Career & Worklife Education

Performance management: Is it Really John’s Fault?

There is a task in your workplace that needs to be done. Sally can do it, but John cannot.

Our automatic assumption is that John does not have what it takes to do the job. John is not competent, and if we ever want John to be able to do the job, we need to give him some training and instruction so he becomes competent.

It is easy to see that for someone to do that job, they have to be as good as Sally. So we spend what might be quite a lot of money and effort ‘fixing’ John so he can work effectively alongside Sally.

This might all be true, however, there is another possibility that is almost always overlooked. There is another possibility that is almost always a cheaper solution.

Sally is more experienced than John, and she knows the little shortcuts, the tricks to making that particular machine work, the ways to bypass the system when it gets in the way, who to call when something she needs is missing and how to deal with all those little things that conspire against success.

If those barriers against success were absent, perhaps John could do the task, and do it well. So actually, he is competent for this particular task, and it is the environment that surrounds the task that is not ‘competent’. It is the faulty environment around John that renders him incapable in the moment of doing the task, even though nominally he is competent.

So you have two options. You can train John with all the knowledge and skill that Sally has in order to overcome the problems in the environment that surrounds the task, or you can fix the environment.

Which would cost you less?

If you fix the environment, then others like John can also do the task. If you fix the environment, then Sally won’t need to bend the rules in order to get the job done. If you fix the environment, it is much easier to stay legal and compliant. If you fix the environment, people new into role will reach proficiency much more quickly.

The moral of the story is, when there is a performance problem, do not automatically blame the performer. It might be the stage that you are asking them to perform on, that is faulty.

No Regrets - a story of love and learning

No Regrets is a tale of love and learning, produced in 2014 to accompany Clive Shepherd's book More Than Blended Learning. It tells the tale of two young people who meet up in Brighton as they begin training in their new jobs. As the week progresses, they reflect on their contrasting learning experiences, highlighting from a learner's perspective what good and bad looks like in the design of learning solutions.

This film is, above all, an experiment in storytelling as a mechanism for learning. As such, as producers, we almost definitely got some things right and some things wrong. Let's see what you think.

Sherlock Holmes and the Three Ls

This video provides a light-hearted introduction to the process of needs analysis. It also represents Clive Shepherd's one and only acting credit (there will be no more).

The video tells how Sherlock Holmes uses the three Ls (knowledge of the Learning, the Learner and the Logistics) to solve a case.

Informal Learning – the engine in the basement

There is a big engine running in the basement of your organisation. You probably aren’t even aware that it is there. No one has been down there for years, if ever. There is rubbish amongst the puddles of oil and water on the floor and it’s like any other dark abandoned basement.

And yet that engine running in your basement is critical to the success of your organisation. If it stopped at midnight tonight, your organisation would be on its knees in a month, and probably out of business not long afterwards. It is lucky that the engine is so incredibly reliable that it keeps running, even if it does not run so smoothly now.

It is the informal learning engine that every organisation has. There is a huge amount of informal learning going on within every organisation all the time. Informal learning is made up of the learning that comes about through the experiences and social interactions of your employees. It is this day-to-day learning in the workflow that enables us to serve customers well and to improve things as we go along.

Its importance is vastly underrated because we are so good at learning things that we don’t even notice that we are doing it. Most of what we learn on a day-to-day basis as we do our jobs, we learn unconsciously. We don’t necessarily set out to learn, but we do, because that is our nature as a species.

Take a moment right now and reflect on what you have learned in the last couple of hours. The amount we learn on an ongoing basis is quite staggering, and in the work context, much of that learning is the input that drives continuous improvement.

We do a task, and we notice whether we get what we want, or whether there is a gap between what we wanted to achieve and what actually happened. Whether that gap simply manifests as an unconscious unease, or whether we are consciously aware of it, the next time we do that task, we will change what we do to minimise or close the gap.

This is the root of that old saying, practice makes perfect.

The more we practice a task, and the more we reflect on the task and the results we get, the more we learn, and the quicker we can close the gap between what we get and what we want. Typically, what we want is a moving target, and so the gap widens unless we keep learning fast enough. In order to survive, we need to learn faster than the widening gap. We need tom learn faster than the rate of change around us.

Given that informal learning is so critical to the survival of an organisation, how can we help that poor informal learning engine stoically chugging away in the basement?

Think about that from your own perspective. When you are trying to get a job done, what helps you learn about the job in a way that means you can get better at it? Most people would say things like access to the right information and the right kind of just-in-time support, either from colleagues or from resources. And of course they would also want to have the right tools and processes at their fingertips to do the job rather than having to learn to bodge it with the wrong tools. These are the things that need to be made available in order to get that informal learning engine running more smoothly. This is how you improve the quality of fuel for the engine, and how you get the basement clean and shiny.

It is well worth spending some time making people aware of how important informal learning is to the organisation, and to the continuous improvement which is essential to its survival. And then spend some time thinking about how you can support the informal learning engine by making learning in the workflow easier.

You cannot rely on formal training for all your learning needs. Indeed you never have, but you probably didn’t realise just how critical informal learning is.

Read up on Informal Learning at Work http://pal.gl/i

_________________________________________________________________________________________

First published at http://haywoodmann.co.uk/informal-learning-the-engine-in-the-basement/ on 29.07.2015.

In the classroom - one toolkit, three different roles

A classroom is a space that can be used in many different ways. And there isn't just one way to make the best use of this space. In this Skills Journey animation, we explore the ways that classrooms can be used for presentations, group instruction and facilitated group learning. Each of these uses very different tools to deliver a very different experience.

Learning and Development's Two Customers

Imagine if you had to satisfy not one set of customers but two. Both were demanding, and each was looking for quite different things. Well, such is the lot of the learning professional. Not only do you have to provide a great service to your clients, business sponsors and key stakeholders, you also have to deliver satisfying experiences to your end users – the learners.

Sixteen great training tips for writing good emails by Training Works

Sixteen great training tips for writing good emails

Many staff who in past years would have perfectly good conversations on the phone are now having to write emails instead. It’s also worth remembering that an email is, after all, an electronic letter and should follow most of the conventions of letter writing which many people have forgotten, if they ever knew them in the first place.

Having training in writing emails gives staff at all levels the confidence to write really professional, warm, well laid out accurate emails. For many customers their only impression of the company will be from the quality of the email, and if an email is badly spelt, poorly laid out or sloppy in any way, it will lose the company sales.

Remember that every email is an advert for your company so make sure it’s a good one by using the following hints and tips:

1.  Have a relevant subject in the subject line so it can easily be found

2.  Use a salutation e.g. Dear or Hi (unless you’re in a live email conversation)

3.  Use the correctly spelt name e.g. Sarah not Sara

4.  Leave a line of space before going into the main details

5.  Say something nice in the first paragraph

6.  Don’t put whole words in capitals, it gives the impression of SHOUTING

7.  Have an average of 15 - 20 words per sentence

8.  Have an average of 3 lines of text per paragraph

9.  Use bullet points to help condense information and make it easier to read

10.  Use a line of space between each paragraph

11.  Use the correct grammar

12.  Use the correct spellings

13.  Punctuate well

14.  Have a sign off e.g. Many thanks

15.  Always type your name even if you have an email signature (after all you would always sign a letter even if your name was typed)

16.  Have a great email signature with your name, position if relevant, company name, what the company does, web address, landline numbers, phone numbers and LinkedIn link where relevant (as people often look at an email to find out how to contact you again)

Sacred Cows and Red Herrings - Part I

I’m going to take an irreverent look at what I think are a couple of sacred cows. This might annoy you, or you might even applaud it, but I doubt it will leave you without your own opinion.

You see, a sacred cow (when used as an idiom) is something that is regarded with such respect and veneration that it is considered immune from question or criticism, immune from tampering.

But what if this veneration is misplaced?

I am talking about Learning and Engagement (yes, with capital letters).

They are beautiful aren’t they, as we look at them. They are things of wonder, and well worth striving for. Well worth the mighty effort to make them happen. There are so many people that focus on these two things. There is so much written about them. Everybody says they are wonderful, necessary and depending on the pundit, the cure for all our problems.

I have nothing against Learning and Engagement per se. I simply think we are looking at the wrong things. They are both red herrings, distracting us from what we really should be focusing on.

A red herring (when used as an idiom) is a piece of information or suggestion introduced to draw attention away from the real facts of a situation. A red herring is a type of strong-smelling smoked fish that was once drawn across the trail of a scent to mislead hunting dogs and put them off the scent.

Let’s not get put off the scent. Let’s focus on what is more important: Performance.

