Timestamps

00:00:00: Introduction
00:01:19: Defining 'noticing'
00:02:42: Ways to start noticing...
00:03:58: ... 1: when time flies by
00:06:03: ... 2: what's not being said in a meeting
00:07:16: ... 3: an hour without your phone
00:10:36: ... 4: your manager's worry list
00:12:35: ... 5: your commute
00:15:36: ... 6: what never gets done
00:18:43: ... 7: your inner monologue
00:22:28: ... 8: what you don't know
00:26:29: ... 9: people's strengths in action
00:28:41: Final thoughts

Interview Transcription

Sarah Ellis: Hi, I'm Sarah.

Helen Tupper: And I'm Helen.

Sarah Ellis: And this is the Squiggly Careers podcast.  Every week, we talk about a different topic to do with work, and we share ideas and actions so we can all navigate our Squiggly Careers with that bit more confidence and control. 

Helen Tupper: And if you'd some extra squiggly support, then sign up for our weekly newsletter, Squiggly Careers in Action.  You'll get all the links to the podcast and the tools that go along with it, as well as some behind-the-scenes pictures of things that we've been up to that week.  And there's some extra insights from Sarah.  Sarah shares borrowed brilliance, things she's been reading, watching and listening to; and I do a random video, it depends where I am that week.  But there are some practical insights in the videos, they're called Helen's How-to's.  So, the link to that will be in the show notes, or if you go to our website, amazingif.com, there'll be a probably quite annoying pop-up that will come and you'll be able to sign up there. 

Sarah Ellis: We also share if there's any events coming up or Squiggly Career conversations on LinkedIn that you can join, and we do have a few of those coming up in the calendar over the next few months.  So, if you want to come along, spend some time with some other Squiggly Career learners, they're pretty much all free, or I think some of them are very low cost.  So, please do get involved if that sounds interesting for you.

Helen Tupper: What are we talking about in this episode? 

Sarah Ellis: The secret skill of noticing, which I think we've actually both really enjoyed researching.  Noticing's been a really nice topic.  So, what is it?  It means paying attention sometimes to what other people might be missing.  I think noticing is very intentional, very thoughtful, and often we are on autopilot which means we sometimes miss out.  We miss out on noticing things that might matter or things that could be useful.  And what's interesting is when you look into this idea of noticing, and there's a great guy you can follow here, called Rob Walker, who's written a book on noticing, you can subscribe to his Substack.  I watched a 50-minute lecture on YouTube on the train that he gave over in the US, a really lovely lecture of meandering, where he talks about all sorts of noticing, goes way beyond what we're going to talk about today.  So, if you really zooming out, getting the big picture, that's really good to watch. 

One of the things that he talks about is when we notice, it sparks creativity.  But beyond that, it's often not so much habit-forming, but habit-breaking, and that phrase really stuck with me, because he said, "When we notice things, it forces us to look at the world in a new way".  We do new things, we take a different route, it kind of opens our eyes up to different things that perhaps weren't there before, and it's a really good source of learning.  You just learn a lot, you learn a lot about other people, yourself, your environment.  And so, what we're going to try and do today is take something that I think does feel very thoughtful and reflective, and then we've gone, "Nine ways to start noticing at work".  We're like, "Right, let's get to the action!"  And we have tried to make this really practical.  And I think when you start to do this, actually, I think the list could have been longer.  I think we stopped at nine. 

Helen Tupper: Well, I think that's a nice thing, isn't it?  The more intentional you become about noticing, the more you start to notice. 

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, I mean doing this podcast this last week, I was like, "Right, well I'm going to notice the bird song".  I mean, I was getting quite intense about it.  One of the things that Rob Walker talks about is, "Do you notice the moon?"  So, I've got quite into noticing the moon, and I was like, "What's happening to me?" 

Helen Tupper: What have you noticed about the moon? 

Sarah Ellis: Oh, well he talks about actually, I mean this does get a bit abstract, but if you notice the moon, the shape of the moon, is it a crescent moon, is it a full moon, you're connecting to something larger than yourself. 

