Simon Phillips asked to be a tutor at the Hampshire School for Social Entrpreneurs

The Hampshire School for Social Entrepreneurs (HSSE) exists to provide training and opportunities to enable people to use their creative and entrepreneurial abilities for social benefit.

Last year, Simon gave a brief talk to members of the school about social media and effective marketing. This year, Simon has been asked to be a tutor on the programme and help new social entrepreneurs to utilise their strengths and ingenuity from Day 1.

Simon said; "It is an honour to be asked to help people to develop their dreams for a better community. As it says in their brochure, the HSSE programme is exciting and challenging, bringing together people that want to make a difference - to learn with and from each other. It's practical rather than acedemic and requires no previous qualifications - only a good idea and the drive and commitment to make it happen."

To find out more about the programme and apply for a place, go to: http://www.hsse.org.uk/fileadmin/user_upload/Document_Library/HSSEAldershot_01.pdf

To watch a video about one of the people on the programme, go to: http://www.hsse.org.uk/index.php?id=646

From Stakeholders to Raving Fans in 5 Steps!

One irreverent view of a “Stakeholder” is of someone armed with a “stake” ready to drive it through your heart at the first sign of a problem with your project. Indeed, to listen to some project managers you would be forgiven for assuming that this was the correct definition! Even the phrase “managing stakeholders” can set you off in the wrong direction; implying to some that stakeholders are an overhead to be kept at bay with periodic communication and formal reports.

However, adopting this view is not only unhelpful but potentially fatal for your project. Think about it; your stakeholders are the future beneficiaries of your project’s deliverables so why would you keep them at arms length? More than that, they want you to succeed and are, potentially, the biggest advocates of the solution you are building. First and foremost, your stakeholders are your allies. Put your arms around them and give them a reason to believe that they have given their allegiance wisely.

The following “5 Step Stakeholder Management Plan” will help you to not just manage your stakeholders but turn them into your first group of Raving Fans!

1 - Recruit
2 - Plan
3 - Train
4 - Arm
5 - Mobilise

Recruit – who are your key stakeholders? An obvious question but actually one that many people often neglect to pay sufficient attention. One of the first tasks for your emerging project team should be to create a Stakeholder Map. Brainstorm every possible person or group that could be affected by your project, including, but not limited to, existing and future customers/clients, suppliers, managers, sponsors, investors, partners and financiers.

Plan – once you have identified your stakeholders, it’s time to plan how you are going to utilise them in the design, development and delivery of your solution/product. The quickest way is to create a matrix with the stakeholders listed on the left and a series of columns to the right that would want to include as a minimum; key contact, communication vehicles to be used, dates of next interaction, who is responsible from within the project for the relationship with the stakeholder. This last one is important and the column should not contain the same name in every row. Everyone on the project should at least consider how they can get involved and drawing on existing relationships is definitely a good idea.

Train – The first task of the project team is to agree and standardise the core themes and key messages of the project. What are the generic business benefits and what are the specific benefits for each Stakeholder group? The first role of your Stakeholders is to become advocates of what the project is trying to achieve but they are not going to do this by osmosis. How can you help them? Or, more importantly, what training can you provide to ensure that they are confident in communicating your message?

Arm – As the project develops any number of risks and issues will arise and not all of them will have been identified up front. Your Stakeholders will be particularly vulnerable when things are not going smoothly so make sure you arm them with as much detail as possible. Obviously, it is not always possible to provide every detail but as long as they are aware of the anticipated timescales for delay and then delivery, they will be able to defend the you and your project and, continue to feel confident in the outcomes.

Mobilise – So, the project is signed-off and the launch party is announced. Remember that the most important component of the celebration is to mobilise an army of advocates. If you have done your job properly throughout the design and delivery phases, your Stakeholders will already be aware of the key benefits of the solution/product. Now all you need to do is issue them with some great PR phrases, identify for them the target client groups and send them off. Provide everything they will need to transmit your messages clearly and your job is done!

Cultural Awareness & Self Awareness

Cultural awareness is the key to building successful international business relationships and should include understanding cultural differences and acting appropriately. No doubt most of you associate this with this with learning about the cultural habits, customs and negotiating styles of the country of the person you are going to be doing business with but this is only one part of the process and certainly not the first.

If you read some of the literature on intercultural or cross-cultural studies, you might get the impression that all you need to do is do a bit of background reading on your target culture/country, perhaps buy a special report on the business style and negotiation tactics there and you’ll be set. But there’s a lot more to it than that.

The problem with this approach is that it immediately sets you up an “Us vs. Them” relationship. The Germans are like this and the Japanese are like this – “they” are unusual, different, the other. This is ultimately quite unhelpful when you come to meet your prospective client because as you’ve already pigeon-holed them you’re likely to miss subtle behavioural clues that don’t confirm your picture of people from that culture. More importantly, although these categorisations of countries and cultures work well at a group level, they break down when confronted by specific individuals. For example, the Japanese businessman who is visiting you from Tokyo may have spent a significant amount of time working or being educated in the USA which may have totally transformed his way of doing business and negotiating.

For me, the first step in cultural awareness is not finding out about other cultures but finding out about yourself: your “myths”, attitudes, beliefs, preferences, worldview and stereotypes. This may seem surprising and you may even think that you know all about yourself already but it’s extremely important for the following reasons.

1) You’ll be better prepared to overcome problems in meetings with foreign business people
2) You’ll be a better negotiator
3) You’ll be a better communicator

In short it will give you an edge.

So “How do I find out about myself?”, I hear you ask? You’ll probably be glad to hear it isn’t necessary to meditate on a mountain top for 20 years but you do need to begin a process of personal observation in your encounters with others. We need other people to show us our blind spots and show us more of how we really behave instead of how we like to think we behave. This process can be as simple as asking others for their feedback about us and our behaviour in specific contexts (e.g. at work, at home), to reading books (see suggested reading list at the end of this article) and taking online assessment tests, such as the one contained in this article on EQ.