Performance is what the business wants. Performance is what the customers want. And actually, Performance is what the workers want. It’s my belief they would love to do a good job if only we would enable them to do so.

Let’s consider Performance first, and look at learning and engagement (look, they have lost their capital letters) along with many other factors as servants in support of Performance.

It’s interesting how many people in L&D and HR struggle to come up with good and useful definitions of both learning and engagement, struggle to find ways to effectively measure them or measure the changes they have made in them through their interventions. They struggle to justify their value of the business based on changes to both learning and engagement. Where there have been improvements in performance, they struggle to prove that those improvements were the direct result of changes to learning and engagement.

There are enough isolated cases so there is always a case study or two to prove that learning and/or engagement are good things. And they are, but I think focusing on them as an endgame, as an outcome is not helping us.

When I ask someone in L&D to reimagine their role so that their total focus is on ensuring capability at the point of work when a worker has a job in front of them, their thinking changes. They start thinking in much more practical terms about how they can enable and help that worker do the job that is immediately in front of them. Some learning may be required, but often it is other changes that are necessary to ensure capability at the point of work.

The same thing happens when I talk to HR people about engagement, and changing their focus away from engagement and onto capability, and thus Performance.

We are talking here about enablement. If we enable people to do their job, how does that affect them, affect their engagement, and their learning?

There are many things that we can do to enable people without ‘using’ learning and engagement. Instead, give them the right tools, the right information, processes that flow well. Fix the things that frustrate them. Take the brakes off what they are doing. Performance will improve.

I believe that when the brakes are taken off, and someone can do better, they will. They will also become more engaged and willing to learn as they can see that better performance is possible. It wasn’t them being stupid, it wasn’t them not caring; it was the systems and processes and environment they were being asked to work in.

Just for now, do a thought experiment for yourself in your role and imagine that your total focus is on enabling a worker in your organisation, so they are capable of doing what needs to be done. How would that affect you? How would that affect them? How would that affect the customer? How would that affect the bottom line of the business?

Sacred cows?

Maybe, or maybe not. What do you think?

Levy Funded Development - Have you recognised the opportunity?

Upskilling for our future – The Apprenticeship Levy

What is the biggest lie in life? How about – ‘People like change!’.It’s a cliché popular with management particularly when a workforce is required to do something it’s not happy about.  Why are people resistant to change? Change requires thought. It draws more energy than normal. It creates disturbance and can make some feel inadequate. Change nurtures vulnerability, uncertainty and fear. Resistance is magnified by lack of understanding. On the flip side, change frequently provides opportunity, signifies progress, encourages development and improves output. People are often happier after change has occurred.

British industry’s collective reaction to the Apprenticeship Levy has been fuelled by sporadic and ad-hoc communication about the levy, defensive behaviour from existing providers and a pinch of short-term thinking by some employers.

As our national capacity to invent, make and own things seems to daily diminish, there is a real possibility that longer term, the UK will become no more than a low skill, service delivery mega-centre off the north west coast of Europe. How many have grasped the potential magnitude of the opportunity for UK PLC’s presented by the Levy?
Before summarizing the opportunity, let’s consider the counter argumentation, much of which is built not on ideological objection, but on simple lack of understanding.

Why use the Apprenticeship levy?
The opportunity to acquire accreditation in roles previously deemed too intangible to quantify is a compelling case for commitment. As an example; Sales is largely ignored by career advisors and academia mainly because the profession is poorly understood by both. Young adults reliably informed of employment pathways to financial security, career progression and entrepreneurial opportunity will be very interested. Building a qualification around core business and life skills which have already created companies, jobs and wealth is vital to national economic health. Investment in human capital ticks a very important box for Millennials whose value set differs markedly from that of their parents.

It’s too bureaucratic and inflexible

For whom? Process is necessary to ensure learners reach the end-point. To generate commitment and drive learner achievement, rigour must be applied.  The use of public money necessitates the elimination of any possibility of misappropriation. Quality must be assured and this demands attentiveness. Regarding flexibility; process need not however equate to rigidity. The Level 4 Sales Apprenticeship can be tailored specifically as the need arises, even though most core competencies in Sales are common across roles and industry sectors.  Training providers now need a greater degree of agility than ever before to support the needs of the employer.

The opportunity cost
Businesses are often prone to short-termism and evidence of that is easy to find. Many companies worry about lost productivity costs and in particular - lost sales. It seems few are considering the multiplicative power of a more able and stable sales team which can improve conversion rates, lower the cost of sale, increase turnover and grow the customer base. Equipping the next generation of sales professionals requires investment from individual and employer alike, otherwise the old cycle in which only the strongest survive is perpetuated.

Where now?
Change is inevitable. The learning marketplace in the UK has undergone a significant alteration. Budget holders across the country are considering whether training provisioned through hard-fought internal negotiation can now be funded through the Levy. This means either; more human capital development can be accessed or, the money can be diverted elsewhere in the business. 
Providers with specialist expertise are enabling themselves to be the partner of choice in a market segment previously roped off and inaccessible. Employers frustrated by the low-quality people development delivered by some providers in the past now have exciting alternative choices.
Return on investment now reigns supreme.  Business owners, who have now been forced to part with their hard-earned money to spend on Apprentices are, rightfully so, wanting to know that the result of their financial investment will yield increased returns in productivity, revenue and staff retention as an absolute minimum.
Apprenticeships Training Providers now, more than ever need to be responsive to meet the individual needs of employer and learner simultaneously whilst assuring an underpinning theme of quality along the entire journey.
The UK has a real chance to catch up and even overtake some of our fiercest economic competitors by investing in a skills-focused future beyond the EU.  Collectively, we need to grasp the opportunity with both hands. In times of change, the adaptable prevail.

About Mercuri International
With a commitment to delivering innovative training solutions and over 60 years’ experience helping companies worldwide transform their business results, we develop and implement training to help your people become tomorrow’s leaders, managers and sales professionals utilizing a blended learning approach: classroom, digital eLearning, one to one sessions, webinars and tutorials.   www.mercuri.co.uk

Reference & Further information

(Dunn, Apprenticeship Levy Pricing Young People Out Of Training, 2018) - www.newstatesman.com/spotlight/2018/03/apprenticeship-levy-pricing-young-people-out-training The Association of Professional Sales: https://www.associationofprofessionalsales.com/ Institute for Apprenticeships:  https://www.instituteforapprenticeships.org/about/ Apprenticeships for England:  https://www.app4eng.info/
 

Contact
Sarah James | Tel: 0330 9000 8000 | training@mercuri.co.uk

Is it Really John’s Fault?

There is a task in your workplace that needs to be done. Sally can do it, but John cannot.

Our automatic assumption is that John does not have what it takes to do the job. John is not competent, and if we ever want John to be able to do the job, we need to give him some training and instruction so he becomes competent.

It is easy to see that for someone to do that job, they have to be as good as Sally. So we spend what might be quite a lot of money and effort ‘fixing’ John so he can work effectively alongside Sally.

This might all be true, however, there is another possibility that is almost always overlooked. There is another possibility that is almost always a cheaper solution.

Sally is more experienced than John, and she knows the little shortcuts, the tricks to making that particular machine work, the ways to bypass the system when it gets in the way, who to call when something she needs is missing and how to deal with all those little things that conspire against success.

If those barriers against success were absent, perhaps John could do the task, and do it well. So actually, he is competent for this particular task, and it is the environment that surrounds the task that is not ‘competent’. It is the faulty environment around John that renders him incapable in the moment of doing the task, even though nominally he is competent.

So you have two options. You can train John with all the knowledge and skill that Sally has in order to overcome the problems in the environment that surrounds the task, or you can fix the environment.

Which would cost you less?

If you fix the environment, then others like John can also do the task. If you fix the environment, then Sally won’t need to bend the rules in order to get the job done. If you fix the environment, it is much easier to stay legal and compliant. If you fix the environment, people new into role will reach proficiency much more quickly.

The moral of the story is, when there is a performance problem, do not automatically blame the performer. It might be the stage that you are asking them to perform on, that is faulty.

(Originally published https://russellhrconsulting.co.uk/the-hr-headmistress-blog/is-it-really-johns-fault/)

Humility vs Power: Are you a Shackleton or a Scott?

Last week I had the pleasure of attending the 2019 Merit Summit in Vienna. It was my first time at the event as well as being my first time in Vienna. As I reflect on two full days of listening, connecting and learning, I wanted to distill some of my personal take-aways from the event.  This comes at a particularly self reflective time for me, as I have now set up my own business after leaving Citi in December.