Helen Tupper: Okay, so perspective. 

Sarah Ellis: Yeah.  I could just see how sceptical you look, as I started talking about the moon! 

Helen Tupper: No, it's just I think there is noticing in Rob Walker's general sense, and then there is this podcast, where we're going to get right into meetings and moments that are relevant at work.  But it's nice to have both, the moon and the meetings.

Sarah Ellis: So, idea one, notice when time flies by.  My reflection on this was train journeys versus train journeys.

Helen Tupper: What does this mean?

Sarah Ellis: I know.  I've been spending quite a lot of time with Rob Walker!  I was getting more and more conceptual the more I thought about this.  So, train journey one is the same as train journey two, but in one, it flies by and in the other, it doesn't.  I was like, "Notice why not".  So, "Why does my train journey home sometimes feel really long and laborious; and why, sometimes, do I nearly miss my stop?"  And I was like, "Oh, that's really interesting because the time's the same, but actually how it feels, the time feels for me, I noticed it feels very different".  And actually, what it's made me think about is, my slow train journeys where I get bored and I'm a bit like, "I just want to be home", is when I'm on social media, not really connecting to anything, dipping in and out of things, getting a bit distracted, bit kind of all over the place.  The train journeys that fly by for me are when I am reading a book, maybe because I'm researching for a podcast, I've got one task that I want to do. 

So, the other day, I wrote our acknowledgements for our next book on the train.  I was like, "I've got one job to do on this train journey and it's to write our acknowledgements.  And I really care about saying thank you in a really meaningful way", and I nearly missed my stop, because I was really into it and I was just writing it.  I knew I'd got headphones in so that it wasn't too noisy, and things, and so actually, that has made me rethink about, what is this train journey for?  And sometimes, it's for listening to a podcast I absolutely love that's nothing to do with work; or sometimes I think, "Well, have I got a task that lends itself to being done on the train?" because I can't really get my laptop out on the train, so I can't do emails or those kinds of things, but I can write one thing or read one thing or create a set of questions or prepare for something that we might be doing.  So, notice when time flies by.

Helen Tupper: I like it, it's a lovely question, and I get your train journey. 

Sarah Ellis: Train journey versus train journey, you see.

Helen Tupper: I get it. 

Sarah Ellis: Got there in the end! 

Helen Tupper: Notice what's not being said in a meeting, that's idea number two.

Sarah Ellis: I think you're very good at this.

Helen Tupper: I like this, I feel it keeps me engaged in meetings.  So, you can think about, notice maybe who's a bit quieter than normal, or notice where somebody might be trying to say something but they're not getting in, or where there's long pauses.  I think if you are noticing what's not being said, there's lots to look out for.  And I think if someone has dominated the conversation, it's likely that other people have got perspective, but they've just not had a moment to say it, so then you can invite them in.  Or, if somebody is normally a bit more vocal and on that particular day they're very quiet, then actually that might not be about anything in the meeting, that might be about something outside.  Like, you would normally have a perspective on this, Sarah, and the fact that you haven't even commented on this copy or creative is weird!  I'm noticing that you are not saying what you would normally say. 

So, I find personally it is both a nice thing to do, because it means that you're keeping people engaged in a conversation; but also, selfishly, it keeps me engaged, because it gives me another purpose in that meeting. 

Sarah Ellis: Idea number three, notice how an hour without your phone feels.  So, this is something I've done quite a few times.  I mean, your face tells me that it's not the first thing you want to try out, but maybe that's the reason to try out.  And I sometimes do this now on holiday.  So, sometimes you do need a phone between you as a family, but we probably only need one.  So, I will often say to my partner, "Have you got your phone?" and he does take his and he never looks at it anyway, so you're like, it's not a problem.  Whereas if I take my phone with us when we're going for a walk or onto the beach or whatever, the temptation to just look at it, to check your email, or whatever, is so much higher because it's readily available and it's accessible.  So, my reaction is like, the phone goes in the glove box, that's where it lives, and it lives there for an hour or two. 