This step in developing intercultural awareness is probably the most challenging to take as it necessitates a willingness to change and some difficult moments as we uncover uncomfortable truths about ourselves. However, once it is then the other steps in the process of developing cultural awareness - knowledge of the culture, politics, history and business customs of the target culture and skills development in culturally-sensitive verbal and non-verbal communication - are much easier to acquire.

Suggested reading:

1) When Cultures Collide by Richard D. Lewis, (Nicholas Brealey, 1999).
2) Riding the Waves of Culture by Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner (McGrw-Hill, 1998).
3) Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman, (Bantam, 1997).

Biography:

Neil Urquhart is a cross-cultural consultant who helps individuals and public and private sector organisations win new overseas business through training, facilitation, coaching and consultancy. With extensive experience of working in international contexts as diverse as Japan, Brazil and Germany for firms such as SAP, John Deere and Cargill, he also delivers induction training for the civil servants of 27 different nations at the European Commission.

Spotlight on Malcolm Follos - An Agent for Change

Leading a change project is a great opportunity to learn a lot about yourself, your colleagues and your organisation. Let’s start this article with the most important of the three, you! Amongst the many attributes you will need during the change journey one that is critical to your success is determination. Of course determination can range from ‘grim’ to ‘stubborn’ however my suggestion is to set your dial to ‘flexible’.

‘Flexible determination’ is what is needed if you are to survive the many twist and turns and ups and downs most change projects have to endure along the way. It is also a key attribute to help you bring your colleagues along with you on the change journey. It enables you to stay on course and remain open to new ideas. It allows you to explain the why, when, what, who and how of the change process whilst encouraging you to ‘entertain and consider’ thoughts and views that others may have along the way.

Then, with your dial suitably tuned, you need to get your colleagues on board. At the start of any change journey the final destination can seem far away and shrouded in mist. It is important therefore to spend some time working with your colleagues to bring this destination clearly into focus. What Stephen Covey calls ‘starting with the end in mind.’ To do this I use ‘Imagineering’ which is a technique similar to engineering except it uses your mind and your imagination as the raw materials. Organise a workshop with your colleagues in an open environment away from the hustle and bustle of day-to-day activity. Then reset your internal time clocks and imagine the project has finished and it has been a great success. Give everyone some quiet time to bring this to life in their minds. Ask them to consider what is different?; what has been achieved for the organisation?; what obstacles have you successfully overcome together?; what are they proud of?; what is still left to do?; how do they feel now?; etc. The resulting discussion will create most of the raw material that you will need to craft a suitable Project Charter.

The Project Charter ,(or project brief as it is sometimes called), is a key document that you should build with the team that will help you make the change a reality. It represents the starting point for the journey and should contain the collective thoughts and views of all the team. I encourage teams to ‘sign’ this document as a symbolic way to demonstrate they are committed to the journey ahead. It also needs to be ratified by the Project Sponsor – the senior manager who is acting as the link back into the strategic process from which the change project should be born.

Project Charter’s come in many shapes and sizes but the key sections are:
Purpose – a short paragraph explaining why this project is necessary – this clearly has to answer the ‘why bother?’ question that will inevitably be asked once the journey starts.
Objectives – Clearly expressed statements of intent that are SMART: Specific to the project (unique if possible); Measurable (you need to know the starting value so pick something you measure now); Ambitious (why waste your time doing something that is easy to do life is too short); Realistic (a relative word what is realistic to you might be hopelessly optimistic to me and vice versa – get the team to discuss and agree this level); and Time-bound (objectives need dates otherwise they are just dreams).
Scope – a section explaining what you will and more importantly what you will not consider and work on during the change journey ahead. The Scope Out section enables you to manage expectations early and is key to your success. It needs to contain all the areas that other interested parties may assume you are going to tackle but in fact you are not.
Milestones – the significant achievements you intend to deliver with dates – it is important to make the milestones statements of achievement not simply big tasks.
Deliverables – what will exist at the end of the project that does not exist now – make them tangible if possible.
Risks – what might prevent you succeeding and how you can prevent or mitigate these things before the project gets going?

Once the Project Charter has been ratified by the Project Sponsor then the journey can begin in earnest.

Clearly the better the quality of the thinking in the planning phase the easier the journey will be. Try hard to involve as many people as necessary in the thinking stage as involvement is a great way to build commitment and commitment is the most elusive thing you need to secure during the change journey. It is the fuel that propels the journey forward and locks change in place along the way.

It never ceases to amaze me how people are all for change and how they think it is a great idea until they realise that they may also have to change themselves. As an ‘Agent of Change’ building personal commitment to change in your colleagues and across the organisation as a whole will be your biggest challenge by far. The habits and rituals surrounding the way people work are very pervasive and will fiercely resist any attempt to be changed. Think about it yourself for a moment. When was the last time you changed a habit? How easy did you find it? These are the forces you have to overcome when you are leading a change project. It is perfectly natural for people to resist change so expect it. Making the process inclusive, enjoyable and liberating can help. I am firmly of the view people want to do a great job and they have many ideas on how to remove the day-to-day frustrations that exist in all organisations. The latency to improve exists, it is your job to tap into this and unleash the potential people have to improve.

Finally, it is prudent to expect the unexpected and with enthusiasm and flexible determination in your locker the journey should be both challenging and enjoyable. Leading a change programme can be a very rewarding career move and if the opportunity comes along my advice would be to grab it with open arms!

Malcolm Follos – Managing Director Bowman Group Ltd. – Malcolm is a leading change management consultant, facilitator, trainer and coach.

Integrity is a 100% Job

I was asked recently how I would describe "Integrity" and my answer was it is your ability to trust yourself, it is the very foundation on which to build trust with others.

In this context, consistent behaviour is not good enough. There is no such thing as 99% integrity - it has to be a 100% commitment.

You can be consistent and deliver most of the time and you can get in the area with your clients, suppliers, prospects and staff. But only 100% constancy builds trust and gets you over the front door!

