Inspiring People & Coaching

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.

Exploring the seven Cs

I’ve always been a little suspicious of models in which the titles of the elements share a common initial letter or just happen to spell out a word that sums up the overall message. I would wonder whether important ideas had been omitted because they didn’t fit the pre-determined pattern and how strained the search might have been for synonyms.
You will have to believe me that when recently I was exploring ideas for high-level designs for learning solutions, option after option seemed to begin with the letter C. I did not conveniently leave out options beginning with other letters, nor did I have to hunt for better matching synonyms. It was just one of those days. Enjoy!

Coaching for learning

In their book Transfer of Training, Mary Broad and John Newstrom estimated that merely 10% of the dollars spent on training resulted in actual and lasting behavioural change. And that’s obviously not enough. They did some research into who it was that made the biggest impact on transfer of learning. They found that the greatest difference was made by the learner’s manager in setting expectations before the experience and then following up after. This video shows why coaching does such a fantastic job of supporting a learner through a learning experience.

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

Curating content for learning in 3 minutes

In a fast-changing world, it can be frustrating to be out of the loop. If you don’t have enough information – about the latest strategies, current best practice, changes in the market, the most exciting new tools and technologies, what people are thinking and doing – then it’s hard to do the best job possible.

On the other hand, with the myriad of new communication tools at our disposal, you can easily have too much information. You simply don’t have the time to sort through all the new content that’s fighting for your attention to find what’s really relevant.

This is where the content curator takes over, doing the hard work to save everyone else the trouble.

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. 

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 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.  

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. 

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. 

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 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. 

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. 

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!

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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?

Coaching and Mentoring – why the difference matters; by Helen Caton Hughes

I was privileged to attend a conference on mentoring in dentistry last weekend with some great speakers. It was particularly interesting to be reminded of the history of coaching and mentoring and where those terms originated. 

It also led me to reflect on why Coaching has become the go-to personal and team development tool – for individuals and organisations - particularly at times of change.

To quote a recent study[1] commissioned by the International Coach Federation: “Using coaching to lead an agile culture is correlated with greater confidence in employees’ capabilities in planning and executing change.”

‘Mentoring’ is a term that’s over 3,200 years old. It refers to the wisdom and advice given from an uncle (Mentor) to his nephew Telemachus, the son of Odysseus. The words of wisdom include telling Telemachus it’s time to grow up. The practical advice addresses how he is going to achieve his goal of finding his father.

Coaching has a shorter history. It originates from C19th students' need to get through their exams at the end of a fun-packed university experience: strong on practical help and low on the wisdom of needing to grow up.

The turning point for Coaching came in the mid-twentieth century. Franz Stampfl MBE pioneered interval training and coached Roger Bannister to his four-minute mile. It’s been associated with high-performance results ever since.

Along came Timothy Gallwey in the early 1970s who made a bridge between high-performance athletics and workplace achievements; and the link between external success and internal shifts, through his ‘Inner Game’ work.

My own coaching story started when Gallwey first came to the UK. I attended a training where we worked in pairs, listened to each other and discovered the previously-invisible gremlins sitting on our shoulders. 

It wasn’t called ‘coaching’ back then, but the collaboration between Gallwey and the late Sir John Whitmore, was certainly the birth of the £/$multi-billion profession that we see today used by the world’s top leaders, executives and managers.

According to the ICF/HCI report, "strong coaching cultures are more than twice as likely to be high-performing organizations".

My own theory about the rise and rise of coaching is based on three key shifts:

The shift away from 'teaching' is still not yet fully recognised in the education field. 

In my schooldays teachers had books. We had books too. We read the books. We learned what they said. We repeated that back in our exams.

Sound familiar?

Now we live in a world where the knowledge, facts and information are at everyone’s fingertips. Books are lovely; but you don’t need them. 

The ability to access information shifts learning to the learner. It requires an internal locus of control. It empowers the individual. 

But only if the learner understands the essentials about discovering facts, holding opinions, drawing conclusions and taking decisions.

There's an attitudinal shift to self-directed learning, as well as a practical one.

It’s a whole new paradigm – where the teacher becomes facilitator, sometimes mentor, and also a coach.

At school I was told what to do. At work the same happened. The workload came in; supervisors and managers shared it out. 

It was predictable; we knew what to do and when to do it by. It was a jigsaw puzzle where you found the edges, then used the line between the earth and sky to fill in the middle bits.

In today’s world predictability is out and volatility is in. Jigsaw puzzles are out. Complex problems abound.

In the workplace this requires a different kind of leadership. Individual leader need a strong sense of internal locus of control, not the old-style externally-focused‘command and control’.

