Last week I found myself in a situation which I have not been in for years, perhaps ever.
I had enrolled on a training programme to help me build some very specific skills. I was excited about the course as I could see how the new skills would be directly applicable to my role and I was eager to learn from the other participants. I realised when I enrolled on the course and read the course outline that some of the programme would be going over areas I know very well, but I still felt the course would be of value as I would be listening to the information with ‘new ears’ since I would be applying the skills in a new arena – that of selling. I turned up to the course eager to learn.
Imagine my surprise when I was the only delegate there on time. Slowly but surely other delegates arrived and some twenty-five minutes after the allotted time, we started.
No introductions were made and so it wasn’t until the first activity some time later that I found out who my co-delegates were. Long before that though, it became apparent they didn’t want to be there. The trainer worked hard to get involvement from the delegates and even resorted to telling some jokes! (I am sure that was to check that there was a pulse amongst his audience!) I squirmed in my chair as I seemed to be the only one wanting to join in, wanting to learn. I was starting to feel like ‘teacher’s pet’.
The day continued much the same; very little positive input from the other delegates, a reluctance to share their own experience with each other, or indeed to demonstrate how the information we were being given might help them perform their role better.
The day dragged on and on (a day hasn’t felt that long for an age) but finally we’d finished the course. The delegates completed the obligatory ‘happy sheets’ and filed out the room, barely saying a word to their fellow delegates. I wondered what they had learned from the day.
As for me, I learned so much more than I expected. Yes, the course covered much of what I already knew but it felt different somehow because of those ‘new ears’. I have an action plan and I feel ready to apply my new skills.
But what I really learned was something much more useful; I learned that our insistence that delegates who attend our programmes must be ready to learn is absolutely critical. I learned our facilitated learning approach which involves every delegate is essential. I learned that our process for ensuring a good brief from the client regarding learning objectives and outcomes is robust enough. A long day, but on reflection, a valuable day.
I think I speak for many when I say I have never worked so hard to keep still! There is no doubt that the current recession in which we find ourselves, requires us to be more resilient, more determined and more resourceful than ever. As a result, the ability to manage our own time is becoming even more crucial.
Imagine my surprise, then, when I fell into some of the time management traps I tell my clients to avoid! As a result my working day had been getting longer and longer.
Realising that this is something that can not continue, I took a step back and thought about the key time management techniques that I regularly speak to my clients about. I thought you might like to know which ones have worked for me:
1) I looked at my Outlook calendar over the last few weeks and analysed the time I had spent on meetings, travel, client work, follow up work etc. I asked myself what inefficiencies I had unwittingly allowed to creep into my scheduling and then set out what I needed to do to make sure this doesn’t happen again.
2) How often do you find you are rushing from one meeting to another and you don’t have time to do the actions? One way of overcoming this is to schedule specific times when you will do this work. I have resumed my habit of booking and keeping appointments with myself.
3) I looked at the type of work I was doing and applied the Pareto Principle (80/20 rule). Since 80% of my paid work is likely to be coming from 20% of my activities, my job was to work out which 80% of activities were not delivering a good level of income. Once identified, I knew what I needed to do.
4) I now keep a separate, easily accessible ‘to do’ list. For some this might be your Outlook Task Bar or something similar, but for me a good old-fashioned list in a book works brilliantly. At the start of every day, I identify the big project(s) I am going to do that day and, where possible, I do this task in 45 minute chunks of time. At the end of the first 45 minutes, I look at my ‘to do’ list, and find some quick tasks which I can do. After 10-15 minutes I resume the original ‘big project’. This has worked wonders and I am even finding ways of applying it when I have meetings for most of the day.
I now feel I am back in control of my diary – well, almost!
I’d like to tell you about a new style of management; the ‘flip flop’ style. This isn’t about hairy toes being displayed by managers who should know better on ‘dress down Fridays’. This is about managers (who should also know better) who ‘flip’ into being aloof, directorial and ‘out of touch’ with their team and then ‘flop’ into being too friendly and too concerned with how their staff view them. The result is a team who is left confused about what is expected of them, unsure how to ‘be’ around their manager and uncertain about what good leadership looks like. Sound familiar?
I often find when I start coaching managers that they use this ‘flip flop’ style. It’s like they see these two extreme styles of management as the only ones available to them.
Through working with managers, they are soon able to see that it isn’t this black and white.
The style of management we advocate leads and develop high performance. To do this you need to display both high challenge AND high support at the same time.