Whatever level you choose to operate - values, principles or results; to be trusted you have to be constant in your efforts. We do a lot of work with stategic level teams and in the early stages of the team coming together the chief concern expressed by many is that they will not be trusted by their new colleagues. Trusted to do the right thing, trusted to make the right decisions, trusted to communicate the right messages. The ones that overcome this concern the quickest are the ones that exude integrity. The ones that are supremely confident in their ability to do what they say they will do. They eliminate any hint of doubt that others may have - effortlessly.

So, next time you are seeking the trust of your colleagues, clients or suppliers, ask yourself, "Do I trust myself to deliver what I say I will?" "Is my word my bond?" "Am I reliable?" "Am I my toughest customer to please?" If you can answer "Yes" to all of these questions, without qualification, you will be building the sort of trust-based relationships that differentiate the very best leaders!

The Maverick as a Leader

by Judth Germain

The agility of successful companies hinges on their capability to harness the competencies of their top performers. The 20th Century style of management (employed by poor performing companies) which insists on a control and command style of management (strict conformity from its employees), has lost credibilty.

Times have changed.

Highly skilled and talented employees are at a premium and they are becoming increasingly harder to work with. They want the highest salaries and the maximum flexibility. They want to work the hours they define and in the way that they want. They want recognition for their expertise and respect for their talents from their peers and the people that manage them. When they are not challenged and stretched appropriately their resultant boredom tends to find a destructive outlet for their talents

The struggle for companies working from a 20th Century mindset is that this type of employee is a stark contrast to the rest of the workforce. I call this group Troublesome Talent™ and I find it is typically as much as one fifth of the talent pool. Not only do they believe that the rules do not apply to them, they often cause a myriad of problems for the company. Criticised for their arrogance (or is it high self confidence?), their rudeness (or is it just blunt honesty) their influence (destructive at times) they usually take a defensive stance or an entrenched position. This can lead to high employee turnover, increased claims of bullying and depressed team cohesion and performance. How expensive is it if a company chooses not to manage their maverick?

What makes a maverick? I define a maverick as being wilfully independent. Wilful independence - when used with the right intention - is what propels companies to success. Consider the success of the following maverick leaders, Richard Branson, Ricardo Semler, Jack Welch, Bill Gates, JFK and Martin Luther King. If you agree that it was their willingness to challenge the status quo, to stand up for what they believe in, to inspire and motivate others and to demonstrate true leadership that made them stand out from the crowd, then ask how you can create an environment for Mavericks to express the same skill.

The 21st Century solution

The 21st Century solution is to recognise that a culture of command and control doesn’t work effectively anymore. Once companies have made that determination, they begin to consider how to engage their employees in a more productive way. Is it better to do this by treating employees as individuals rather than a collective (the workforce), recognising how individual employees are motivated? How important is it to be seen not just to be providing lipservice to this approach? This individualistic approach requires the manager to consider not only how a team is motivated and influenced but the needs of each individual team member. This can mean that the manager with a maverick on his team will need to treat him quite differently from everyone else. That must be balanced between treating him in a way that is tailored for him and consistent when considered against how other employees are managed.

How do you manage your maverick?

The key to managing a maverick is not to manage them! Leadership is the only way to succeed in harnessing the maverick talent. I believe that leadership is trusted influence. The ability to inspire and extend trust and to influence others positively is the true mark of a leader. Guide your maverick to be a better leader regardless of the position that they have within the company.

Give them your time. Mavericks want to have access to you whenever they need to check their understanding on something. They will only want to access your time when they need to – they can however take up a lot of your time, if you do not lead them properly. Be patient! It’s better to spend the time now rather than later. Ignore the maverick at your peril!

Recognise their expertise. All mavericks thrive on others recognising their expertise and their uniqueness. Mavericks however do not want to be constantly told that they are talented. They will not trust constant reinforcement of how good they are. Do look out for the moments when they do something particularly outstanding even for them – and then let them know that you were impressed.

Give them wiggle room. Try not to overly constrain them with unnecessary rules – draw up guidelines instead.

Give them a compelling reason to change. Let them know that their behaviour is unacceptable, at times when they have gone too far. Get this right and you will have their respect for ever. Remember, the way to do this is to influence them to change their behaviour – employing command and control tactics will make things worse.

Let them create, even if that means they do this at odd times during the day. If they respect and believe in you, they will work tirelessly to ensure that your vision is implemented and is successful. They will do this is a way that can be unexpected at times.

Believe in them. Trust is a great motivator. If a maverick senses that you don’t trust them they are likely to turn their talents elsewhere. Teach the maverick how to gain your trust.

Isn’t leadership about trusted influence? If your most maverick employee becomes a more effective influencer what impact will that have on your business? How well is the most effective company in your market dealing with these issues?

In the Spotlight - Martin Edwards - Trusted Leader

Martin Edwards is author of the ‘Trusted Leadership’ ethos as detailed in www.trustedleader.org. Formerly Save the Children’s youngest ever Regional Manager, he has raised over £20million for various UK charities. He is now Chief Executive of Julia’s House, a UK children’s hospice.


SP - What is a Trusted Leader?

ME - A Trusted Leader is the most effective leader of all because they get results consistently through being superb with people.

SP - Why, given the array of attributes discussed in the leadership literature, did you choose to focus on trust as the basis for great leadership?

ME - A lot has been written about how great leaders have single-mindedness, dynamism, drive or charisma: the matinee idol version of leadership. But if you want to be the most effective leader, don’t impress on your people that you can achieve anything; make them believe that they can achieve anything.

The best leaders I have ever met all inspire confidence through their emotional intelligence, brilliant interpersonal skills and a fundamental commitment to positive values. These qualities define them as human beings both in work and outside of it. They judge everyone not by the level of their rank but by the content of their character and the quality of their contribution. They are subtle, clever, decent people. They are flexible and adaptable, yet consistent and steadfast. They are trusted leaders and little has been written about how they build that trust in their everyday behaviour that makes the whole organisation highly effective.

SP - Is trust really integral to results?