Leaders need vision because they need to know and share where they’re going. And where they’re taking the team. The 'what' or 'where'.

They need to feel connected to their own values (part of the internal locus of control), so that when they share their vision they also share its importance. The ‘why’.

Leaders need to know what behaviours are expected of them. We’ve covered the thinking cluster of leadership behaviours, but there’s also the need to inspire others, through that vision. 

That means significantly better communication skills, through building other peoples’ confidence, as well as their own. Not just imparting information.

And this is where coaching comes in. 

A mentor can tell you how they built their own confidence, or how to present well. But unless the leader or manager internalises that expertise, it only resides at a superficial ‘how to’ level. The 'who'.

A good coach supports leaders to become that inspiring speaker, not telling them what to do (because they know that bit); rather by drawing out their innate skills, strengths and expertise.

Today’s world requires collaborating across traditional boundaries. The lines between departments, industries or sectors are increasingly blurred.

Collaboration is needed everywhere. Because change is everywhere. Another role of leaders is to involve people, so that they can collaborate.

'Copying' becomes learning from 'best practice'; benchmarks help you identify 'world class' and emulate those standards in your organisation.

Line management is out; matrix management is here; and the even lighter-weight agile or SCRUM management methods are just around the corner.

It can be challenging to collaborate. It takes courage and assertiveness.

Especially if someone hogs the credit for your ideas. Or takes them and leaves you out of the team.

Today’s leadership requires respect and trust for these methods to be successful in times of change and uncertainty. Coaching supports people to model and practice these behaviours, and to assert these expectations from others.

To quote from the ICF/HCI 2018 report: "Addressing leadership style, strengths and blind spots; overcoming resistance; building resilience and change readiness; and finding processes and tools are the most frequently cited reasons for using coaching activities for change management."

This isn’t to dismiss mentoring, by the way. Not at all. 

I completely value the insights and advice from my business mentor. I get the equivalent of “it’s time to grow up” and the practical advice on how to deal with specific problems. But while mentoring gets me over the hurdles and helps me fill in the jigsaw puzzle that is our business plan, coaching develops my inner game. It gives me the courage to address the challenges; the power to lead by making others powerful; to take feedback;  and the determination to ensure our business succeeds in today’s volatile and uncertain world.

About the author: Helen is a multi-disciplinary author, leadership consultant and coach, founder of the Forton Group of Companiesdelivering leadership, coaching and mentoring qualification programmes internationally.

[1] “Building a coaching culture for change management” September 2018, publ. HCI and ICF,

IBM and LEADx launch executive coach Amanda

Interesting collaboration between IBM and LEADx launch the world’s first AI-powered executive coach. Finally, you can provide personalized coaching and leadership development at scale - are you already using eCoaching in any shape or form?

https://leadx.org

Coachical - A New Digital Coaching Tool

In this video, Bigrock Client Director Jon Luckett gives an interview about our new digital coaching tool and the benefits it offers learners and business leaders alike. 

We would love to recieve some feedback from the industry and invite readers to take try a Coachical topic (just £60 +VAT and you get a load of online learning content too) 

See the video transcript and accompanying blog post here: https://coachical.com/an-introduction-to-coachical-an-interview-with-jon-luckett/ 

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:

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

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:

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. 

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!

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. 

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.

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. 

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

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

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?

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Enabling change, enabling success

If mindfulness and wellbeing ... at the top of your people agenda right now, it could possibly be because your organisation, like so many others, feels that the rate of pace needed to grow is a challenge for your people. So how can you slow things down for your people while keeping pace with market demands?

Businesses will be familiar with traditional change models and may consider them when looking to effect cultural change.

Has the path of change evolved?

Change is necessary when new processes, technology or products ... introduced to a business. Moreover, adjustment is normally required by everyone and, because ... all have our own preferred way of being communicated to and our own moral compass, the same message will be received and interpreted differently by individuals and teams. In the past our people have needed to receive the ‘great news about our future’, get over themselves and adjust. Either that or leave!

Many leadership courses require us to understand the impact that poorly planned change can have on individuals and teams.

“...'re encouraged to consider the people that ... manage, and plan our communication well, leading by example – embrace the change, it is positive!”

When does change become a state of normal?

Today’s world requires continual movement, for us to innovate, stretch and grow. ... need to be agile and receptive to the increasing demands of our customers while watching game-changing technology take our competitors into new markets.

If ... stay with traditional ‘tried and tested’ change advice, ...'re at risk of our people becoming apathetic or worn out. Our goals should be written in concrete ... the plans to get there should be in sand, considering the differences in our people when modifying our approach in how ... work with them.

