we make sharing it unpleasant we reduce the frequency with which people create and share.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The less autonomy we have over our own work the more it eats away at our motivation to keep going, be productive, enjoy what we do and experiment with new ideas that could be hugely successful and useful to the world.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;People have criticised my less than perfect code and designs but I am and have always been all about the impact they could have, and there wasn't time to be obsessively meticulous over ratios or whether or not I used pixels to define spacing, especially over code that would and did get deleted later because the needs changed before the code ever needed to.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;It really doesn't matter that it wasn't perfect from day one, like Google wasn't and still isn't. Creating things is a process that takes compassion and nurturing as it grows, not shooting down when it's not perfect the moment it's released. That's anxiety, it's infectious and it needs dealing with.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Some people seem unable to tolerate anything less than perfection, which means being driven by the fear of mistakes and moving so slowly you're getting almost nothing done.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;In my experience the best way to get the best work from people is to draw it out with praise and encouragement, and rewarding the production of ideas rather than the level of perfection, people’s intelligence or their innate qualities. It takes longer and isn't as easy as pointing out the obvious flaws the moment you spot them, but it works much better in the long run.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.uky.edu/~eushe2/mrg/MuellerDweck1998.pdf"&gt;Here's&lt;/a&gt; an interesting study on children that also applies to adults on how praising intelligence rather than effort undermines behaviour by driving children to choose performance orientated goals and tasks - that is, things that will make them look smart, rather than things that will allow them to grow and learn, things that may fail and make them look 'less intelligent' if they do. But it's those things that have the highest chance of making an impact.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;It's not innate intelligence that gets results, it's sheer practice and pure chance, so the more you practice the more chance you have to produce something brilliant and when we're more critical than rewarding we block people, they stop enjoying work and they stop practicing.&lt;/p&gt;
</content>
  </entry>
  <entry>
    <title>When I knew I was ready to be a developer</title>
    <link rel="alternate" href="http://blog.url.com/when-i-knew-i-was-ready-to-be-a-developer-html"/>
    <id>http://blog.url.com/when-i-knew-i-was-ready-to-be-a-developer-html</id>
    <published>2017-01-15T00:00:00+00:00</published>
    <updated>2018-03-18T09:10:00+00:00</updated>
    <author>
      <name>Article Author</name>
    </author>
    <content type="html">&lt;p&gt;I spent all my summer break from work as a primary school teaching assistant learning to code. I was 28, interested in online learning, and there was all this talk about online code schools. I wondered how that would translate to education generally, and reminisced about the time I asked my school teacher when I was eight if we could play SimCity at school because it's educational, and she laughed at what she thought was a daft idea.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I got addicted to &lt;a href="http://treehouse.7eer.net/c/248218/228915/3944"&gt;Treehouse&lt;/a&gt;, and spent literally 4-8 hours every day ploughing through code exercises, getting high off every green 'Well done!' message, every lesson I knocked out and every point I earned. The most satisfying thing was how my worries that I wasn't 'taking it in' were put to rest by my decision that, if I had passed the quizzes and code challenges, I had definitely learned it and could move on. How destructive self-doubt is.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;That was tested further when I took a few weeks away from learning in September. When I finally came back to it in January, I hadn't forgotten anything and picked up right where I left off.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I never imagined that 3 months later I'd be hired. That I'd be saying the words "I'm a developer" with far less guilt over calling myself something I didn't feel I was. Not totally guilt-free, I still felt like an imposter at times, but at least I had a piece of paper to back it up.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;So when did I know I was ready to apply for that job? It was at a meetup. Founders and Coders put on a 'Code a Kata' meetup on a Saturday where we'd all sit and make new Katas for people to complete on Code Wars.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Turns out only one of us knew how to make Katas, so we just hung out and paired on existing challenges instead. I paired with a number of people and was there from 10am til 7pm. How time had flown. One exciting part was that I'd been able to help a guy with his challenges several times. I was feeling pretty proud of myself, but considered this to mean I was a slightly less junior student than him. Then I asked what he did, and he was a junior developer.