ME - Somewhere in the team or the organisation that you lead, there is a young woman with a brilliant idea who’s had the confidence pounded out of her by a manager who doesn’t listen. There is a mercurial genius who is distrusted because he seems to like fighting the system but who would actually thrive on more responsibility. There is a talented thirty-something mother struggling with the demands of bringing up children who will leave if she isn’t sometimes treated more flexibly. There is a 55-year-old whose maturity deserves recognition with a role as a mentor. There is a middle manager who feels under too much time pressure to walk the floor because it’s not a ‘bottom line’ activity. And there is a backroom team that feels undervalued because no-one has told them that every ship needs a great engine room. People respond to brilliant trusted leadership. These people are out there, waiting for their leaders to catch up with them.

SP - What are the keys to developing trust?

ME - There are six keys to high performance through trust.

1. Treat your Human Resources as humans not just as resources. Stop and talk to them. Take an interest in their lives. Make clear to each person that they are valued. Find out about their work, their hopes, their concerns and their challenges. As top leadership coach Patricia Summitt says: ‘People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.’
2. Fulfil your commitments to the people you lead, even the everyday things that you agree to do, because trust is built on a pattern of lots of little events. If you set a habit of breaking your commitments in minor situations, people won’t trust you to help sort out major ones that you really need to know about before they become crises.
3. A true meritocracy should mean more than just ability being a passport to higher rank; it should mean that any contribution, regardless of its rank, is listened to openly and treated on its merits. This way anyone can have a fundamental impact on the team’s direction. Conversely, ineffective work cultures judge ideas mainly on the rank of their contributor.
4. Value different people and different ideas. Walk the floor to find out why things are going right or wrong at the sharp end of the organisation. Don’t be dismissive: listen with an open mind to differences of opinion. As historian Andrew Roberts said of Churchill, ‘Great leaders know how vital it is to listen to people who disagree with them.’ That way you won’t miss something that could be a terrific insight, and the process of listening and debating builds confidence and shows that ideas and initiative are welcome.
5. Stay true to your values and to the values that bind teams together. Uphold them with total conviction because they are the only thing that should never change about an organisation. They should include integrity, a commitment to continuous improvement, taking concerns directly and only to the person responsible for sorting them out, positively challenging undermining behaviour, and basing decisions on the customer.
6. No ego: as Nieztsche said: ‘He who would fight monsters must take care not to become one.’ However patiently you build trust and teamwork, they can be entirely undone by displays of ego. It’s not just about not boasting. It means acknowledging and learning from failure. And it also means one of the hardest rules of all to adhere to: managers should never complain about their lot to, or seek compliments from, the people they manage.
If you had to choose just one key to make a difference, what would it be?

Stay true to your values every day. It makes an enormous difference. Take the value of continuous improvement: you need to get all of your staff to contribute to continuous improvement all of the time - a simple thing to say but incredibly hard to do. It boils down to encouraging line managers to constantly seek and respond to ideas from the coal face. The biggest timewaster of all in any organisation is choosing the wrong activity and then doing it really well. So it is crucial for managers to be open, attentive and responsive because they are more likely to choose the right activities. All this ultimately comes from your values.

SP - How have you tried to implement the six keys to trust at Julia’s House, and with what results?

ME - First I produced a five-year strategy within twelve weeks of joining, something every leader should aim to do because it brings pace and focus to your work right from day one and it forces you to listen. This set the management objectives throughout the organisation.

We then trained all managers in how to manage people – something many employers fail to do, assuming that they know already. In fact many managers reach their level of responsibility because of good technical skills and it is wrong to assume that they will spontaneously emerge, like a butterfly from a chrysalis, into a brilliant people manager.

We greatly improved the flow of information from each department to one another. I walked the floor regularly so that everyone grew accustomed to talking to me and sharing concerns and ideas. I also communicated regularly in writing with every employee so that no-one could reasonably say ‘they never tell me what goes on around here.’

We agreed with all staff a shared set of values that set a gold standard for teamwork, communication, decision-making and problem-solving. Poor standards in these areas are the most common reasons why people get fed up with their employer. We then trained all line managers in how to manage these new, higher standards.

Finally we signalled that people were valued by enhancing Terms & Conditions.

We did all of this while driving through rapid expansion. The improvements in the way people were led and managed enabled us to grow as quickly as we did, getting more out of everyone and helping them to thrive. The result was that we quadrupled our services in two years whilst also retaining our most talented people.

SP - What’s the best piece of advice you have ever received on becoming an effective leader?

ME - When I succeeded an outgoing leader he told me: ‘For the first six months, blame me! After that, blame yourself!’ What he was saying was that too many leaders blame their problems on people who are long gone, but positive leadership takes responsibility for situations very quickly.

“Go On – Motive Me!”

My favourite definition of Motivation is that it is the “motive for action”. So, when we seek to motivate our teams or our colleagues we should be thinking constantly “what’s in it for them?” This is particularly true if we are seeking to motivate people over whom we have little or no formal authority.

Strategic Professionals today must work closely with more people than ever before. In this article, I’ll explain how you can help others develop commitment and motivation by utilising the Theory of Expectancy created by Victor Vroom, the Canadian Psychology Professor who teaches at the Yale School of Management.

To get commitment from others, you must first understand what people want to get out of their work and their association with you. So, let’s talk about the Expectancy Theory. Victor Vroom first discussed this theory in his 1964 book, “Work and Motivation” and it is still referenced and used today because it is simple and practical and, more importantly, it works! The Expectancy Theory is the universal key to what motivates people to be productive. It explains that people, given choices, choose the option that promises to give them the greatest reward. So, to find people to do a particular job, all we have to do is find out what motivates them best. Sounds easy, but sometimes it is more difficult in practice. The following are six simple steps to achieving greater motivation based on the Expectancy Theory:

1. Tell people what you expect them to do on a regular basis. Be as specific as possible, share your goals, and explain the standards of performance you expect.
2. Make the work valuable. When possible, assign work that they like to do. Give them work they can do well—work that helps them achieve their goals.
3. Make the work achievable! This helps increase confidence that they can do what you expect. Give them training, coaching, and really listen to what they say when they tell you what they need. You must also provide the resources they need to do the work.
4. Assign tasks that will stretch their capability, most of the time. People neglect to delegate difficult tasks because they fear that it will be beyond the capabilities of the person being delegated to. However, by giving people challenges that stretch them leads to growth of the individual and often new and improved approaches to the work.
5. Provide feedback. Remember to let them know how they are doing. Positive feedback means they should continue what they are doing. Negative feedback, of course, means they should correct mistakes. You may have to help them discover their mistakes before they can fix them.
6. Reward successful performance. Remember that rewards can be different for each person because after all we are all unique individuals. Rewards can be money, recognition, a heartfelt thank you, more responsibility, or even some kind of award or certificate.

