BBM info

This series, “What I’d like to know about BBM”, aims to answer gen­eral ques­tions you might have about BBM.

This series, “Bar­ri­ers In Organ­isa­tions”, provides an over­view of the impact that each of the 5 bar­ri­ers has on organ­isa­tional per­form­ance, with quotes from cli­ents and case studies.

Here’s a brief over­view of the 5 bar­ri­ers and what you achieve when you break through them.
Each bar­rier inhib­its a range of soft skills, rep­res­en­ted in BBM by 8 spe­cific skills. To find out which skills you’ll develop as you break through each bar­rier take a look at the Poster Gal­lery.

Back­ward Focus

Break­ing through the bar­rier of back­ward focus shifts atten­tion away from past influ­ences. This could be on an indi­vidual level — such as neg­at­ive per­sonal exper­i­ences, or the ‘boxes’ of soci­etal assump­tions we get placed in — or on an organ­isa­tional level, such as a com­pany cul­ture ‘nor­m­al­ising’ work­ing prac­tices that are, in real­ity, obsol­ete. Recog­nising where ‘past’ is influ­en­cing beha­viour allows it to inform without dom­in­at­ing the situ­ation. As with all the bar­ri­ers, you may identify this focus as driv­ing your own or your organisation’s beha­viour, or you may recog­nise it in oth­ers, and so be bet­ter pre­pared when respond­ing to them.

Inward Focus

Break­ing through the bar­rier of inward focus shifts atten­tion away from your­self, out onto the part you play in the big­ger pic­ture and to the per­spect­ives that oth­ers hold…whether ‘you’ are an indi­vidual or an organ­isa­tion. This removes you from the trap of a short-term, nar­row world-view, helps estab­lish pro­duct­ive com­mu­nic­a­tion chan­nels, and improves per­sonal and pro­fes­sional relationships.

Down­ward Focus

Break­ing through the bar­rier of down­ward focus shifts atten­tion away from the shadow side…the unac­know­ledged influ­ences that can dom­in­ate indi­vidual and organ­isa­tional beha­viour. From per­sonal insec­ur­it­ies that limit poten­tial, through to organ­isa­tional cor­rup­tion that occurs behind a shiny image, this bar­rier wreaks havoc. It’s the trick­i­est bar­rier to identify in one­self and oth­ers, but has the most bene­fit to offer when you recog­nise and over­come it.

Left Focus

Break­ing through the bar­rier of left focus shifts atten­tion away from the over­use of logic, and into a bal­ance between the rational and intu­it­ive. This allows you to develop the broader skills and flex­ible approach needed to deal suc­cess­fully with uncer­tainty, to be bet­ter equipped for innov­a­tion, and to adapt effect­ively to the unpre­dict­ab­il­ity of how we work, learn,and live — now and in future.

Right Focus

Break­ing through the bar­rier of right focus shifts atten­tion away from ima­gin­a­tion, and allows you to design the best struc­tures within which to frame your ideas and your activ­ity. This clears clut­ter, brings clar­ity of dir­ec­tion, improves time man­age­ment, turns thoughts into action, and makes the most of your resources.