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Of course, I have a better understanding now about the spikey way programming skills work in that nobody knows everything, we only know the things we've learned and happen to still remember, and that applies to all developers in this vast universe of languages and frameworks. But in my head this was a moment. I knew more than a developer.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;But it never really mattered "how much" I knew. What mattered was that time flew that day. Time flew when I finally got to sit down on Treehouse after a day's work. I had endless energy to pour into code because it's so exciting when you've finished typing, hit save and it finally does exactly what you wanted it to do. It's that moment, when all the pieces come together and your work springs to life that fills me with joy, and that's when I became ready to be a developer, however long ago it was.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;That meetup inspired me to start &lt;a href="http://westlondoncoders.com"&gt;my own&lt;/a&gt; shortly after I was hired, and I've met so many dev potentials going through exactly what I went through, only now I get to tell them all they're ready too, and help them get there.&lt;/p&gt;
</content>
  </entry>
  <entry>
    <title>It's not just about rights: LGBT people still need you</title>
    <link rel="alternate" href="http://blog.url.com/its-not-just-about-rights-lgbt-people-still-need-you-html"/>
    <id>http://blog.url.com/its-not-just-about-rights-lgbt-people-still-need-you-html</id>
    <published>2017-01-10T00:00:00+00:00</published>
    <updated>2018-03-18T09:10:00+00:00</updated>
    <author>
      <name>Article Author</name>
    </author>
    <content type="html">&lt;p&gt;A friend of mine took me to &lt;a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay's_the_Word_(bookshop)"&gt;Gay's the word&lt;/a&gt; today, a gay bookshop near Kings Cross, and I bought a book.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;It's called &lt;a href="http://amzn.to/2iWNeBq"&gt;Straight Jacket: How to be happy and gay&lt;/a&gt;, by &lt;a href="https://twitter.com/MrMatthewTodd"&gt;Matthew Todd&lt;/a&gt;, former editor of Attitude magazine. Before you worry, what compelled me wasn't a personal battle with mental health. I've done all of that, I'm absolutely happy. But only thanks to Kristin Neff's &lt;a href="http://amzn.to/2jwQoyW"&gt;Self-compassion&lt;/a&gt;, which got me through the end of an emotionally abusive long-term relationship I somehow found the strength to end in 2013 and begin the three-year process of repairing the damage.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;That relationship was the catalyst that severed so much of my life. It isolated me from all but my most loyal friend, left my social life barren, my burgeoning journalism career in pieces and my confidence and self-esteem even weaker.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;But the reason I even found my way into that relationship in the first place, and stayed there for so long, was an issue that began long before I met him. He was confident and dangerous, he represented every playground bully ever and if he loved me, I must be good enough after all. Because that's the issue here -  feeling &lt;em&gt;good enough&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt;
  &lt;p&gt;"It seems such a fleeting thing - feeling good - especially as we need to feel &lt;em&gt;special and above average&lt;/em&gt; to feel worthy. Anything less seems like a failure." - Kristin Neff&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;After a brief honeymoon period, the never-ending battle to win his approval began as he dangled it in my face, then snatched it away again. He'd get angry over the most trivial things, like leaving my shoes in the wrong place or making him dinner to be told 'this food is shit', followed by two hours of hearing about what a mess my life is. But it was never really that trivial thing he was angry about. I realised later he was constantly waiting for an excuse to vent all his pent up anger, the trivial thing was just the first reasonable excuse (in his mind) to vent. I can't speak for the reasons for his anger, maybe it was pure disappointment at life. But because it was my action that apparently triggered the anger, I blamed myself and desperately needed to persuade him it wasn't my fault or that I could do better, neither of which interested him.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;My exit from that situation is another story. Matthew Todd is spot on in Straight Jacket:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt;
  &lt;p&gt;"At the core of this problem is a shame that has been inflicted upon us so powerfully that those of us whom it affects often do not even realise it. It is a shame with which we were saddled as children, to which we continue to be culturally subjected, and which is magnified by the pinball-machine gay scene and culture that sends some of us spinning from one extreme experience to the next…&lt;/p&gt;

  &lt;p&gt;"It is the damage done to us by growing up strapped inside a cultural straitjacket, a tight-fitting, one-size restraint imposed on us at birth that leaves no room to grow outside its narrow confines. It makes no allowances for the fact that, yes, indeed, some people are different and we deserve - &lt;em&gt;and need&lt;/em&gt; - to be supported and loved for who we are too.&lt;/p&gt;