A Further Note on Motivating Peers

You may have heard it said that you can’t motivate anyone else, that motivation comes from within. I agree with that, but I also firmly believe you can inspire someone to do better. So, being enthusiastic is like the icing on the cake when it comes to motivating others. To utilise a well-known phrase, “Motivating others is 95% perspiration and 5% inspiration.”

Motivating your peers, more than any other group, will draw on your powers of inspiration significantly. The key is to switch your focus from “selling” them on your ideas to stirring their emotions. What excites them as individuals? Think about their learning and behavioural styles and build empathy. Then, with all of this intelligence planted firmly in your subconscious, communicate your passion for the project or task at hand. To return to the cake analogy, we now have layers of challenge, clarity, space to succeed and personal benefits topped with an icing of pure passion – who could resist that sort of motivation?

Spotlight on Paul Belcher of ABL World

Paul’s first 14 years of corporate life were characterised by leading collaborations and troubleshooting roles. His ability to bring about successful and sustainable change at all levels in organisations has led him to work extensively with companies such as Intel, Samsung, Hitachi, IBM and many others.

Paul now runs ABL World with his business partner Judy Apps. ABL specialises in experiential training in both open courses and in-house training and have teamed up with Simesco to develop the very first Strategic Professional open programme, launching in September 2007.

SP - Why is developing people so prone to failure?

PB - It’s a reality that much of what we might call ‘people development’ activity is a waste of time and money. I think there are many reasons why this is so. Speaking from my own experience, I’ve been sent on many courses that simply weren’t thought through so they didn’t fit the development need. I’ve also been in working environments which were simply unable to support bringing learning back in to the workplace.

Too often training is seen as a ‘solution’ to a development ‘problem’ – in reality it’s often a mechanism for blame transference. For example, someone has a perceived development need, say running meetings more effectively, and is sent on an appropriately labelled training course. The person now returns to work, knows a few tricks and tools for running better meetings and perhaps even tries some of them out. However, the real problem, perhaps a lack of confidence in a new role, hasn’t been dealt with and old habits soon return. But where does the blame for poor performance now lie? Who is regarded as even less capable even though they have been ‘trained’?

The development activity needs to fit the development need and too little time is spent really understanding what’s going on. Sometimes all that is needed is time and supportive management.

SP - How can I deal with people as individuals?

PB - That’s a really important question for the workplace. We accept and even enjoy difference in our relationships outside work but for some reason there is more pressure to conform and treat people the same in work. This may seem to be a ‘fairer’ but everybody’s experience in life knows that this doesn’t get the best from people.

The most productive teams and workgroups accept difference and use the strengths and weaknesses of individuals to advantage. So how do we do that as managers? The most satisfactory answer I’m aware of is ‘Start from where you are’. The most successful managers I know are very self-aware. They understand themselves and their influence on others and are forever seeking to stretch and challenge themselves. They serve as models of personal growth and acceptance of difference. They challenge others to do the same by setting an example – not demanding that others should be different.

There are many tools to aid self-awareness like MBTI™ or N-Code® to name just a few. A good tool and effective practitioner of these tools will stress the importance of self-understanding rather than how to change others.

SP - How does personal development really happen?

PB - Well the first thing to say is that it happens continuously. People are growing and changing all the time – regardless of what formal development activity is going on.

Perhaps the clearest answer I can give to this is that personal development happens most effectively when there is a good balance of challenge and support, i.e., when people have enough new experiences and enough time in the right environment to assimilate learning. These ‘new experiences’ may be anything (a failed project for example) and don’t have to be a specific ‘development’ activity. The meaning applied and the learning generated will be heavily influenced by the environment in which this happens.

SP - So, is the environment more important than the content?

PB - Another cracking question. I think I would have to say that in essence yes the environment is more important than content.

There is no shortage of content out there. Just look at the business section of most bookshops or indeed the internet. So, if there is so much content out there why do people need ‘training’? Why is good training so useful? Why is training sometimes literally transformational?
The reality is that good training provides both challenge and support in an appropriate environment. The best training makes the learning real and creates experiences that enable people to get what they need ‘in the muscle’.

I know in our trainings we pay a lot of attention to environment and in our experience this makes a huge difference. That means many things including having the right size of group (not too small or large), modelling that you don’t have to be perfect, building in plenty of time for reflection and discussion, engaging experiences that are as ‘real’ as possible, encouraging networking and on-going support outside of courses.

It’s one of the reasons why I often prefer the open workshops we run. We have complete control over the learning environment and we know, because people tell us and we can see it, that people get a better learning experience.

SP - How does Coaching fit with developing people?

PB - Honestly I think coaching is one of the most effective tools for developing and managing people. I wish I had actually known more about it when I was managing large numbers of people myself. And when I look back now I realised the best managers I experienced were natural coaches and when I managed at my best I was actually coaching.

Managers, especially new ones, often fall in to the trap of thinking they have to have the answer to all the problems that turn up. Even really smart managers who do have all the answers will find that coaching invariably works better than telling people what to do. By helping people to find their own answers, which is essentially what coaching is, you empower and develop people as a direct consequence. You also relieve yourself of the burden of having to have all the answers – which simply isn’t possible.

We now include ‘Coaching’ as an integral part of all our training. For example our ‘Expert to Manager’ programme spends almost 2 days of a 5-day modular course covering coaching tools and techniques. It simply is the best way to work with smart people who increasingly are smarter than their managers in specific areas.