I think when I've tried it also at work, you know, when we've got things where you do really need deep focus, typically you're writing something, you're really trying to use the best parts of your brain, the quality of my thinking here needs to be high, the thing that I've noticed is that when I come back to my phone, I never feel I've missed anything.  And I think I am training myself to let go of the dopamine hit that we know comes from messages, being needed, FOMO.  Because I mean, that's a real thing, right?  They are designed to be addictive.  And I think I've left my phone for longer and longer periods of time, and I do actually think I could exist without it, other than things Google Maps.  How would I get anywhere?  I'd have to get the old A-Z out again.  But I think it was probably like this is almost a two-year process for me, where I noticed that an hour without my phone felt really tense and quite anxiety-inducing; whereas now, I'd feel very relaxed.  I think I could not have a phone and I think I'd be fine now. 

Helen Tupper: Oh, gosh!

Sarah Ellis: I know, your face!  Would you to try an hour?

Helen Tupper: No, so my reflections are, I've done elements of this, but I think I don't do it very long because I don't like it.  But what I have noticed is that whenever I don't have my phone in the moment, whether it's work or the weekend, I'm quite liberated.  So, if I'm going for a walk with my family without my phone, other than occasionally thinking, "Oh, I might want to take a photo of the kids --" 

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, so there's a thing you're used to doing.

Helen Tupper: Yeah, but generally I'm quite liberated, not having a phone, not having this conversation, it means I'm more present.  But in the week when I then go back to it, I feel quite overwhelmed because I'm like, "Oh my gosh", because there's so many messages, so much stuff.  Whereas at the weekend, there's less stuff, so I have less of that feeling, but I'm sort of copying the same pattern of having my phone constantly at the weekend because it's become a habit.  So, I think I could easily have it less, put it in the glove box for a whole day at the weekend.  It's just the habitual thing.  But I have noticed in the moment, I like it; after the moment, the amount to catch up on I find a bit overwhelming. 

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, so you'd almost have to design that into your day. 

Helen Tupper: Yeah, checkpoints.

Sarah Ellis: So, if you're like, "I'm not going to have it for an hour", then you'd almost be like, "But I need to give myself the 15 minutes to catch up and check in, and make sure everything's okay". 

Helen Tupper: Yeah, which would probably still be healthier than being like, "Check, check, check". 

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, and we even have that, right?  We say to each other sometimes, "Should we do a quick phone check?" and we both agree to be like, "Check, catch up, sorted", because then we know we need to go back to being present to whatever we're doing next. 

Helen Tupper: So, number four, notice what's on your manager's worry list, what questions do they ask, what topics they keep coming back to.  It's interesting because we don't have managers now, we just sort of manage each other.  But I mean, I sort of intuitively get what's on your worry list.  But if I actually tuned into it, which I think is what noticing is, and if I spent a week noticing what was on your worry list, I think at the end of it, I would be like, "These three things".  Whereas now, I'd be like, "It's probably this", like I feel I'd be guessing a little bit more.  Whereas missing dates and deadlines, I know that that's on your worry list, because we talked about it, like, it's a thing I've noticed today.  But it's so useful because then I could think, "Well, how can I be helpful?  What could I do differently?" so that that's less of a worry for you.  And that would probably, not that we need to build a better relationship, but if you were my actual manager and I had a bit more distance from you, it probably would help me to build a better relationship with you, because I'd spent time thinking about your work and your worries, and then how can I work in a way that's more helpful for you? 

Sarah Ellis: I think here, you can start to notice repetition, topics that people keep talking about, what do people almost seem overly obsessed or interested in?  And I think if you really notice this with your manager, it's actually where sometimes you can understand why there might be a disconnect between what you're trying to do and what they care about.  Because those things are sometimes at odds.  You're thinking, "Well, this really matters to me, because that's the project or the piece of work I'm trying to do, but then they keep talking to me about this other thing".  And that could come across as, "Oh, they don't care, or they're not listening".  But actually, it's because that's on their worry list. 