  &lt;p&gt;"The time to address these problems is now."&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Todd lists the high number of public gay figures that have ended their lives, which include &lt;a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/oct/06/matt-lucas-former-partner-dies"&gt;Kevin McGee&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/apr/28/alexander-mcqueen-suicide-verdict-inquest"&gt;Alexander McQueen&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/mar/02/kristian-digby-found-dead"&gt;Kristian Digby&lt;/a&gt;. He cites numerous more who have battled with depression, anxiety and addiction, then of course there's &lt;a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/dec/25/george-michael-pop-superstar-dies-at-53"&gt;George Michael&lt;/a&gt;. The reality is stark.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt;
  &lt;p&gt;"Continually feeding our need for positive self-evaluation is a bit like stuffing ourselves with candy. We get a brief sugar high, then a crash." - Neff&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Todd talks about addiction in various forms - sex, drugs, relationships, drinking, partying. It's much the same as positive-evaluation. Some addictions temporarily get rid of uncomfortable emotions, others convince us we're worthy, however briefly before our internal critic sabotages it again. But there's always a crash - the come down, the break up, the morning after - and it's in those moments we're most vulnerable. It's those moments that open the door to pain and suicide.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;So what's the solution? I can't prescribe what worked for me as a one-size fits all, but it's a good start. Neff taught me the importance that I stop beating myself up with my own thoughts. Eat Pray Love taught me to begin a path of mindfulness, to treat myself well and enjoy what I'm doing with my fullest attention. But mostly what worked for me was running through my mind all the things in my life that are valuable to me, and the opportunities I have. I was lucky enough to have a home that I love, a home that's provided for me through Airbnb when I needed it most. It's a safe place for me where I can lock the door and feel reassured that no one can disrupt me here. I can come home from work with the guarantee that my happiness doesn't depend on another person not being angry at me.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;That's a great habit to get into. I now have a long list that I frequently run through, most if it revolves around people and the work I do, but I'm still mostly just happy about my freedom.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;It's no exaggeration when I say the changes I describe there transformed my life. I read several books after that which were instrumental in getting me to the career I'm now in. Those include &lt;a href="http://amzn.to/2i80KoA"&gt;The Power of Habit&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href="http://amzn.to/2iaR1cl"&gt;Presence&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href="http://amzn.to/2iaP2or"&gt;Getting Things Done&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href="http://amzn.to/2iY79C4"&gt;Creativity Inc&lt;/a&gt;. And of course Trello for tracking those things I was now getting done.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I created the environment and focus I needed to learn a lot of programming skills in a very short time, which I still do now, and that lead to a career I love more than anything, earning double what I made in my work with autistic children, which was both physically and emotionally exhausting. I started and get to facilitate &lt;a href="http://westlondoncoders.com"&gt;a successful meetup&lt;/a&gt; that's getting people jobs doing what they love.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The message here is that it really does get better. It takes some time, some work, some self-evaluation and some reading. But most of all, it takes self-compassion. You have to put the effort in to love and respect yourself, and as Amy Cuddy says, "Fake it til you make it", because it works with self-respect. Forbid yourself the derogatory thoughts, focus on the positive and eventually your self-esteem will flourish.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt;
  &lt;p&gt;"So what's the answer? To stop judging and evaluating ourselves altogether. To stop trying to label ourselves as "good" or "bad" and simply accept ourselves with an open heart. To treat ourselves with the same kindness, caring, and compassion we would show to a good friend, or even a stranger for that matter. Sadly, however, there's almost no one whom we treat as badly as ourselves." - Neff&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;

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  </entry>
  <entry>
    <title>Why it matters that you know I'm gay</title>
    <link rel="alternate" href="http://blog.url.com/why-it-matters-that-you-know-im-gay-html"/>
    <id>http://blog.url.com/why-it-matters-that-you-know-im-gay-html</id>
    <published>2017-01-10T00:00:00+00:00</published>
    <updated>2018-03-18T09:10:00+00:00</updated>
    <author>
      <name>Article Author</name>
    </author>