SP - What is the one thing that you would encourage a manager to do to get the most from their people?

PB - There are actually two things that I would mention.

The first is be consistent. No one is perfect and there is no one right way to manage people. Be consistent in your treatment of people and they will learn to manage you for the benefit of everyone. If you want to change your approach significantly then let people know the change is coming and explain why it’s happening. Nothing demoralises people more than not knowing where they stand or having surprises dropped on them. In my experience the best managers are consistent in the approach whilst constantly working to develop themselves and others – starting with themselves first.

The second thing I would encourage managers to do is to be constantly curious about people. If you don’t find the people you work with fascinating and remarkable then you are not being curious enough. So that pretty much means everyone could be more curious. I know from my own experience that when we operate from our own assumptions of what is going on then these assumptions usually just get in the way. Take the time to find out what is really going on for people, what they value, what motivates them and how and why they like their work. Sometimes that’s all you need to do – take a genuine interest in other people.

Engaging your Team

with Ian Redmond of Explore Training & Development Ltd

Ian has been helping teams develop and thrive for many years, both during his career at The Royal Bank of Scotland and since establishing his own company in 2001. Ian is one of our most popular Simesco associates, particularly with managers that are struggling to get the best out of their teams. I caught up with him on an assignment recently and asked him what he thought were the best ways of engaging with your team to ensure that they are focused on success, every simgle day. In his own inimitable style he quickly came up with the following list of six ideas that, if implemented, he felt would make a big impact.

"We like to take a very pragmatic and common sense approach to our work – so here are six thoughts that, in our experience, do not appear to be as common place as you’d like to think!

1. Communicate.

Share your knowledge (as much as you are able) with your staff. Knowledge is not power – it’s what you do with it that matters. Tell people what you can, explain when you can’t, welcome their feedback, thoughts and ideas. Create new and exciting methods for sharing plans and new initiatives. Do your staff have sufficient knowledge to be able to do their job? How do you know?

2. Show a genuine interest in your staff.

How well do you know your staff on a personal level? Imagine the benefits to your team or business if you took more time and effort to connect with each individual. Why would a member of staff want to take more responsibility within the business if their manager didn’t do this?

3. Create the right atmosphere.

What do you do to create an atmosphere that encourages an engaged workforce? What actions are you guilty of that discourage employees from getting more involved? Top managers know that their every thought, word and action is responsible for creating the culture – good or bad. They allow staff to empower themselves, they establish clear boundaries, involve staff in decisions and reviewing performance, they look for opportunities to celebrate successes and they encourage staff to challenge processes etc constructively.

4. Demonstrate you value contribution from others.

People become genuinely engaged in activities when they have an interest in them. The more they can contribute the more you increase the opportunity to generate an interest. How much opportunity do you create for your staff to participate in decisions, planning, idea generation and following through on action plans? Remember the saying – ‘the sum of the parts is greater than the whole’.

5. Clear Expectations.

How clear are your employees about what you expect of them? Our experience suggests that there is always opportunity to improve in this area. We recently ran an Expectation Exchange exercise as part of a team building programme with some fascinating results. We helped the team describe what they expected from each other in specific situations, producing clear gaps which were leading to dissatisfaction from both sides. By the end, the team in this example understood each others positions better and got rid of a few hindering differences between the team and the manager which improved their team working approach.

6. Feedback.

When was the last time you provided each member of your team with some personal and motivating feedback? How often do you do this? Catching people doing things right is just as important as correcting feedback. Employees who understand what is expected of them and know how well they are performing against these expectations are more likely to feel cared for at work and perform better.

Managing a Flexible Workforce an interview with Anne Dickens

Managers can find themselves between a rock and hard place, with demands from above and demands from below. They have to act as broker of individuals’ needs and desires, lead and manage those individuals as effective teams, and ensure that performance is in line with business needs. Very often these demands appear to conflict. The trick is to make sure they coincide…

Anne Dickens shares some hints and tips about how to make the strategic link between people, performance, and flexibility.

SP - Do you feel there is a link between flexibility and performance?

AD - Definitely. At the end of the day, any organisation’s performance is down to its people. So a strategic investment in your people is always going to pay off. This may come in a number of different forms. But creating a more flexible workplace is one of the routes to go down. And it can be a catalyst for more strategic and sustained change.

As a manager, your role is about helping your organisation to succeed through its people. Increasing flexibility in the workplace in turn leads to individuals having more control over their working lives. Trusting that people know best the work they are required to do and devolving responsibility to them to make this happen, within a flexible workplace environment, will lead people to taking more taking more responsibility for producing the goods.

Ultimately, more control means greater happiness. If an organisation’s people are happy, there is more space for creativity, communication, review and reflection. This will encourage efficiency and productivity which, in turn, has a positive impact on all round performance. Increased commitment to the organisation leads to greater goodwill, generating better customer service.

Increased happiness and commitment results in less sickness absence and reduced turnover.

SP - How does an increase in flexibility for individuals benefit teams?

AD - Self-evidently happier individuals are very likely to make happier teams, with consequential benefits which are obvious.

Beyond the obvious, one vital change is that each individual in the team has a vested interest in making their new flexible workplace work. Because there is something in it for them, people take time to understand each others’ needs, instil new communications mechanisms, and review and revitalise work systems to make them more fit for purpose.

It is likely too that to make the flexible work schemes work, better time recording systems are needed which provide better management intelligence for the whole team.

Managers need to change their own behaviour and management style to support teams to make the necessary changes. And then to trust them to make it work, within a set of agreed guiding principles. Understanding their team’s needs, helping the team to develop its own flexible working solution, supporting it to create a set of groundrules, and then delegating the means to make it happen, all call for a change in leadership style.

SP - How are these benefits measured and understood?

AD - One of the key things that needs to change is how performance is measured. Traditionally people are often measured for how long they are at work. What’s more important than this, is what they are putting in whilst they’re at work and what the outputs and outcomes are. Each job is different, but managers need to work with staff to identify the most appropriate ways to measure performance.