The overwhelming theme for me was that of Connection. It has manifested itself in many ways as a rallying call for anyone wanting to be successful in the new world of work.

Connecting the dots for L&D Professionals

Seek, Sense, Share! I've long been an advocate of PKM theory, especially as advanced by Harold Jarce. The Merit Summit ended up being a big fat episode of seeking, sensing and sharing for me! I found it incredibly rewarding as I noticed opportunities to connect people in my network with new individuals and ideas as they showed up for me during the two days. I intentionally didn't pack my schedule with back-to-back sessions, meetings and workshops. I tried to select speakers and topics that challenged my thinking and then gave time to reflect and synthesise as the day went on. Less was definitely more in Vienna.

It all started on Tuesday night at a superb dinner generously hosted by Sigrun & Sofia of the HR Builders. I met some old and new colleagues including Gerard Penning of Shell, Celia Berenguer  of Sanofi and Richard Howell (who is a leading International Change Consultant). Building relationships in this type of environment is incredibly helpful. In my case I really enjoyed the seeking and sharing of new knowledge and understanding within a mini professional social learning network. Stories helped build relationships and personal connections. This theme was to continue throughout the week and has reinforced my belief that L&D Professionals of the future will be great story-tellers, intuitive connectors and generous enablers of learning.

Leaders as Connectors

Tuesday was kicked off by Gerard Penning's key-note speech on Leadership. In his typically engaging style, Gerard used no slides, and simply told stories about great leadership. He focused on the importance of Respect, Curiosity and Resilience as being key ingredients in a successful leader. The theme of Respect was to raise it's head in the debate that I participated in an hour later.

The debate was entitled 'Paradoxes of Leadership: Humility Vs Power.' I shared the stage with three wonderful colleagues: Celia Berenguer  of Sonofi, and Tracey Camilleri of Saïd Business School, and the debate was expertly moderated by Michael Banks.

I feel strongly that this isn't really a paradox. When leaders demonstrate humility they exert considerable power and influence. In fact I consider humility to be a key ingredient to the projection of real power by a leader.

The key here is the definition of 'power'. I define progressive power as the ability of a leader to influence others to go on a journey of personal and collective change. It has a long term time horizon and requires the development of considerable follower-ship. Humility is a fundamental ingredient.

However short term power (I would call this limited power), where power is being done 'onto' others requires very little humility. However this is not really 'leading', rather it is simply 'commanding' and has a short and limited shelf-life in terms of leading others in times of change. In his excellent book 'Kinds of Power', James Hillman talks about a form of Social Darwinism that continues to poison our preconceived idea of how leaders should show up. Society still thinks of leaders in the cult of the Victorian-era 'hero-leader'. There is always a winner at the expense of losers and often winning the race by any means necessary is paramount (even if that means sacrificing team members). For this reason I've always been a fan of the arctic explorer Ernest Shackleton, rather than his contemporary Robert Scott!. (Shackelton didn't reach the pole but managed to bring all of his men home alive while Scott reached the prize but tragically perished with his men).*

 

The debate was a healthy one where the main point of difference centered around the topic of fear as an enabler for learning. Some felt that fear could be used by a leader as a motivating factor to generate leaning in their team. Personally I strongly disagree. Certainly, having challenging environments can offer great learning opportunities, and leaders should stretch their people by exposing them to those situations. But they must always do so with respect and support. It's here where connection is key. Firstly the manager builds trust and connection with the individual and co-creates learning as a result. Secondly they must connect the work to a clear shared purpose. Lastly they will connect stakeholders to form coalitions by aligning around a common goal.

The Employee - The Future is Social

As our idea of successful leadership matures, we see the importance of the leader as a humble connector. Equally, leadership is becoming democratised. The very smart Lori Niles-Hoffmann really made us sit up and think about this in her presentation on the Gig Economy.  We are building flatter, more open and agile organisations to prosper in the new world of work. The separation between employees and leaders is increasingly grey. This new gig economy will ensure that more and more of the workforce are coalescing around work and projects rather than roles and organisations. The successful worker of the future will be the one who has their 'connector' dial constantly turned to 'high'. If we are seeking and sensing and sharing in our networks we will be alert to the opportunities to add value and collaborate around important work and opportunities. We will seamlessly contribute to the network, while connecting others to opportunities. We'll also know that by paying into this social dynamic, in effect a form of 'paying it forward', we will simply be increasing our access to opportunities in the future. The future is indeed social.

 

* I would highly recommend the book Shackleton's Boat Journey by F.A. Worsley. Worsley was Shakelton's skipper on this voyage and their tale of survival and rescue is so remarkable it seems fantastic that this a true story. Shackleton's leadership was remarkable.

Who is responsible for learning transfer?

Is it L&D, or the line managers?

I have heard many people in L&D say something like this… “You asked for training; you got it. Job done. Our responsibility finishes at the end of the course. Learning transfer is not our responsibility.”

This attitude arises when L&D set themselves up as an order taker, as a shopkeeper. One tool which is commonly used by these shopkeepers is a traditional Learning Management System with its list of courses and events that people can book to attend. It’s like ordering something off an online shopping site where the seller is not involved in any way with how the product will be used. Some even have a background algorithm that says, “Other learners who attended this course also attended these other courses."

A common lament I hear among L&D people is the lack of access to the top table and a lack of involvement in top-level decision making. I often find that the people with this lament are the very same people who have the shopkeeper attitude. Think about it. Would you as a senior decision maker in an organisation want to have the head shopkeeper from a small peripheral department at your board table? Not likely.

So, start getting interested in how people are using your training courses, and why they order them in the first place. Assume that at least part of the process of learning transfer is your responsibility and notice how that shifts your thinking about your role as a trainer and as a course/programme designer. People want a training course to solve a problem they have. What is that problem? Become someone who solves problems for people rather someone who just sells stuff that might be a solution. If we are buying anything other than a commodity, we really appreciate the expertise of a salesperson who takes the time and effort to find out what problem we are trying to solve and then guides us to a viable solution.

And often management says it’s not their responsibility either. They say that their job is operational excellence, not staff development. “L&D should be doing staff development.”

There are two aspects to this. One is that most management role job descriptions include a section that states their responsibility for developing the members of their team. If the job description does not include this responsibility, it should. The second aspect, which they also cannot run away from, is that most of the learning that happens at work, happens on their watch in the general day to day workflow. The 70:20:10 learning model tells us this, and even a moment’s reflection also tells us this from our own experience of where we learned to do what we do at work.

What most managers don’t understand is that unbeknownst to them, they have superpowers. These powers manifest themselves every time the manager answers a question, delegates a task, has a conversation or has any other interaction with a team member. They also manifest when a team member observes how their manager interacts with anybody else either directly or in any other way. By their actions, the manager sets the mini-culture within the team to be accountable or not, to learn or not, to blame or not, to help or not, to experiment or not, to seek excellence or not, to serve customers or not, to go the extra mile or not. Employees look to their manager for a lead to understand what is rewarded and what is frowned upon.

Every manager has an immense effect on how their team functions and performs, and most of them don’t begin to comprehend the magnitude of their power. They are already ‘developing’ their team members to behave a certain way by being the manager they are, and they have far more power over developing/moulding team behaviour than L&D ever will. A manager cannot abdicate their input into staff development because it is already baked into their role. The question is whether they become aware of their power and use it consciously, or whether they remain unaware and use it haphazardly.

Extract from Paul's latest book Learning Transfer at Work: How to Ensure Training >> Performance available on Amazon and our website http://pal.gl/dx

How modern workers learn

Here's my take on the research undertaken by Towards Maturity.

Is learning the right focus for L&D people?

The goal of the learning and development person is to help people learn. That makes sense doesn’t it? After all that is their job title.

But what does the organisation really need?

Organisations need more than people who just know lots. They need people who are capable of doing the jobs that the organisation needs to be done.

If you have the choice, which would you prefer; an employee who knows lots about the job, or an employee who is capable of doing the job?

Most people would opt for the capable employee. The worth of most employees to an organisation is based far more on their capability to do their job than on their knowledge of things relating to the job. Of course, part of capability is having the right knowledge, but it is only part.

My suggestion is that the role of anybody responsible for learning and development within an organisation needs to be much broader. It needs to encompass all that is needed to ensure that employees are capable at their point of work.

It is interesting to note that in a number of progressive businesses (for example Nestle, Tesco, Lloyds Bank) the role of Learning and Development Manager has been replaced with the role of Capability Manager. This is far more than just a change in job title. This change in emphasis on the role from learning to capability has quite a profound effect on how people in these roles do their job.

How would this change of role change your thinking?