Helen Tupper: It's dominating. 

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, it's dominating.  And so, actually, if you can tune in and tap into that and actually talk to them about it, almost the likelihood of them then actually also being able to come back around then to maybe what you also need probably increases.  Number five, you can tell I've been doing this one a bit, notice five things about your commute.  So, these are details that you might currently miss out on, you know, when was the last time you looked out of the window?  I did try this one this week, listening to people's conversations.  So, I was actually sitting waiting. 

Helen Tupper: What was the best thing you heard? 

Sarah Ellis: I just had loads of people talking about work.  It was a lunchtime. 

Helen Tupper: Okay. 

Sarah Ellis: So, when I said 'commute', I was having something to eat and then then going to a train.  But I was just listening to often friends or maybe work colleagues, I'm guessing.  And everyone was just in London, so people were sitting quite close to each other.  And people were talking about, you know, "Oh, this has changed, or this is hard", or their managers or whatever was going on, which I found fascinating.  I was like, "This is like a live focus group on careers and what's going on in people's worlds".  But I think the point here, the reason people encourage you to do this, is this does turn autopilot off and it's how you turn autopilot into attention.  And so, you don't need to do this all the time.  I think sometimes, autopilot is useful, because we know what to do, it's comfortable and it's easy; and there are other times where we're not on autopilot, so your commute can actually be a bit relaxing because of it. 

But if you did like, "Oh, but on Monday, I'm going to try and notice five things", I did notice the other day, I tried this, I was like, "Right, I'm going to look out the window".  I never really look out the window.  I was like, "Oh, there's cows".  It felt quite rural and I was thinking, "I don't think I live that far out of London, but it turns out there are cows on my way home on my commute". Or turn your podcast off for a bit, just look around.  And the whole thing is this is tuning into the sounds, what you can see, what you can hear, all of your senses.  I don't think you need to do this all the time.  The other classic one, someone said this to us, didn't they, once in a workshop, "Turn right rather than left". 

Helen Tupper: Yes.

Sarah Ellis: Like, if you have a lunch break, or if you go for a walk at lunch or something, we always eat the same thing, you go to the same café, and I've definitely been very guilty of this, because it's easy and you know how it works.  It's like, but what if you walked the opposite direction; what would you find?  And I think this is harder and it's more uncomfortable, but I think it gets your brain zapping in different ways.

Helen Tupper: It's weirdly brave.  I was just thinking, "Oh, I'm commuting home later.  I wonder if I sit on the train and I just aim to notice".  So, in advance, you're not saying, "I'm going to notice a cow".  You're just saying, "I'm going to mentally notice five interesting things. 

Sarah Ellis: Do you know, one other thing I noticed? 

Helen Tupper: What did you notice? 

Sarah Ellis: 80% of the people who got off the train with me were men.  And then I was like, "Oh, that's interesting.  Is that because of the time that I'm coming home?  Is that because the way the world works, it's still hard for women who probably have primary caring responsibilities to also commute at this time?"  It made me ask some very philosophical questions, Helen. 

Helen Tupper: That is exactly the skill that you need! 

Sarah Ellis: I was like, "I'm really enjoying it.  I am never going to get anything done again because I'm too busy noticing". 

Helen Tupper: Okay, well if you want to balance towards your noticing, perhaps the next one might be helpful.  Notice what never seems to get done because you're spending so much time noticing!  It's so meta!  So, there's quite a lot to learn from this.  I think the easiest way I would do this is I write a list.  So, I have my diary and every day I write my actions in a diary, and at the end of the week, I carry over something that hasn't got done, so it's on the list for the next week.  And I think I would notice what keeps getting carried over is basically the work that never gets done.  And then, I think you can kind of go, "But why?"  I notice sometimes that I don't do things because in my head, it's going to take a long time.  And then, when I actually do it, it's a two-minute task.  But I sort of make assumptions about how long things are going to take, and then you think, well maybe doing things like time-blocking or task-blocking, that would probably help me, because I always put it off until I've got some time.  But I think I notice what never gets done.  How would you notice what never gets done? 