This may include new appraisal systems and team evaluation mechanisms. It may involve considering things like whether customer service has improved, whether financial savings have been made, whether results are being produced more quickly, or more accurately, or to a higher quality, and how all these things could be measured.

Options for flexible working fall broadly into four categories:

1 - Flexible working time - where a person’s total hours are worked at different times in the day e.g. flexitime, compressed hours, annualised hours etc.
2 - Flexible working hours – where the total number of hours someone works is varied e.g. part-time, shift working, term time etc.
3 - Flexible career – where someone takes time away from work, but remains an employee e.g. sabbatical, study leave etc.
4 - Flexible place – where a person is based somewhere other than the organisation’s office to do their work e.g. home working.

It is possible to combine two or more of these working patterns.

Take Responsibility by Damon Lawrenson and Simon Phillips

“If you overheard a conversation about you, would you like what you hear? Are you waiting for things to happen, watching what’s happening or making thing happen?”

Who's responsibility is it anyway?

At various times in our life, we look back and reflect on our journey. Positive feelings are aroused when we recall making significant progress and not so positive feelings when little progress is evident. Right then, we can decide to either become bitter or to become better!! It has been said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results – if we are wise, we review what has happened and search for ways of improving our results through changing our actions.

We live in a society where “entitlement” and “litigation” are twin dictators ruling a “nanny-state”, brain-washing us into believing that someone else will always provide for us, protect us and nurture our family. However, buying into that way of thinking will virtually guarantee you a life of mediocrity. You will get through it, one way or another, but at times it may seem like an endurance test, a struggle to survive. Journalists and marketing agencies are always keen to identify the Mr & Mrs Average and the majority of the population live an ok life with an ok wage with ok experiences – but who wants to be ok?

The only thing you can fully control in life is how you decide to respond to your circumstances, your environment and the people around you. You can determine your thinking and, ultimately, your income and lifestyle. You are responsible for this, no one else. As they say, the best helping hand is the one at the end of your wrist.

Your new mantra “If it’s to be, its up to me!”

No excuses - Who are you trying to convince?

We are all blessed with 24 hours in a day, certain skills and a resource knowledge centre that is free and priceless – the World Wide Web. You can learn new skills, develop new habits, replace old programmes and develop a new you, capable of achieving your dreams. It’s time to stop making excuses, you are not too old, too young, too tall, too short, too black too white, too educated, too uneducated. You are you; and the minute you stop making excuses of why you can’t and turn these into why you can, you have entered a new world of possibility.

Excuses are a way of making you feel better about your lack of action. Don’t rationalise, when all is said and done, these are rational lies. Why not just be honest? When you make excuses for not doing something that is important, there will be regret. The price of regret can be weighty when all it needed was some discipline to do it. Okay, there is the price of self-discipline, but it is far less than regret. How would you feel if you lived a life of no regrets?

Your new mantra “No excuses. No regrets”

Are we pointing any fingers?

The minute we say; “It’s their fault” we have empowered someone else to determine our level of success. Granted, there may be influencing factors, however with self-discipline, and by being prepared and proactive, we can reduce and eliminate most issues that have influenced lack of progress or failure previously. When we point a finger, 3 are always pointing back at us - for a very good reason. It means that the onus is on us for not moving on – think, what could I have done to have avoided, alleviated or even caused this problem? Look in the mirror – take responsibility. Even if we cannot see beyond the possibility that it is someone else’s fault, we can still choose to keep moving forward. It’s your right to influence how you feel, no one else’s.

Your new mantra “ I take total responsibility for my actions”

Knowing you can trust yourself

We all know people who commit and never follow through? Some people cannot say no, even though they have little intention of following through. They are constantly letting other people down and, more importantly, they are letting themselves down as well. Eventually, their reputation precedes them and the trust dries up. How do you feel when you say you are going to do something and you do it? Taking action builds character. It’s self-discipline; it’s doing what you know you need to do when you don’t feel like it. You are constantly building your reputation.

“Learn to say No and, when you do say Yes –follow through!”

Just Do It

Following through will become a habit and you will enjoy committing to action. Your attitude, actions and intention will foster a character that will be admired and respected. You will set goals as a blueprint of your life, as possibilities become inevitabilities. You will take the steps necessary to make progress in life in each and every way. With every action your fears will be crushed as you build a reputation as someone who follows through, who just gets on and does it?

Become a doer!!

Working for Life Balance
Almost without fail, when I mention to people that one of the things we do is help individuals and organisations to achieve a better work life balance through new ways of working, the response I get is “I could do with some of that.” Work life balance can sometimes seem like an elusive ideal. When the pressure is on at work and deadlines are tight it can feel like our lives are given over to work-work balance. So what can we do about it? The reality is that if you wait until the workload is beginning to overwhelm you before you attempt to make a change, it is almost too late. Start the discussions with your colleagues when workloads are more normal and they are not feeling stressed.

You need to approach work life balance with two hats on – the CEO’s and your own selfish one!.

At a corporate level it is important to realise that any effective work life balance solution will require the collaboration of other people but will ultimately come down to you – what are you willing to do to ensure that your work life balance needs do not adversely affect your colleagues? Flexibility is key. Organisations have needs too, they need to deliver products, provide customer service and meet demands. For managers tasked with delivery and aggressive performance targets, an individual with a “work life balance request” can appear to have a big label stuck to their head saying; “I AM YOUR PROBLEM”. We need to remove that immediate impression by thinking more like the boss to find a suitable solution that works for now, with a commitment to a constant review to account for unknown changes that may lie ahead. We have implemented this “piloting” approach successfully in organisations as diverse as local authorities and multi national retail giants, so we know it works and we also know the benefits for all concerned in terms of increased retention, improved morale and enhanced teamwork.