    <content type="html">&lt;p&gt;I told my team at work that I'm gay at a meeting about how we want to work together last Summer. When I first decided I would do this, out loud and in front of everyone, my initial internal responses were unkind. "You shouldn't do that, it's unprofessional", "don't rub it in people's faces", "you're more than just your sexual orientation" and "sex has nothing to do with work" to name a few. These are far less harsh than they would have been four years ago.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;But they weren't my voices. I inherited them. What they really mean is "Be someone else and suppress who you are" and they come from a place of shame, frozen in me sometime around 1999, from the age of 12 onwards.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;It matters to me that my team know this about me for one huge reason: if you don't know I'm gay, I can't invest my whole self in our friendship knowing there may be a bombshell of rejection waiting for me the day you do find out. So, no matter how irrational that seems, it's about disarming potential friend-terrorists, or at least revealing them early. At least it is in my head. Nobody I respect post-2002 has actually done this to me.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I'm just more comfortable knowing early that this rejection won't happen so I can relax into our friendship without fear, and that's reasonable.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;So after I told my team, they became even more lovely to work with. I don't know if that's because showing vulnerability and braveness warms people to you, or if I just relaxed into those friendships as my whole self. Either way, my life is happier, safer and more comfortable when I know the people I spend my weekdays with accept me.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I'm an advocate for people making it known they love the gays. When I was 16 I made a new friend at college and when a guy I knew made it known to her that I'm gay, her knee-jerk reaction was the cliched "some of my best friends are gay", which she later confirmed she'd never met a gay person before. People may criticse lines like this, but it comes from a place of empathy and I value when people do this, especially if they do it in front of someone who might be gay, as it makes it known to that person you are an ally. If people do it around me, I warm to them immediately.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I'm lucky enough to work at FutureLearn, an organisation that couldn't be more embracing of diversity if it tried. But even there, when you're new and although everything seems so safe, there's still that nagging feeling in the back of your mind that rejection could be just around the corner. Knowing my team had my back after that meeting was enough to make me feel more relaxed around the rest of the company.&lt;/p&gt;
</content>
  </entry>
  <entry>
    <title>Using the big picture to support your team</title>
    <link rel="alternate" href="http://blog.url.com/big-picture-html"/>
    <id>http://blog.url.com/big-picture-html</id>
    <published>2016-12-10T00:00:00+00:00</published>
    <updated>2018-03-18T09:10:00+00:00</updated>
    <author>
      <name>Article Author</name>
    </author>
    <content type="html">&lt;p&gt;Details on their own can be useless without the bigger picture. If we hone our ability to pay attention to tiny details &lt;code&gt;and then connect them with other details&lt;/code&gt;, we can build a bigger picture that's useful for guiding a team in the right direction, regardless of what position you hold in that team.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://blog.mindjet.com/2012/05/communication-breakdown-left-brain-vs-right-brain/" target="_blank"&gt;
  &lt;img src="/img/brain-map.jpg" class="o-post__image--full-width" /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h2 id="noticing-details"&gt;Noticing details&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I learned the value of perception as a skill when I worked with non-verbal autistic primary children. Say you notice a small detail about the way a child does something, such as one little boy I'll call Henry, and his tendency to &lt;em&gt;always play up when his teacher Martin spoke to him&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;If you keep that detail in mind, even though it might be unconnected to anything, you can combine it with other information later. In paying attention to the relationship between Martin and Henry, you can figure out how they got into a situation where the adult has become a trigger for the child's problematic behaviour.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt;