Sarah Ellis: Because you keep talking about it.  

Helen Tupper: Oh, that's annoying, yeah.  It makes me think about things that I've not done.  Oh no, are you thinking about things that I've not done?! 

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, obviously!  I would say not you, we, 'we' haven't got done.  I think I know this all the time.  I hold this in my head because I don't like it.  I don't notice small things, I don't mind about small things that don't get done, I think because everyone has a system for that, right?  You use your diary, I have flags in my inbox, and you kind of work your way through that.  I think here, I notice the big things that don't get done that I think are important.  And then, I think what it makes me question is, are they important?  So, maybe I think they're important, but maybe you don't think they're important, or maybe the team doesn't think they're important.  Maybe they are important, but there's another blocker that we need to remove.  So, are we a bottleneck to something getting done?  I mean, that's a yes quite a lot of the time.  How could we approach something differently?  Are we getting stuck in a need to get it right, rather than get it done, so progress over perfection when good enough is great?  Or, do you need to not do something else to create the space to do this thing because it is really important?

Helen Tupper: It's quite a nice team conversation.  When I say a 'nice' team conversation … 

Sarah Ellis: I would actually enjoy it. 

Helen Tupper: I think it also gives a team a chance to maybe vent a bit like, "This keeps not getting done.  It's quite frustrating that this doesn't get done".  And then, going back to your point, you go, "Well, why isn't it getting done?  What would need to change for it to get done?  Let's prioritise the things that we're noticing aren't getting done and collectively resolve it".  Nice conversation.

Sarah Ellis: This was actually probably my favourite one, because I liked the, not the confrontation, that's the wrong word, but I think I liked the accountability that comes with this.  So, rather than blaming or beating yourself up or just accepting, none of which I like the idea of any of those things, you sort of go, "Well, let's just notice it and use the noticing to actually inspire action", because I liked the fact I felt you'd get to better action because of it. 

Number seven, notice what your inner monologue sounds like.  Yeah, I don't find this one that difficult either, I don't think.  What does your inner monologue sound like?  I think probably what's useful here is, is your inner monologue working for you or against you?  So, is it your gremlin in charge?  Is it one of your confidence gremlins telling you, "Well, you've not done that thing because you're not good enough, because you're not smart enough, because you're fearing failure and what if it's not as good as it could be?"  And I can notice sometimes that those things that we haven't done, some of my gremlins definitely are tapping away a little bit.  Or is it more, you're kind of supporting yourself, you're being your own best friend. 

I do think when I reflected on this one, I was like, I think you're in a monologue can change from moment to moment, hour to hour, day to day.  I think everyone's monologue goes up and down during the day.  My question for myself was like, "And then, how do you feel by the end of a week?  What are you telling yourself about your working week?  Are you saying, "That was a productive week that I feel proud of"; are you saying, "I've had a really good impact this week"; or are you finishing a week going, "Look at all the things I've not done"?  And again, finishing a week with optimism we know makes a difference to then both your confidence but also your capability.  So actually, the day that I was writing this, I was like, my inner monologue was telling me that my work is so curious and interesting and intriguing today.  I'm learning so much, I'm spending time with so many different people.  And I was having a real curious day.  But then also, within 24 hours, my inner monologue was saying to me, "I wish I just had 15 minutes", because I'd got such a busy, full-on day, and also I'm somebody who likes to have the time to think.

But then, almost by listening into it and tuning into it, I think you can also choose to change the channel, I do know that.  And actually, rather than wishing I had 15 minutes and getting a bit frustrated by that, I think I then just looked and I was like, "Well, it's okay that I haven't, because I'll look what I've got here or I will have it there", and then I was a bit better again. 