What would happen within your organisation if someone is focused on ensuring that all employees are capable of doing the job they are employed to do?

I would bet that much more effort would be put into performance support. That is, making sure that employees have to hand the information and tools they need to get their jobs done. This would be apparent in better intranet resources that are easy to access and intensely practical. It would show up in the provision of simple job aids and crib sheets. People would be able to connect more quickly to experts to get immediate questions answered.

Beyond these ‘information’ based performance support aids, there would also be a focus on what is stopping people from getting the job done, what is stopping them being capable at the point of work. So many times people are unable to do their jobs well due to inadequate tools or dysfunctional systems. These operational issues are also part of the capability agenda.

So don’t just think learning as the answer to improving performance. Think capability.

NLP Logical Levels Of High Performing Teams

I am often asked, “What ways can you use NLP to create high performing Sales teams?” 

When creating a high performing team or refining an existing team, it is important to go through the logical levels of high performance which was created by Robert Dilts. 

Imagine you see your team as this high-performance garden. Green grass, rockery, brilliant colours, trees with deep roots that can withstand any weather, with consistent fruit produced from the tree, and a garden shed with the perfect tools to keep the garden working perfectly. 

Now imagine your current garden is full of weeds, rotting bark, long overgrown grass, limited fruit, and is bland and grey in color, with no shed to keep your perfect tools in. I am sure you would agree that this is not the garden you want? 

Logical levels allow you to go through the levels of high performance and identify blind spots, increase motivation and refine the skills that enable you to understand what high performance looks like, sounds like and feels like in your team. It enables you to create the exact garden you want to in order for your team to grow and flourish. 

Environment 

Where and when are you most effective as a team? What environment does that look like, sound like and feel like? 

Our external environment where we work, and where we live has a direct impact on our external behaviour and motivation. Consider that it is both ours and the team's environment that dictates our attitudes, behaviours, and motivation. 

Imagine you are a gorilla in the jungle with all the other gorillas, you have trees to climb, fruit to eat and other gorillas on the same mission as you, with the same passion. They are all pushing you to be a better version of yourself. I am sure you can imagine how you and the team would flourish? 

Now imagine you are a gorilla on your own in a desert in a dry and hot environment with no one to support you, limited water and limited food. I am sure you can imagine how demotivated you would be? 

It is worth considering these questions when crafting or evaluating your sales team environment in order to make sure you all aligned. 

What is working in your environment?  What is not working in your environment?  What do you want instead?   Behaviours

What are our standards? Where are we going? What will behaviors will take us there? 

Remember, if we are disempowered or empowered it directly affects our physiology, our state and then our outer behaviours and therefore results. 

What behaviours are we tolerating as a team? Who do we aspire to become, and what behaviours will enable this? The interesting thing is that behaviour is linked to our results as individuals, teams and towards our clients or customers. 

Every behaviour is perfectly designed to get us a result, whether that's the one we want or the one we don't. You can usually tell everything you need to know about a team by looking at their behaviour. Pay attention, not to what people say, but what they do. The behaviour is either useful or not useful for the direction you are going. 

When working to get the best out of a sales team, ask the following questions. When you ask these questions it is important to write down the first thing that comes to mind. If I asked for your email address how quickly would that come to you? That's right, that quickly. All change is unconscious, and those answers and insights create high performance.  

What do you do that’s working for you?  What do you do that's not working for you?  What don’t you do that's working for you?  What don't you do that's not working for you?  Skills and Capabilities

The level of skills and capabilities of the team are in direct proportion to the results you create.' As people may have skills and capabilities that are not being put to use, Or those skills need to increase to deliver the results you need.

The interesting thing is that most teams focus on what they are not very good at? Why? Because that is what everyone else does. It's important to look at your aspirations both as a team and individually. What strengths do you already have? And if you developed your strengths, which ones will accelerate performance? Where are your opportunities for skill and capability development? Skill and capability development must be part of the workflow. Coaching, small workshops, team meetings, and webinars must be consistent to enable your team's skills to be honed. 

What skills and capabilities do you do well? Where are your aspirations, and what skills will get you there?  What skills and capabilities do you want to develop? What are your strengths and how do you hone those?  Beliefs and Values 

Our individual beliefs are so important and whether you think you can, or you think you can't, you're right. Most limiting beliefs are learned and they are designed to keep you safe. This is great if you are wrestling a tiger in a jungle. Not so useful if you are trying to hit a sales target. 

When you have a limiting belief it is always worth reframing it. “I can’t” What would happen if you could? “I am not confident” In what ways could you be trusting yourself” Remember beliefs either empower or disempower. Sales is almost like a pro sport, and what do they do? The warm-up before training and games to get into peak state and go above feelings because that's where performance is. 

What beliefs would empower you daily?  What beliefs do you hold that are not useful? What would be some more useful beliefs? 

Our personal values and team values provide motivation and drive. If one of your team is not performing there could be a values misalignment. What values do the best salespeople hold? What values does your underperformer hold? What's the gap? 

The reality is that everyone has different values and it is important to respect that. What are the collective team values, and are they in alignment with where you are going? If your team's values are misaligned with your customers or clients values then this can cause conflict and you will get results that are not useful. 

Here are some questions to ask to ensure high motivation and alignment. Elicit these values and build your team around them. 

What's important to you about your customers or clients?  What's important to them specifically?  What's important to you as a team? What's important to you personally?  I what ways can you satisfy your values?  Identity And Purpose 

What the one north star you are all aiming towards, what’s your highest purpose as a team? 

Our purpose has to be so big that it would take a lifetime to get there. This will drive a huge amount of motivation, and who you become in the process would be far greater than who you are now. 

Remember that without purpose and direction nothing happens. It' your purpose that enables you to go the extra mile for each other, for your customer, and clients. 

What purpose do you stand for? Who are you that's more than your role? What's the one mission you are all on? What the highest intention of your work?

You have just learned Robert Dilts logical levels and how to apply this to create a high performing sales teams. It's important to work on all levels of your team garden, from the roots all the way up to the fruit. 

Your perfect garden starts with environment, behaviours, skills, beliefs, values and your purpose. Get your team into a room and place the questions on flip charts and spend 2 hours answering the questions in this article. Then agree on next steps in each area and be accountable for the change, bring this to life. 

When you have any questions please get in contact. 

Journeys, not just workshops. making the most of 70:20:10

It’s time to get a bit more creative with these well-known numbers.

We’ve come a long way since the days of once in a career ‘everything you need to know about leadership’ retreats, enter-trainers, and imitation leather-bound manuals (We all have them!). However many organisations are still playing lip-service to the 70:20:10 philosophy of working and learning.

(If you’re not familiar with the research, 70:20:10 is the work of Morgan McCall and the Centre for Creative Leadership. In short, they found 70% of learning comes from on the job experience and 20% from relationships with significant others. Just 10% is down to formal learning interventions such as training events and workshops.)

If anything, most organisations are adopting more of a 10:20:70 philosophy. In other words:

Attend the workshop (The 10%) Have a de-brief with your line manager (The 20%) Hope to put your new skills and knowledge into practice through your day to day work (The 70%)

This is just lazy learning – turn up, stay awake, and ‘get developed’.

To me it leaves a lot to chance and wastes a huge opportunity. If we adopt a learning ‘journey’ mindset, maybe we can make the most of the informal learning that takes place outside the classroom, in order to maximise the formal learning in it.

They say a picture paints a thousand words, so here it is.

A learning journey starts way before the workshop. And not just through optional pre-reading or watching the odd Ted Talk. It involves real, purposeful discovery activity, linking subject matter to the individual’s role and team, and gives learners the opportunity to explore, experiment, and create stretch before they enter the room. This is learning through doing.

Imagine a world where learners arrive with a head already full of learning, eager to share insights, challenge their thinking further, and develop new ideas. Now you can really hit the ground running.

The coming together part now becomes more about sense-making than imparting new knowledge. More about sharing and collaborating than passive listening. And when leaders share their insights with peers, coaches and mentors before, during and after, the 20% comes into play in the right way, at the right time.

Now, having made sense of what we’ve learned, we can turn Insight into Action – with more purposeful, meaningful activities, initiatives, and team conversations. If planned well, these become not just the follow up activity for one learning event, but the forerunner for the next.

70:20:10 isn’t a linear thing, it’s a framework for continuous learning, a framework for a learning journey.

It takes effort yes, on the side of both the learning designer and the learner. However it also makes the vital difference between transactional and transformational learning experiences.

Think journeys, not just workshops for 2019.

Leadership is different now.