  &lt;p&gt;The thing about challenging behaviours in children is that many of them are just a reaction to an adult's previous behaviour.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Some adults still believe punishment is effective, and will raise their voice and express anger at a child to prevent unwanted behaviours. But punishment has a range of unwanted side effects and often is not even effective at &lt;em&gt;preventing&lt;/em&gt; behaviours. The best case scenario is the behaviour stops when you're watching, but continues when your back is turned.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Punishment does more to damage the adult-child relationship than improve behaviour. It also creates fear, which has a bundle of its own unwanted effects on creativity and self-expression.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Another of those side effects is revenge. If you get angry with a child, they'll feel hurt. Their natural response will be more anger, and they'll act on it however they can. If they're timid they'll find discreet ways to do this and you may never realise, such as hiding your keys or stealing from you.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;So Henry was doing the opposite of what Martin asked him to do and was getting immense joy from this. Every time Martin asked Henry to go somewhere, he would drop to the floor, giggle, his body would go limp and he would refuse to move or do anything but laugh. This was hard when it was lunch time and we all had to be in the dining hall, or it was time to come in from the playground, because he simply wouldn't move. An adult would have to stay with him, and we were already thin on the ground. Our adult to child ratio was 1:2, so pressure was on the rest of us to manage with fewer adults. Some of our children attack and bite other children randomly, so this wasn't easy.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Martin was frequently engaging in a battle of wills with Henry, trying to make him do something he didn't want to do and getting increasingly forceful about it. Martin clearly believed being in control at all times was important. The child's only recourse to protect his sense of autonomy was to do the opposite of what Martin told him.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt;
  &lt;p&gt;This is a natural human response when we lose our autonomy and someone is trying to force us into something. We get the urge to rebel. If we have social awareness, it takes all our will power to resist this. If we lack social awareness, we don't bother resisting.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I was at the bottom of the heirarchy on this team. I was "just" a teaching assistant, and so finding the courage to share these observations was hard, but they were heard and acted on.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h2 id="combining-details-to-build-a-bigger-picture"&gt;Combining details to build a bigger picture&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Things are a little different in adult-only workplaces. Although adults are basically large children who are better at 'seeming' mature on the outside, people don't tend to drop to the floor if their manager asks them to do something.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Details you might notice instead could be something like a colleague presenting their ideas to a team but they're a little shaky and nervous. Even though their ideas are good, they don't seem so sure.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;That same colleague might then drop a hint that she's tired of arguing about a particular way of doing things, and that she just goes with the status quo now.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;At which point you have two details that suggest this person feels nervous about putting forward her ideas, and has felt attacked over ideas she's shared in the past. Attacked might mean criticism, or just a simple question of why they've done it at all, delivered with a bewildered tone.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt;
  &lt;p&gt;The ideas aren't what's important here, it's that the person feels safe being their authentic self at work. They may decide one day, based on past criticism, to not share an idea that could be the best the company has seen.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Maybe there isn't enough positive feedback. Maybe she constantly feels like nothing she does is great because she's only given feedback when there's a problem, and ignored when she's doing well. Maybe her positive feedback is always generic and lacks the specificity it needs to feel genuine, meaningful and guiding. There can be any number of reasons, but regardless of where you sit on a team, you can make a difference.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;By asking for that person's thoughts in private and responding in whatever positive, supportive way you can, you can rebuild that safety, even privately between you. At least then if that person feels safe sharing with you, you can help them feel confident to share it wider. Sometimes all it takes to tip someone out of second guessing themselves on something is someone else to be positive and reassuring beforehand, so they're not going in blind - or alone.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;My two examples are simplistic. To make my point I've had to embellish the first example to protect privacy and I made the second up entirely. There can be several details that relate to a problem and you can find them all over the place.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;When observing the world around us, our brain looks for things that matter to us and discards the rest. If a detail doesn't seem relevant, we forget about it. But we don't always know if something will matter until later, so keeping an open mind about what you see and hear is useful, as details can be parts of a puzzle that later becomes easier to solve when you have more pieces to work with. Or indeed, part of a puzzle you don't know is a puzzle yet.&lt;/p&gt;

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