Helen Tupper: Yeah.  I guess you could just write down at the end of the day, couldn't you, write down, "What am of saying to myself?" in a non-judgemental day.  Just write down those kind of insights that are in your head.  And at the end of the week, you can reflect on, "How does that make me feel about my week".  I would need to see it. 

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, I was thinking actually journaling.

Helen Tupper: Yeah, I think you could process more in your head, whereas I think I would need to get out my head onto a piece of paper, and then I need to look at the words and be like, "What's going on?"  I think that would work for me.  I actually listened to a really interesting podcast with Adam Grant and Ethan Kross, who's the author of Chatter, who's also been on our podcast, and you had a talk to him, didn't you?  But it was quite Ethan Kross, and basically saying he has no inner monologue, he has no chatter. 

Sarah Ellis: No chatter?

Helen Tupper: No chatter. 

Sarah Ellis: Surely everybody has? 

Helen Tupper: Well, yeah, he was very adamant.  No chatter.  He was saying his wife will read stories and imagine the characters of the people, to their children, imagine the characters.  And he's like, "No, they're just words on a page".  It was like, maybe scientific, I don't know, but it was quite an interesting conversation.  Ethan Kross actually I thought was brilliant in it, because you could just be a bit like --

Sarah Ellis: Oh, "You're not giving me anything to work with", yeah.

Helen Tupper: Yeah, like, someone says, "I don't believe in Squiggly Careers", and you're like, "Great, I've got to talk to you for an hour about something you clearly don't believe in".  And Adam Grant wasn't trying to be difficult, it was just a potentially challenging conversation for someone who's so expert in this area.  It was actually quite interesting to listen to from that perspective of someone not getting defensive and being curious from someone who's got a big challenge.  Worth a listen. 

So, the eighth one is to notice what you don't know.  And this is actually inspired by someone called Richard Feynman, who talks about having a kind of 'don't-know notebook'.  And so, going through your days and weeks and rather than, I don't know, letting your, I guess, ego or know-it-all mode drive how you're showing up, which is like, "I know this about career development and I know this about chatter", or whatever, actually going, "Well, what don't I know?"  What don't I know about Ethan Kross's work?  What don't I know about what careers look in other countries?  And being very, very conscious of that and capturing that, and using it maybe for some sort of curiosity later in the day.  And if you have a don't-know list or a don't-know notebook, I think it's quite an interesting starting point for, is there a moment in your day where you could dive into your don't-know notebook and think, "Well, do know what, I'm going to be curious?" 

I actually do this in a very less of a list.  I do it with words.  So, I will often be reading.  I quite like finding a word that I don't know.  I love it.  Because I'm often like, I'll be reading the papers and I'll read the FT at the weekend, and I'll be going through it and I think sometimes, I'm a bit embarrassed.  I'm like, "I probably should know what that word means".  But now, rather than be embarrassed about it, I've just gone, "Oh, well, I'll be curious about it", and I look it up, and I have it in my phone.  I just keep now the words that I found that I didn't know in my phone as a little person encyclopaedia of wisdom that's just for me.  So, I quite doing it with words, is mine. 

Sarah Ellis: I wonder whether, I know in workshops where we ask people, "What do you want to learn this year?" so in 2025.  Obviously, the stock standard answer at the moment is AI, and that's literally all you get, you get, "AI".  I actually wonder if it might be more useful for people to kind of notice what they don't know about AI.  Because AI is so vast and so big, almost if you wrote down some questions you want to answer about AI, it gives some clarity to what you don't know.  So, I think sometimes, it's quite good for a big topic, where it can feel a bit overwhelming with where to start, or if you just think, "I just don't know anything or there's so much I don't know". 

Helen Tupper: "I don't know what tools to use, I don't know what prompts are good", or whatever. 

Sarah Ellis: But actually, by almost breaking it down then into your kind of, "Here is a list of things I don't know about this theme or this topic", you can then also look at them and go, "Okay, well then who could help me turn that from a don't know to a know; or what could I experiment with; or where might I start; or what could I read, watch, or listen to?"  I've listened to a few, quite sort of full-on AI podcasts from people clearly in the technology industry who are in it day in, day out, just to see what happens.