Remember the world is changing at a supersonic speed, and if you are not developing in accordance with this, you and your team may get left behind.

Over time your team becomes a reflection of you, so your attitudes and actions matter.

If you want your team to achieve, develop, become leaders and create a high performing winning culture, you must start with YOU.

Here are some insights to transforming your team!

Collective North Star

What’s the one mission and vision you are all working towards? Is it empowering and does it create motivation and results?

Does it embody everyone’s beliefs and values? If it only embodies what you believe, people won’t work as hard and they will be resistant.

When it embodies what they believe and value they will dig deeper for that, and feel empowered along the journey, almost like they are working towards a cause bigger than themselves.

Individual motivators

What really motivates your team individually? If you think its money for all, then you could be wrong and could be trying to motivate people with tactics that are not effective.

Everyone has a unique motivation, and the best leaders understand what motivates their people and design an ENVIRONMENT to motivate people to deliver results important to them. It’s the environment that people work in that either disempowers them or empowers them.

Leaders also understand how to change their approach to get the best out of others. Some team members may need encouragement, a push in the right direction, a pull, they may need empowering, they may need someone to talk to, and someone to say it how it is, or someone that leads by example.

Achievement, development, money, recognition, progression, excellence, empowerment, trust, acknowledgment, family, security, stability and reward are all things that could MOTIVATE your team. Do you really know what motivates your team?

Leverage individual strengths

I think this image says it all. If you focus all your time telling people the things they are not good at, this creates burnout. Remember you hire people for their strengths, why are you not leveraging them? All great teams recognize their strengths and how to leverage them.

Create coaching sessions and workshops to identify your team’s strengths and then give them tasks and projects which capitalize on them. Imagine a large team all driving their strengths to deliver results. The reality is that strengths come naturally to most people, so there is less resistance, more motivation, enjoyment and an increase in performance. This is one of the secrets to high performance.

Create a team of leaders

Give your team projects which capitalize on their strengths, and also projects which would help them grow into the leaders you know they are capable of. Your team may fear certain things where there could be an opportunity. Encourage them to confront certain fears as this is where the gold can be hidden.

If you know that one of your team members has a skill for something, empower and enable them to run a project or coach other team members on this. This will develop their leadership skills and you won’t be the only voice. GREAT leaders lead from the back and watch their team flourish. If you can develop a team of leaders, this will strengthen the unit. People will step up when needed.

Push peoples comfort zones

Remember complacency can impact your results and team morale. Empower and enable your team to set big goals and have big aspirations. Realize that it is being able to push the comfort zone of what is possible that delivers results. This creates resilient and solution-focused team members. Is your team settling for the norm? Where are your opportunities to push the norm and challenge the status quo?

The crucial thing is when your team are being pushed and challenged, you must be the COOL head. You must be able to think clearly under pressure, as this is where a good coach comes in. Are you a calming influence? How do you shield your team from the pressures? How do you enable them to flourish in times of challenge? Do they have the skills to push their comfort zone and deliver results? Remember that when your emotions are high, your logical problem solving is low. If you are calm, then you stand a much greater chance of a successful outcome.

Lead the coaching culture

The reality is you must develop as a coach. It should be a number one priority. If you give a man or woman a fish they will eat for a day (telling) If you teach and man or woman to fish they will eat for a lifetime (coaching).

This approach will be a reoccurring investment and people will become more solution focused. They will be able to peer to peer coach, they will develop more resilience, accountability, and results.

You must lead this, as for your team to believe in coaching, it must come from the leadership, and that’s you. How many hours per month do you spend coaching?

How many hours per month do you spend telling? Remember that people believe what comes out of their mouth, so if you can enable people to find the solutions themselves this drives accountability. If your team struggles with accountability, its time you became a good coach. Don’t can go half in or half out, you must commit to coaching mastery and your team will excel.

Authenticity creates transformation

Are you pretending to be someone you are not? Because leadership should not be about titles. This would be about one person influencing another.

Surrender your ego when you have a team, it’s not about you anymore. Do you come into work and think because you are the manager or leader you have to act a certain way? Remember that the elephant in the room only causes fear and anxiety. You are responsible for clearing the air.

The ability to be authentic to your team creates a connection, an open culture, transformation and enthusiasm. You will find more people come to you for support, coaching and you will identify challenges you didn’t know were there. This will strengthen the teams bond and deliver an increase in performance.

Remember the team can sense when someone isn’t telling the truth and this creates resistance. The key is to be who you are outside of work and be that person inside work. Giving honest and open feedback is crucial and showing you are human.

Don’t forget who you are and what makes you great. Create an environment that you love. What motivates you? Does your environment embody that? What small changes could you make now?

Accountability is crucial

 

Do you have advocates in your team? This is crucial for driving accountability as in time, people will self-coach. Create leagues and challenges to drive accountability, and ensure you check in with people on their progress.

Ensure you have advocates of your plans and ensure they are also driving team accountability.

They key here is also delivering what you promised. Become a leader of good values and be them consistently. What values do you hold as a leader? And are you consistently being them? Do you practice what you preach?

What stops people being capable?

Capability is a slippery concept.

For some time now I have been discussing capability with people in HR, people in L&D, and people with chief executive responsibilities in both the public and private sectors. What I have found remarkable is the lack of consistency in how people use the word capability.

Given that any organisation has a purpose - and achieving that purpose is dependent on the people in the organisation being capable of doing all the tasks that need to be done - I would have thought that capability would be so fundamental to success that people would have a handle on it. Or at least the successful people would.
In fact, I have been surprised at how little focus people put on capability in most organisations.

What is even more interesting is how surprised they are when this is pointed out to them. I often do a little thought experiment with them, and it goes like this.
Imagine you are the chief executive of a new business, and I am supplying a team of people to you to work in the business. I give you a choice of two different teams. Team 1 is welleducated. The members have been on lots of training courses, and they know lots of stuff.
Team 2 is capable of doing the work that needs to be done in your new business. Which team would you choose for your business?

99 per cent of people I ask this choose the capable team. We seem to know that in the moment when the job needs to be done, capability to do the task counts far more for business success than any amount of formal learning. If capability is so important, what is it? How can we define it? How can we measure it? And how do we need to understand it so that we can improve it?

Find out the answers and the components of capability. Do you agree? Do you have different suggestins?

181 Inspirational Quotes for Leaders of Growing Businesses

(This article was first published on our Coachical blog: https://coachical.com/inspirational-quotes-for-leaders/)

If you’re looking to grow your business, it is important to stay motivated and keep an open mind.  Inspiration is the first step to success.  We’ve brought together a variety of quotes from business leaders, gurus, change agents and other great minds to help inspire you to grow your business and achieve even greater levels of success.

On our blog you can filter the quotes by different topic areas, by year and we have also selected our favourites. To all explore all 181 using these filters go to https://coachical.com/inspirational-quotes-for-leaders/

But here are our favourites:

“A leader...is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind.” – Nelson Mandela

“A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.” – Laozi

“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” – John Quincy Adams

“What helps people, helps business” – Leo Burnett

“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.” – Winston Churchill

“A man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd.” – Max Lucado

“The key to successful leadership is influence, not authority.” – Kenneth H. Blanchard

“Don’t be intimidated by what you don’t know. That can be your greatest strength and ensure that you do things differently from everyone else.” – Sara Blakely

“Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren't used to an environment where excellence is expected.” – Steve Jobs

“The most important job you have is growing your people, giving them a chance to reach their dreams.” – Jack Welch

“Leadership is about taking responsibility, not making excuses.” – Mitt Romney

“Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.” – John F. Kennedy

“Successful leaders see the opportunities in every difficulty rather than the difficulty in every opportunity.” – Reed Markham

“Don’t find the fault, find the remedy.” – Henry Ford

“Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion.” – Jack Welch

“A leader takes people where they would never go on their own.” – Hans Finzel

“Leadership is a choice not a position.” – Stephen Covey

“Leaders think and talk about the solutions. Followers think and talk about the problems.” – Brian Tracy

“A leader is someone who demonstrates what’s possible.” – Mark Yarnell

“Leadership is not about titles, positions or flowcharts. It is about one life influencing another.” – John Maxwell

“Change will not come if we wait for some other person, or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” – Barack Obama

“A good leader is a person who takes a little more than his share of the blame and a little less than his share of the credit.” – John Maxwell

“The very essence of leadership is that you have to have vision. You can't blow an uncertain trumpet.” – Theodore M. Hesburgh

“The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things.” – Ronald Reagan

“Average leaders raise the bar on themselves; good leaders raise the bar for others; great leaders inspire others to raise their own bar.” – Orrin Woodward

“The quickest way to grow the sales of your business is to grow your people.” – Robin Sharma

Think we’ve missed an epic and inspiring quote? Check out our full list at https://coachical.com/inspirational-quotes-for-leaders/ or do comment your favouirte quotes. 