To test this out for yourself, see how you would handle the following scenario:
The performance of your team, and the relationship between you and them is good. However, you are starting to feel a little left out of things, and miss the direct involvement. Would you…
A Leave things as they are
B Discuss the situation with the team and then initiate changes in ways of
operating
C Take steps to ensure that you re-secure your direct involvement in all
decisions
D Take the opportunity to provide more advice to team members
If you have answered anything other than A, you need our help! Contact us to find out more about the High Challenge/High Support style of leadership and hear about the results this can bring to you and your organisation.
Do you ever talk to yourself? I do, all the time. The little voice in my head regularly let's me know whether I'm on-course, am doing a good job, or occasionally screams something unhelpful like "look, he's better than you!"
No I am not mad. Virtually everyone talks to themself and if you are asking yourself now whether you do, then clearly the answer is "Yes!"
So what's all this got to do with high performance? Well, according to Tim Gallway, one of the founding fathers of coaching and author of many books including 'The Inner Game of Tennis', it has everything to do with performance. He talks about us each having 2 'Selfs'; Self 1 is the 'teller' and Self 2 is the 'doer'.
When Self 1 is being unconstructive and unhelpful to Self 2, we doubt ourselves, we start to make mistakes and we prove Self 1 right. It becomes self-fulfilling. An example might be when you stand up in front of an audience and tell yourself "I've got nothing interesting to say" or "I'm not as good as the last speaker".
When Self 1 is giving constructive and helpful information to Self 2, we are encouraged to perform at our best. For example, when you tell yourself "your doing a good job, keep going" or, even better, when you don't tell yourself anything as you are simply getting on with the job without interruption.
A key to high performance is therefore to learn how to quieten Self 1, or at least have it say encourgaging things.
Yesterday, I was intrigued to read some research published in 'Business Week' that perhaps explains the poor state of many firms at present. It showed that people's emotional intelligence had been shown to steadily rise up to middle management levels, and then plummet after that. Alarming; as it would suggest that many of those vested with the most power within an organisation, have the least wherewithall to deal with it. (See link)
To explain this phenomenon, I thought it useful to go back to the four 'pillars' of emotional intelligence:
self awareness - the ability to 'know thyself' and the impact we have on other people
self management (self control) - the ability to chose which emotion will drive our action, rather than simply re-acting to others who may press our buttons
awareness of others - the ability to see things from another's perspective
relationship management - how we interact with the world
In my experience, all learning starts with self-awareness. Unless you know and accept how you are and how others see you, what chance have you to change, adapt and develop? With so many senior managers excluded from appraisal systems, few get chance to hear what others think of them. This often means their own self-perception goes unchecked. What feedback they do get is often focused on targets rather than on behaviour and outcomes. What surprise is it then that so many managers lose their objective sense of self and get on with managing as they have always done, with little awareness of how outdated this might be in the current environment?
As for the solution, it seems to be 3-fold:
ecouraging open and honest feedback at ALL levels of an organisation
external coaching to provide an objective perspective and encourage self-reflection
a willingess to adapt and change
And motivation is the key to the last point here and that is a whole different matter!
Kate
The article can be found here. Kate's comment on the article can be found here.
First, it was a nasty strain of 'flu that spread across the country over the Christmas period, rendering people incapacitated and businesses suffering from staff shortages. This week we have been swept by an altogether more positive epidemic - Obama Fever.
It seemed as though the whole country, if not the world, stopped at 5.00pm on Tuesday to watch the swearing in and inaugural address of President Barack Obama. Phone calls were cut short, car parks emptied as people rushed home to switch on their televisions and a record number of video streams made the online news sites very happy indeed.
Obama has earned his reputation as an orator and this speech, crafted by his 27 year-old chief speechwriter, did not disappoint. There is much for business leaders to learn from the way the President has taken on his new leadership role. The speech set out his vision using all manner of rhetorical techniques designed to capture people's emotions and bring them on-side. His first day was marked by a stamp of authority and an example of principle-centred leadership at its best.
People entering new roles are measured on their actions in the first 100 days and we, at Motivational Leadership, eagerly await the next 99 days of his tenure. He may prove to be an excellent case study in our training!
Say the word 'networking' to most people and they'll freeze with fear. Maybe it's the thought of making small talk with people they don't know, being lumbered with someone all evening just because they don't know how to exit the discussion, or, perhaps worse still, being left on your own with no one to talk to. Sound familiar?