On a personal level we need to be honest with ourselves and see beyond the immediate problem and think more strategically. So, how do we go about achieving a better life balance? Well, the best place to start is by answering a couple of questions. The first is a question that many of us usually don’t spend much time thinking about – what exactly do you want out of life? What do you hope to have achieved in your lifetime? We often call this the “tombstone test”. What would you like to be written on yours? To help you access some things that your conscious mind might lock away I’d like you to imagine for a few minutes that time and money are no object. Grab a piece of paper and start writing, just let your mind wander. If you are familiar with Mind Mapping, use this excellent tool to plot your thoughts. The idea is to write down as many things as you can within just a few minutes – essentially a list of all the things you would like to do, have, experience, learn or share with loved ones if you had a limitless supply of both time and money?

The purpose of this task is to remind ourselves of some of the dreams we have that “real life” obscures and sometimes buries. Once you’ve written them down, you can now start working on them as goals. At this point I am often reminded that this list is made up of items generated under the unlikely scenario of unlimited resources. However, my favourite definition of a goal is a dream with a date on it. So, let’s get one or two dreams down on the page, put a date on them and transform them into a goal that is going to motivate us to make some fundamental changes in our lives.

Of course, this whole process has a secondary motive – to give you a reason to work on things other than your “day job”. Analysis of individuals working extra hours consistently shows that many of them do so because they don’t have a good reason to get away! Of course, that’s fine if your job is your life’s work and there is nothing else that fires you up more. However, if that is not the case, then this exercise is, hopefully, just the start of a new course for you. Don’t worry that these non-work goals will detract from your output and effectiveness in work. Research has shown that individuals with reasons to live beyond their work exude more energy, happiness and drive when they are in work. You will be doing your company a favour!

In summary, working to achieve life balance is a constant activity that involves great teamwork, devolved leadership and a truckload of personal responsibility. But if you have applied all of that and your company still refuses to work with you, then you always have the final choice and the ultimate control – you can leave and find a more forward looking employer, or change your lifestyle completely. Whatever you decide, it’s your life; spend it wisely and focus on your objectives; no one else is remotely interested in meeting them for you.

The Networking Scorecard

In recent years the opportunity to extend your influence, develop connections and build relationships beyond your immediate circle of associates, colleagues and friends has been made a lot easier thanks to the development of multiple online networks and the proliferation of clubs, societies and groups on your doorstep. Indeed, just in the last month, three new "networks" have launched in my town creating three new opportunities for me to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner with local business owners, discussing opportunities, sharing knowledge and making referrals. Alternatively, I could look at them as three new opportunities to distract me from the short-term objective of getting money into my business.

So, where to start? The answer, as is often the case when a strategic problem arises, is at the end. You need to decide what you want to achieve out of your networking? Is it a 50% improvement to the bottom-line or is it to gain access to a specific group or individual? Is it to build the profile of your business in advance of an AIM listing or is it to build your knowledge and skills with a group of like-minded people? Whatever your reasons, you need to write them down. Once your goal is clear, you will find that your decisions and activities will also become more focused. Now it's just a case of chipping away at your goal, one new connection at a time.

Whenever I am in conversation with someone who is considering becoming better networked I always advise them that networking will deliver at best a medium term return on their investment. True there are innumerable intangible benefits on the way such as new friendships, exciting new insights and a lot of fun, but for those who are results oriented these can be inconsequential and frustrating distractions. The key is to stay focused but leave the door open for serendipity. For example, one client of mine was so focused on gaining access to the key influencers inside his target retail client that he turned down the opportunity to attend a charity golf event as it did not involve anyone from the industry and was mostly attended by retired "city" guys. The local paper covered the event the following week, and there, holding up the winners cup was the Finance Director from his target client - apparently a late replacement for his father (you guessed it, a retired "city" guy). It took my client another eight long months before he finally developed a relationship that got him into his target organisation. Sometimes you walk by the right ones because you're trying too hard to see them. Remember, you can count the seeds in an apple but you can't count the apples in the seed.

Once you've set your networking goal, here's a 5 Step plan to achieve it.

1) Plan for each event - this needn't take hours, just get the attendee list, highlight the individuals you would like to talk to, grab your business cards and get going. Even this amount of planning will put you ahead of 95% of the other people there!

2) Make a memorable first impression - if you are genetically outside of average, this can be ticked off straight away (you wouldn't forget someone who is 6' 10" would you?), otherwise, what can you do to make a memorable impression? Maybe it's an item of clothing or an accessory, maybe you can practice some jokes and make people laugh, maybe you can be a great introducer or perhaps you just have a smile and a persona that lights up the room? Whatever, just ensure that you do not fade into the "wall of suits". Afterall, your aim when networking is for people to remember you long enough that they can refer you confidently, and if their mental image of you is a blur, you are not doing yourself any favours. Seek advice from friends and relatives until you discover something that you are comfortable with AND helps you to stand out.

3) Employ the Caring principle - remember, people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care! In the networking context that means listening to them, intently. Build rapid rapport through active and literal listening, matching body language and even speech moderation. Do whatever it takes to help the other person relax in your company and you will have the foundation of a great relationship.

4) Have some Networking Enlisting Words - and use them to help people remember what you do. Scientists have estimated that we are exposed to more than 2 million messages a day - so how can you make your message stick? The answer is, with difficulty. Remember that you are trying to develop advocates not recruit customers so be excrutiatingly specific about who you help, what you do and with what results. Don't worry about all the things you don't cover with these words, people will make assumptions or ask questions if they understand at least one thing that you do. So, if you are an expert in stress relief, don't say "I can help anyone suffering with stress" because that does not help me. Instead, focus on one key ailment (maybe long-term shoulder pain) and tell me what amazing results you have achieved with a recent client. I will make the mental leap about your overall competence and maybe even ask if you also cover back pain, but more importantly, I might know or be a potential client for your shoulder services! At the next meeting, focus on another area.

5) Follow Up - or everything you have done before is wasted!

So, we've got a goal, we've even got a 5 Step implementation plan, do we need anything else? Yes we do, we need to measure our progress and success, otherwise networking will become another bucket for lost time in our business. Measurement transforms networking from an activity that we feel we ought to be doing into a powerful strategic tool. The image of the Networking Scorecard below will give you an idea of how it looks, please feel free to email me if you'd like a formatted pdf version.