Rules, Roles & Ethics in a Training Workshop

Having had some time during the quieter summer Corporate training period I’ve been reflecting on some of the potential challenges when considering rules, roles and ethics in the selection and use of experiential learning activities and replaying some of the conversations we’ve had on this topic.

Activity Selection – as a Training Workshop designer, the choice of activity can represent not only the learning you want your delegates to achieve, or the behavioural changes you want them to rehearse, but also your role as a ‘leader’, reflecting their organisation values & culture. This was raised in an article in January by Roger Greenaway on using the well known 'Helium Stick' exercise. See Roger's Monthly Newsletter . I know this is a very popular ice-breaker or opening exercise for many trainers and can be slotted into any group or team programme without thinking through the consequences - which as Roger quite rightly points out can include ‘a claimed success (by the group and the facilitator) that almost certainly depends on foul play or on low awareness or on poor observation.’ At what point do the potential unintended consequences of using an activity outweigh the intended consequences?
 If selecting an exercise where insufficient materials or resources are initially given to group, yet they are asked to solve a problem, is that an acceptable way to encourage them to ‘be creative’,  or does it reflect a culture where poorly crafted objectives are the norm, and leaders expect colleagues to do high quality work with inadequate tools?
See https://shop.rsvpdesign.co.uk/helium-stick-with-facilitation-notes to purchase this activity. Roles – as a Training Workshop Leader there is a tacit or explicit assumption that you are in a Leadership role, whether or not you see your principal role as a facilitator of learning. It always surprises me when I bring our experiential learning activities to groups of trainers to experience them, and they say things like ’he probably hasn’t told us everything’, or ‘that material is likely to be a red herring’ or ‘this is probably impossible’. I wonder what their experience is that they should immediately distrust the Training Workshop Leader? Perhaps there is too much use, selection and creation of experiential activities where the task activities are such that the leadership role played by the facilitator or trainer is that of someone who knows they are asking a group to do something that can’t be done? At best this is insincere and at worst it is a poor leadership role model. Rules – many participants will react when told activity rules include ‘wearing a blindfold', or ‘not speaking to anyone’, or ‘not sharing information with others’, by saying things such as ‘this rule makes no sense’, or ‘why should I obey a rule in a silly game?’ A poor response from a Training Workshop Leader would include ‘Well that’s the rules of this game so please abide by them!’. A better response might be ‘How are people in this organisation decide which rules to follow? Is every rule automatically followed or are some bent or broken, and if so, who decides?’, or perhaps ‘This is not designed to be a simulation where the task is very similar to your job role. It is a learning process where you have the opportunity to experience some learning in an unfamiliar situation. The rules reflect some constraints which are similar to those in real life, and therefore as in real life, we hope you will treat them as important rules that reflect things such as Health & Safety, or Corporate Compliance’. As leaders, I think either the Training Workshop Leader has to model an organisational culture where rules are important and should be followed, or to clarify why and where it might be appropriate not to. However, rules should reflect metaphors for some real-life constraints and not simply to make an activity more challenging or interesting. Ethics – sometimes there will be a ‘trick’ or an answer to an activity that if revealed too early, may make the learning impact less effective for individuals or a group. I think care has to be taken on how to choose and apply such activities following some of the issues discussed earlier. So while it might be ethically acceptable for a leader to ask someone to do a task, (for learning or coaching purposes), knowing they could help them by telling them the answer, it is less acceptable for a leader to ask someone to complete something that cannot be done. For example, an activity was described to me where the participants were asked to complete a jigsaw with an incomplete set of pieces provided; and another suggested deliberately making a change in a task without the knowledge of the participants, so that it became unachievable (under the guise of getting participants to react to ‘change’). I find both these approaches lack a basic code of leadership ethics and I would not want to put myself in the position of deliberately misleading a group. Perhaps in the first activity if say all the pieces were available but perhaps spread amongst different sub-groups, then that could be an acceptable design, and in the second, if it was incumbent to regularly check that conditions haven’t changed, then that might also be acceptable - but I suspect I would still take another approach to experiencing the ‘change’ process!

I’d love to hear other’s views on these areas – here at RSVP Design we try not to design, supply or use any activity in our catalogue that might fail our reflected leadership role or ethics guidance as listed above.
We think it’s important.
Do you?

Pipe dreams - Are your forecasts wishful thinking?

Sales people are generally optimists – you’ve got to be. It’s a tough gig and even the best are likely to fail twice in every three attempts. In fact, it’s the only profession where you can fail more than you succeed and still become a super success. Not a luxury open to brain surgeons or pilots! 

Unquenchable optimisim and sales forecasting

Sometimes our unquenchable optimism gets in the way, or at least confuses us and others. Sales forecasting and opportunity management is a perennial problem for many organizations. In the 90s CRM specialists convinced the corporate world that they had the answer and the introduction of expensive, feature rich systems would solve all the problems. Yet, here we are, three decades on and ExCos are still pulling their hair out because pipeline does not turn into revenue.

What’s the problem?

A reluctance to disappoint? Lack of realism? Poor opportunities?

The list could go on. The reality is that individual sales skill must be underpinned by practical tools which manage the quantity, direction and quality of sales activity. Sales people need to be doing enough of the right things in front of the right prospects in the right way to succeed. A £6m sales pipe to cover a 1.5m delta is great but, not in November when your prospect to order cycle is four months long.

Are you identifying the right stakeholders?

Leaving stale opportunities in the pipe to inflate it, not identifing the right stakeholders in the decision making process, failing to identify if the prospect actually has a budget or even a need are some of the many reasons why many sales forecasts are simply pipe dreams.

When you understand how to manage individual and team level QDQ (Quantity, Direction and Quality) of sales activity the dreams become reality. You cannot manage result but you can manage the activity which creates the result.

SKY TV UK Case Study

SKY UK Limited (formerly British Sky Broadcasting and BSkyB) is a telecommunications company which serves the United Kingdom and parts of Europe. Sky provides television and broadband internet services and fixed line telephone services to consumers and businesses.

 

Sky offer outstanding training and development opportunities to staff as they believe the performance of their people is a key driver of their growth and success and everyone learns throughout their career. They want their staff to be equipped to deal with queries across all of their products so it is easier for their customers to interact with them all.

 

Blyth Priestley,

Senior Procurement Manager

 

 

The Challenge

Sky is a project, process based business. Projects are running daily in all departments and across all job functions.

 

The SKY supply chain and procurement team wanted to improve the way they deliver projects, particularly with the way they interact with what they consider are the core ‘project managers’ of the business. However, they do not want a typical ‘project management’ course as they do not want to become project managers. Instead, they wanted to manage and lead their own procurement projects more effectively.

 

They selected Supply Chain Academy, to develop a unique and highly practical training session where core principles of project management were taught and delivered around their real live projects. This SMART business simulation approach used real work scenarios and provided delegates with all the tools and techniques they needed to support them as they instantly applied the learning to their work.

 

The Supply Chain Academy helped the team:

recognise when it is appropriate to adopt a ‘project’ approach to managing their workload apply a simple lifecycle to a project to break it into easy to manage stages clearly define their projects to provide real clarity in terms of project scope, roles and responsibilities, and other key factors confidently plan, organise and document a project by using a wide variety of tools that add value to the project management process become more effective in monitoring and controlling the project work, change requests and resourcing pressures by using best practice processes and techniques understand what lessons can be learnt from managing work using a project approach tailor their approach to projects of varying size and complexity

Blyth Priestley, Senior Procurement Manager, confirms that the improvements in team performance are already noticeable:- She commented: “The team have made real positive changes since the training day at Supply Chain Academy; the course was highly relevant, a good mix between theory and practice and colleagues appreciated the relevance of the scenarios and case study to help them take the learning and apply at work. This has been a great opportunity for the team to come together to share their knowledge and learn new skills, whilst at the same time create action plans to become more efficient.”

Foundations of Leadership

WHAT EVERY IT MANAGER NEEDS TO KNOW - SO THEY CAN MANAGE THEIR PEOPLE AS WELL AS THEY MANAGE THEIR SERVERS

There are 5 key ideas that every technician needs to master in order to successfully make the leap from a technical career track into leadership. If you want to go from Sys Admin to CTO, then these are for you. Here is a brief introduction to each:

Leaders unleash POTENTIAL

As a leader, almost everything you are accountable for will be delivered by the people that you lead. You won’t be writing the software, your developers will. You won’t be running the backups, your Ops team will... and so on. This means that your leadership ability, or lack of it, will be the largest single factor influencing your personal success. 