When I was at a family Christmas gathering this weekend, it struck me that we practice the skills of networking all the time and yet it's only in certain situations that we consciously become aware of those skills and they feel 'clunky'.
For example, when you are at a party with people you really enjoy the company of, and you feel it is time to circulate, does it feel awkward making your excuses? Of course it doesn't, you do it naturally. One technique I saw at the weekend was saying you wanted to get more food and drink and asking whether the other person wants some. They'll either come with you (which is fine as you are bound to bump into other people you can talk to), or they'll see it as a cue for them to go circulate too.
How about, being left on your own? When new people joined the party this weekend, the winning strategy seemed to head for the food and drink - there is always someone hanging around there. Oh, and smile!
So what about small talk? Families do it all the time. The trick? It 's about asking open questions. Whether it's 'How was your journey?' to something deeper like 'How are you finding the credit crunch?', questions work.
So when you are out and about at parties this festive season and find that you are enjoying yourself, reflect on what natural networking skills you were using and replicate them when you are next networking.
The art of networking is often misunderstood and many use it as an excuse to sell rather than build relationships. Taking Lynne's example, in a networking event many people are looking around to find a better prospect to sell to. They end up behaving like a meercat looking out for someone who might be more interested in their pitch.
Kate is on the button with the use of questions. Networkers think they have to be 'interesting'. It is more effective to be 'interested' in others since, if they have had an involving conversation, they are more likely to remember you and seek you out again at another event. The meercats tend to get avoided at all costs!
Andy Britnell
Andy, Monday, July 06, 2009 : 10:59:49 AM
Your useful piece on networking reminded me of another party related networking point that I found helpful: there can be a tendancy to look around and think that other people are having better conversations than the one you are in. Not only is this thought usually wrong, it stops you from engaging properly in your own discussion and therefore it won't be very good. The advice was not to entertain this common thought and instead focus on what you're doing rather than worrying about what other people are talking about.
I have just finished reading the autobiogaphy of Dragon's Den star, James Caan. In his inspiring book, 'The Real Deal from Brick Lane to the Dragon's Den' you discover that there is much behind the quietly spoken individual who joined the Den's line up last year. His father, who had a profound impact on his life, had a saying: "Observe the masses, then do something different", and this strongly resonated with me.
When we set up Motivational Leadership, we wanted to do just that. We wanted to look at what our competitors were doing, learn from them, and then apply this to allow us to work in new ways which had a more sustainable impact on people development. We wanted to find different ways to market to our prospects. We wanted to feel that we had embarked on a different journey to what we could have done if we'd simply followed the crowd. At the time, it felt like a bit of a risk, but just reading these words in this book, I know we are on the right course.
Tell me. what would 'different' be for you and your business?
As we talk to people about Motivational Leadership we quite often get asked "so how did the three of you decide that combining your businesses to make Motivational Leadership was the thing to do?"
I suppose the answer is that the idea kind of evolved. Lynne and I had worked together about 10 years ago and even then had started to hatch plans for our business empire.
I moved on to a job in the private sector and shortly after Lynne left to set up her own company. A few years later I went out on my own and we kept in touch and collaborated on a number of projects.
About 3 years ago Lynne became a licensed practitioner for Motivational Maps and met Kate, who also ran her own business. Lynne decided that the three of us should get together. When we did all meet up we discovered that we all had a similar approach to our training and coaching work and that although we all had successful businesses we were thinking "is that all there is?"
As our discussions evolved, Motivational Leadership was born. Since then there have been deep discussions around our values and objectives ... and who was going to man the Caribbean office!
We also have a lot of discussions about the number 3 and it's mystical powers! The fact that the brain finds patterns of 3 easy to recognise, presentation points should come in 3's, organisations should consider 1 individual 2 team 3 organisation, there are 3 wise men, 3 blind mice, 3 witches in McBeth, 3 little maids from school, the good the bad and the ugly - we are still arguing over who gets to be which on that one!
So that's sort of how we got to where we are today.
We spend so much time reading that we're delighted we can now offer you our personal recommendations via our books page.
Clients often ask us to recommend particular books, videos or audio downloads that relate to the subject areas we happen to be training them on at the time. Recently, I was delivering a presentation skills course and was prompted to think about which ONE book I would recommend for inexperienced speakers.
Choosing one book is quite a challenge but in the end I plumped for this one by Max Atkinson who has years of experience in this field. It is well structured, well written and the chapters on rhetoric demonstrate the importance of words. For all you NLP practitioners out there - enjoy!