Helen Tupper: What, to you?!

Sarah Ellis: No, to the conversation.  I'm like, what happens in that kind of a conversation, I think because I just couldn't, I don't know.  You know like, I sometimes read some of these things about AI and I'll be like, "Well, I don't really understand what people are talking about".  So, I was like, "Oh, I'm just going to almost dive in the deep end to something I wouldn't normally listen to".  And they basically talk about at tech updates.  So, they'll be like, "Well, this week, there's 4.3 version of this thing has come out", and I'm like, "Oh, I wonder what version 1 was.  I've not even heard of it, and it's at 4.3".  But actually, even just listening to the conversation, you're a bit more in that world, and you definitely know than you knew 40 minutes ago.  And that's all you're trying to do, is you're trying to move what you know further forward, even if you were starting from scratch. 

Helen Tupper: And I think again, back to that, I think it just stops you being embarrassed.  I would often think, notice what you don't know, acronyms is a good one.  You know, we just all take an acronym in a company.

Sarah Ellis: I always ask that in a workshop, almost out of principle. 

Helen Tupper: Yeah, you're like, "I don't actually know what that means". 

Sarah Ellis: Or I guess them, to make a point.  Someone did have one actually the other day and I guessed it wrong, but actually, it really made people appreciate.  They were like, "Oh, sorry, that's a really internal thing".  And I was like, "What does that stand for?  This, this and this?" and they were like, "No", it was something really different.  So, I think that's a really good thing to do.  And last but not least, number nine, notice other people's strengths in action.  I think this can be a brilliant opportunity to tell people when you see them at their best.  And I think if you notice people's strengths in action, often you can take for granted either that they know, "Oh, they must know that they're good at this so I don't need to say anything", or you might stop noticing because you take it for granted.  So, I think that's a slightly different thing.

I was reflecting on that and thinking, if I think about even people in our team, I'm like, "I take for granted that they are brilliant at..."  And then I was like, "When was the last time I told them that?"  And then I'll probably think, "Oh, they probably know".  I'm like, "But do they?"  And even if they do, the worst-case scenario is that I am reinforcing to them the positive impact they're having.  And also, I want them to keep using that strength and use it more. 

Helen Tupper: What might it sound like?  So, you've noticed someone's strength standing out in a situation, you see them in action, and you're going to give them some strength-based feedback, what would that sound like? 

Sarah Ellis: I think I probably wouldn't do it in person, for a start, I'd probably just do it over Teams, really fast, really informal.  I would probably spot the situation, so I would say, "In that meeting we were in together today, I noticed that the questions that you asked really helped to create clarity for what we need to do next.  And if you hadn't have done that, there's a risk we could have all come away a bit unsure".  Or like, "What was the consequence of you not using that strength?" as simple as that, a sentence, maybe two.  Or, I might use 'brilliant because', because we often share that in our workshops.  I might say, "Oh, that presentation was brilliant, because your stories are what cut through lots of data for people to understand.  But it's the stories that I think people remember, and they felt really personal and they really created a sense of connection between what you said and what I heard".  So, I don't know, someone like that.

Helen Tupper: I think noticing someone's strengths in action is a really nice thing you can do for your colleagues, I think it's a valuable thing to do.

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, but I think it's one of those where it's it sounds easy but then easily forgotten. 

Helen Tupper: And it's different to praise.  Rather than going, "You were great today", I think strengths in action means it's more specific.  So, we have gone through nine ways that you can start noticing at work.  And what we will do is put those all in the PodSheet.  So, that is a one-page summary which brings together everything we talk about in the podcast, in something that you can download and take action with.  You can get that from our website, amazingif.com, or it's always sent out in the weekly newsletter, Squiggly Careers in Action.  Links for all of those things will be in the show notes. 

Sarah Ellis: So, that's everything for this week.  Thank you so much for listening and we're back with you again soon.  Bye for now.