Leadership transforms potential into the desired results by organising talent.  

In other words, Leaders make something happen (desired results) that has never happened before (potential) through other people (organising talent). 

The import phrase is through other people. A leader’s job is to provide an environment for their team to excel – and ensure that they do!

Leaders do things on PURPOSE

As a leader, you must provide the essential WHY that motivates your team to work hard and deliver exceptional results. People want to know why things need to be done a certain way and why you are asking them to ensure a certain deadline is hit. You could try ‘because I said so’ but that rarely produces the desired results and intelligent, capable people are unlikely to hang around very long in an environment which is led in that manner. 

As the ancient proverb says: without a vision, the people perish. 

A clear purpose makes the unbearable bearable and the boring endurable. 

Leaders ensure their teams make PROGRESS You can make progress or you can make excuses. You cannot do both. 

You and your team are not paid to be busy, although we often behave that way. You are not paid for your time - although that is often how employment contracts are written.

You are not paid for the hour, you are paid for the value that you bring to the hour.

Working on a project brings no value - but completing the project does bring value. Do not allow your team to focus on all the things they are 'doing' instead change the language of your daily updates to ask what has been finished.

Leaders PROTECT

In the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey builds his ideas on the principle that being effective is a combination of getting the job done and protecting the means of doing the job. Many leaders focus on the first half – getting the job done, we neglect the second – protecting the people, places and tools needed to do the job. Think of it in terms of the Captain of a battleship. 

His first duty is to protect his ship, second to complete the mission. 

For many leaders today, we focus on completing the mission, and neglect the ship. 

Leaders have a PROCESS

As leader, it is your responsibility to ensure there is a process in place so that your team and organisation learns from events – whether they are ‘successes’ or ‘failures’ – they are all opportunities to learn and improve. Do not waste them! 

Processes bring consistency and predicability. Processes run the business, people run the processes.

You can learn more about each of the 5 Foundations of Leadership and how they apply to a career in IT in my book - and you can download your own copy for free for a limited time: www.cool-waters.co.uk/foundations

Serious about Diversity? Then focus on Inclusion.

Inclusion is the only path to real diversity success. 

Diversity alone delivers nothing - in fact if left to its own devices it can cause havoc, impede performance and damage reputation.  That’s because conflict among people who are different is the natural order of things.  We are all naturally tribal and we tend to prefer those who we perceive to be the same as us (whether they are or not) – and be wary of those we perceive to be unlike us (whether they are or not). 

Diverse teams are important for three reasons :

to increase performance by leveraging the differences that team members bring in areas such as knowledge, outlook, experience and skillsets (the performance incentive) to ensure equal opportunity (the moral case…think reputation risk) to benefit society (the social case…think corporate responsibility)

If teams are not inclusive :

they will not perform as well as they could equal opportunity will be impeded, because some individuals will be and feel stifled diverse individuals will leave or languish

So if you want to realise the potential that diversity offers, be it innovation & creativity, more talent, access to diverse markets, equal opportunity for all or whatever else, inclusion is the key that unlocks that performance. 

There is no other way.

Top tips :

Weave inclusion thinking into all areas e.g. in recruitment processes ask candidates for feedback on how inclusive your processes are, in your teams conduct skills audits to see if your people’s abilities are being used to full effect, in your supply chains ask suppliers what else they could do for you.  Survey your staff and ask them how included they feel.  Their comments will give you clear indications of what’s working and what’s not.  Do it regularly to gauge progress. Think about your senior management team, how its members are different and whether those differences are valued or suppressed.  Educate them about the critical importance of inclusion for unlocking the potential of diversity. Get on board with unconscious bias and really address it.  It’s not a fad, it’s a critically important part of the inclusion challenge.  Go beyond training and implement solutions – there are many out there. Appreciate how hard inclusion can be to achieve.  Regularly meet people who are different, who you would not normally meet, and analyse your thoughts about them.  How do you feel about them before, during and after meeting?  Do you manage to get beyond the stereotypes they represented?  How much more effort was involved in interacting with them?  Were there awkward moments?  Would you be friends with them?  Would you hire them?  Would you recommend them to others?    Feel the difference discomfort and aim to understand why.   

Harish Bhayani

Senior Partner

PRM Diversity Consultants

Hybrid Learning - The best blend of online and live workshops

Online and mobile learning tools provide an unprecedented opportunity to deliver high quality learning content and business tools right into the user’s hand, whenever and wherever they need them.

Whether you’re looking to support a wider training initiative or simply deliver learning in a more modern and innovative way, a hybrid approach can help.

Watch this video for more on the benefits of a hybrid approach: https://youtu.be/YSzsa3tja_0 

Digital learning tools enable us to create a broader, deeper and smarter learning journey that everyone in your organisation can benefit from.

Bigrock are about to launch a new digital coaching tool, that can help make hyrbid learning a reality in your organisation. Register your interest in Coachical here: https://www.bigrockhq.com/coachical/ 

The Future of Workplace Learning: Presented by Ben Reed, Nimble Product Consultant

Filmed at the Growing Gloucestershire Conference 2017, this 30-minute session is an overview of some of the main drivers for the future of workplace learning, presented by Ben Reed, Nimble Product Consultant.

WATCH VIDEO: https://youtu.be/BRQJ147gQ7w

About Ben Reed

MLIA DIP, NLP Practioner, HND Hotel Management, Training and Coaching Consultant: Ben is an active evangelist for modern learning within the workplace. As a Product Consultant for Nimble Elearning, his day is often spent understanding what businesses want to achieve with their workplace training.

Ben has over 25 years of involvement in consultancy, training and development in a wide range of sectors which include; financial services, manufacturing, energy, logistics, automotive and IT to name a few. A business coach, specialising in relationship development, the psychology of sales, goal setting and strategic planning, Ben is also an NLP practitioner working with clients to develop a clear picture of where they want to be and what they want to achieve.

Ben is deeply involved with the charity sector, providing support for charities to help reduce training costs. Ben has 27 years serving on the Board of Directors for YMCA Cheltenham and is a volunteer youth mentor at The Door in Stroud.

http://trynimble.com

Binary success in the digital world for Nimble Elearning

The trophy shelf in the Nimble Elearning office is looking crowded after the company won back-to-back awards within the space of a month.

Their success began by being named Business of the Year at the Stroud Life Awards. The award honours firms who have made a difference to Stroud’s economy. Judi Bonham, one of the judges said of the company, “The Nimble entry demonstrated their commitment to the Stroud area and community, through their staff, local customers and how they introduce their wider customer base to all that our Stroud area has to offer when visiting them on site."

It’s quite a coup for the Stonehouse-based elearning company. Stroud is a national “hotspot” for the industry so competition can be fierce. Managing Director, Neil Hyde said at the event, “Nimble enjoy supporting our many local customers and introducing to our national customers to the delights of Stroud. No matter the size of the organisation, Nimble takes pride in supporting our customers every step of the way and we get tremendous satisfaction in playing a part in their success.” 

The company’s continued growth has meant those visiting the Gloucestershire town have included some big names: Laura Ashley, Costa, Premier Inn, Ann Summers, Gatwick Airport, Pukka, EasyJet. 

Growth of their customer base has allowed Nimble to expand and this became a significant factor when they won the Gloucestershire Live Award for ‘Digital Business of the Year’. 

The judges looked for evidence of exceptional delivery, site engagement and functionality, security, innovation, ethical practice and sales growth. As Neil Hyde explained, their secret is because “Nimble Elearning helps companies create their own professional and engaging elearning. we. work across many industry sectors such as health, security, retail and charity at a global, national and local level.” 

The company’s expansion has included customers from all over the globe, best illustrated by their latest - Sydney Airport. This success is due to themes that regularly feature in customer reviews: 

Ease of use: “Nimble stands out as being the most comprehensive and easy to use solution on the market.” EasyJet 

Cost effectiveness: “With Nimble we've delivered triple the training in six months. We've grown our suite of training and are now able to track results and produce individual development plans. In nine months we've created 50 courses and our staff have completed over 5000 courses... and we're just getting started.” Europa Insurance Group 

Ongoing customer support: “The support from Nimble has been outstanding – nothing is too much trouble. It's just a great experience." MoneyPlus. 