The transition from a traditional business to a market-leading one can be uncomfortable and take longer than the budget permits in some cases. The impact will be realised through stress-related absenteeism, reduced productivity, team conflict, negative performance management and attrition.

Past employees can review us through social media and, in return, you would hope that customers and employees, current and future, could receive a balanced view of our business, the way that ... operate, our services and our innovation. This may not always be the case if change has been poorly executed or our people just can’t change with us.

What about the employees that stay? Why ... they stay? Is it because they're more resilient, or is it something else? How can you keep them motivated?

Well-communicated change, where people ... on board and involved from the beginning, should reduce the dip in performance that most organisations accept simply because ... ... told that this (the change) is what is going to happen and what ... should ... as a result.

How can you transform from a ‘change agent’ or a ‘change enabler’?

Let’s consider an environment where your people and teams ... empowered to effect change. Collaborative and authentic leadership requires clear and consistent communication providing facts and evidence that change is required. Challenges and questions need to be managed respectfully and honestly. For example, a meeting is called to discuss the findings of a competitor review. The problem and the consequences of this potential threat ... shared. Everyone has input into how the business can maintain its competitive edge. Cross-departmental teams could be formed to work on ideas of challenges together. Often leaders feel that they must own the business problems. This is not the case. Normally our teams ... creative and have more to add than they're give them credit for!

This may be simple, ... it is highly effective. ... stimulate creativity and passion within our organisations that allows personal development to flourish. Highly effective organisations employ people that ... multi-skilled and can work across multi-disciplines to deliver on projects that will grow our businesses. Apprentices, interns and graduates can flourish and develop experience quickly where they can add value to creative thinking and problem-solving tasks or projects. After all, they're the future in terms of our succession plans. More importantly they have a view of tackling problems based on facts and ... not constrained by conventional views that ... all carry when ... have worked in a business for a while.

So, back to the leaders. This can create some discomfort in the short-term. ... can find ourselves feeling out of control or not the ‘subject-matter-expert’ ... start to work on cross-functional projects or ... seconded to other areas of the business. This discomfort comes when ... reach a point of new learning.

“... need to appreciate that future leaders need to embrace skills and expertise that they may not possess. Everyone needs to be encouraged to learn from mistakes, to be humble and ... for help, from this true collaboration is achieved.”

Leadership could never be in such high demand as when ... ... going through change. Leaders should be reminded that the reason they're in the position that they ... is to simply lead.

So, what does the change-enabling leader need to ...?

Let go of personal insecurity

Accept that the role of the leader is to manage the vision and people to achieve it. Invest in understanding the team’s strengths, goals and motivation to ... their best.

Create trust and share feedback on strengths and limitations

Sharing feedback is healthy and needs to be balanced. Honest dialogue within the team allows people to express if they feel out of their depth. This could provide another team member with a new challenge. Celebrate this honesty and try not to hold people accountable to responsibilities on their job descriptions. The team will not grow. 

Let go of convention while holding the company’s vision close

The vision of cultural change needs to be imagined and shared by all. Leaders need to demonstrate that even ambitious plans ... achievable with the right motivation and mindsets. Celebrate wins along with way, demonstrating that the progress being made is important and positive

Empower decision-making at all levels

Supporting and coaching is easier said than done, especially if a quick solution is evident. Most people will take responsibility and step up if they can make decisions. Accountability and ownership ... important to us all and is relevant for even the most junior of team members. As a leader, it is occasionally wise to turn a blind eye to the methods of achievement as long as the expected outcome is achieved.

Take away the fear of reproach of mistakes

Making mistakes is in our human nature and provides points of learning. A collaborative leader will be approachable and on hand to coach or mentor individuals through these mistakes, allowing growth and opportunity to own issues and make it come good.  Sometimes leading by example means rolling up one’s sleeves and getting stuck in to help. This does not mean taking the mistake away, ... keeping in mind that showing is sometimes better than telling.

Proactively encourage teams to grow through ‘lessons learned’

A team that possesses a philosophy of supporting one another should also be able to challenge each other’s decisions constructively. Lessons learned ... valuable; they should be recorded for future reference as they ... likely to be in project management processes moving forward. Ultimately, valuable lessons ensure that ... ... not repeat them.

Change is sometimes called ‘continuous improvement’. If you think about it, it makes total sense. People ... innately scared of change, nut ‘continuous improvement’ is something that ... all strive for. Allow your continuous improvement to happen, harness your approach to managing it and focus your ‘plan of concrete’ towards being a successful change enabling leader.

How does your leadership stack up in an environment of continuous improvement? Contact us about our Thomas tools to see.

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