It’s not surprising the Nimble team are also excited about their recent inclusion in The South West Business Awards, where they were short-listed for Outstanding Business of the Year. It's been a busy start to 2018 already as Nimble Elearning have just finished exhibiting and meeting new audiences at Learning Technologies at London Olympia and are looking forward to CIPD in April.

About Nimble
Nimble is no ordinary elearning website; we've made it super simple to create engaging courses and share them with teams.

With Nimble Author, create elearning teams will love with its super-easy course editor. Publish SCORM courses and quizzes that work on every device and LMS, and Nimble Elearning supports customers every step of the way with its free training and support programme.

Nimble's beautifully simple LMS allows people to effortlessly manage their elearning.

Do more on http://trynimble.com.

Nimble Elearning are Winners of Business of the Year, Stroud Life Awards

Nimble Elearning have won Business of the Year at the prestigious Stroud Life Awards 2017.

Watch the video: https://youtu.be/67mrsorZHVM

Organised by Stroud Life newspaper and sponsored by WSP Solicitors, the award is about honouring firms who have made a difference to Stroud’s economy.

Competition was tough amongst the top three, with Fluid Transfer who have won the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in International Trade and Rempods, investment winners from Dragon’s Den and a previous Stroud Life Award winner.

Judi Bonham, Managing Partner at WSP Solicitors said, "As one of the Judges, the Nimble entry clearly demonstrated to me their commitment to the Stroud area and community as a whole. This commitment shows through their staff, local customer base and by the way they introduce their wider customer base to all that our Stroud area has to offer when visiting them on site."

Nimble Director Neil Hyde adds, “Nimble is extremely proud to have been selected Business of the Year and to be a part of the Stroud community. Nimble enjoy supporting our many local customers and introducing to our national customers to the delights of Stroud. No matter the size of the organisation, Nimble takes pride in supporting our customers every step of the way and Nimble get tremendous satisfaction in playing a part in their success. Nimble’s continual commitment to Stroud stems from a solid belief in the outstanding services, talent and expertise the people of the Five Valleys has to offer.”

http://trynimble.com

ABOUT THE STROUD LIFE AWARDS The Stroud Life Awards rightly puts Valley and Vale businesses and people in the limelight. Every year they discover and celebrate new talent, and share successes and the Awards are a fantastic opportunity for businesses and the community in Stroud district to shout about it. The Stroud Life Awards have established themselves as the most prestigious event in the local calendar since they were first held eight years ago.

6 steps to developing a high performing team

Working as part of a team can be an incredibly rewarding and motivating experience, especially when the team is highly efficient and collaborative. Accepting that challenges will arise and knowing what you are made of can help boost your own team contribution. Nothing builds self-esteem and self-confidence like accomplishment in the face of adversity.

So, how can you build and develop a high performing team?

1) Communication, Communication, Communication

Communication is something we all take for granted and a lack of understanding of how to effectively communicate as a team can cost businesses excessive amounts of time and money every year. Making sure there is a focus on team communication skills will lead to improvements in employee motivation, productivity and profitability.

There are many barriers to effective communication, ranging from not listening, making assumptions, conflicting messages, perceptions and emotional distractions - to remove and/or limit their impact will be the first step to becoming a high performing team.

Teams which communicate understand what needs to be achieved and allow themselves to support or challenge each other in equal measure. This allows a nurturing culture to develop where everyone will look out for one another and make allowances for mistakes. Constructive challenge allows individual and team growth. Agility and change ensures that projects don’t stagnate and the environment becomes one which is flexible, creative and passionate.

"The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion it has already taken place."

George Bernard Shaw  

Are you more of a teller, a talker, a listener or a writer? Understanding both the preferred communication style of yourself and others will instantly drive effective communication. You will then be able to modify your behaviour to that of other people to get the best reaction out of them, and vice versa, ensuring clarity, trust and respect are present.

2) Where is the starting point? Know where you are and where you want to be

To take your team to the next level, it’s imperative to understand the inner-dynamics of how you all work together. Can you answer the following questions about your team?

Do you know the strengths of the team so you can maintain them? What are the team’s limitations to improve on? What is the role of each person in the team and why? How will this team react to change? Where is there potential conflict in the team?

Completing a team audit will provide clarity around where your team stands, not only as a unit working together but also in the wider business. It will inspire the team to achieve more, pinpoint training needs and identify skill gaps that can be filled through upskilling and recruitment.

3) Making sense of emotional intelligence

Emotional intelligence (EI) is a powerful driver in effective team working that, if mastered correctly, can transform understanding of the team's ‘DNA’.

"Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.”

Lao Tzu 

The concept of EI can be summarised as “the capacity to harmonise thought and emotion”, by which we mean an individual’s ability to understand and control their own emotions, as well as recognise and manage those of others. This requires a person to be self-aware, perceptive and able to regulate emotional responses in various situations.

If a team can consistently utilise the knowledge given by EI, they will naturally foster an attitude of loyalty and engagement, communicate effectively and can fine-tune their team-working skills to push for further success.

4) The foundation of any successful team is trust

A successful team has trust at its foundation. Without trust, teams cannot move forwards due to fear of conflict and a lack of commitment. Establishing trust between team members can take a team from a satisfactory level of performance to an outstanding set of results. Being open and honest about strengths and limitations in our workplace behaviours can generate trust between team members. An understanding of our own personality traits can illustrate how and why we behave the way we do and how we interact with other people and then make behavioural modifications if necessary.

5) Feedback is a gift

360 feedback is a peer-analysis approach to giving constructive and honest feedback, which provides your business with an objective framework for identifying performance gaps and developing self-awareness. It enables teams to gather performance feedback from their managers, colleagues, team members and customers and then compare this feedback with their own perception of their performance.

This style of feedback is essential in helping teams to recognise how their behaviour is perceived across the business. Is the team dynamic working? Or is it having a negative impact on the perception of the team across the business?

By opening your team up to feedback from others, you will receive essential feedback and recommendations that could help you to take your team from good to great.

6) Now let’s maintain it

Once you've set the foundations - maintain it! A collective commitment to making individual and team improvements, that enhance performance and capitalise on strengths, will ensure your team is constantly working together as effectively and efficiently as possible. Re-visit these commitments as often as you need to. As situations and targets change, update and reconsider what your team needs to do to keep the momentum going.

When team members work well together, there is little they cannot accomplish. Make sure you're looking at the bigger picture when it comes to your teams and increase your chances of developing a high performing team.

Diversity in the workplace; how psychometric assessments provide a level playing field.

Psychological tests and assessments come in many forms, measuring characteristics like your personality traits, behaviour preferences or ability with words and numbers. There are many common assumptions about gender differences in these areas: are men more assertive and better with numbers than women? Do women have higher empathy and better verbal skills?

A recent focus both in psychological literature and HR practice is on ‘unconscious bias’ (unknown biases people hold towards others that can relate to many different characteristics). Important people-related decisions can be unintentionally influenced by individuals’ unconscious biases or widely-accepted stereotypes that may not be grounded in fact (acas). How can the negative impact of this be avoided?

Using gender as an example, research has demonstrated that there are relatively small gender differences when measuring personality (Costa, Terracciano & McCrae, 2001). You will likely observe greater differences between two individuals of any gender than between men and women overall. The same can be said for ability measures, minor gender differences can be observed but they are usually so small that again, you would notice differences between any two people rather than men and women overall (GIA Technical Manual).

The use of psychological tests and assessments can add great value to people decisions, be that recruitment, promotion or leadership development. An additional advantage is that robust psychological tools have to demonstrate that they have no ‘adverse impact’ against particular characteristics, such as gender. If individuals are advantaged or disadvantaged on a psychological tool by virtue of their gender then it is not fair to use that tool for decision-making.

Robust psychological tests and assessments can help provide a level playing field for individuals, providing objective metrics about their traits, behaviours and cognitive abilities, all of which can reduce the influence of people’s biases. Thomas International are currently partnering with a large recruitment business in London, tracking up to 500 graduate applicants throughout their selection process. The aim is to demonstrate that their processes (behavioural profiling, interviewing) do not negatively impact the chances of people progressing who have protected characteristics.

 

References:

Costa, P.T., Terracciano, A., and McCrae, R.R., (2001), Gender Differences in Personality Traits Across Cultures: Robust and Surprising Findings, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Vol. 81. No.2. 322-331.

http://www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=5433 – accessed 16:33, July 2017

General Intelligence Assessment (GIA), Technical Manual (2017), Thomas International

I still like to listen to Simon Sinek talk about Why, How and What.

Let me know your thoughts on this notion of Why, How and What. I tend to use a variation of this to help clients understand how best to articulate their needs - context, process and outcome.

What do you think?

James