Tag Archives: leadership

1 Comment

Happiness at Work

  By Christina Lattimer • March 11, 2012 - 3:23 pm
We all want Happiness at work!

Today the sun is shining and the hope of a beautiful spring and lovely summer are in the air.  Most of us know the feeling of happiness and wellbeing that comes with a lovely sunny day.

The day made me think about happiness at work, and the happy memories I have over the years.  It was interesting that the images that sprung up were:

  • The memory of times when the full team were on the same wavelength and really felt like what we were doing mattered and made a difference.
  • When someone did something they were proud of and a personal success had materialised
  • When we laughed when we worked, even when things weren’t perfect.

It’s funny that what didn’t come up when considering happiness at work,  were the memories about performance, or profit margins, or great management, or any of the traditional things we try to get right in the workplace.

Stories about Steve Jobs and his questionable leadership style abounded after his untimely demise.  Although he was celebrated as a great leader, some of the rumours hinted at bullying tactics, micromanagement and a sheer determination to get results no matter what, certainly no consistent tales of happiness at work.

I don’t know if these are true, but If I were an Apple employee, I would guess that being part of some of the most world changing set of products and how amazingly they were marketed and accepted, would be up there in my portfolio of happiness at work. The fact that Jobs wasn’t the perfect people leader may well have been irrelevant.  Who knows?

Having significant meaning in your work can be the happiest experience you can achieve.  It can be the most motivating, resilient inducing factor.  It is amazing how being involved in a meaningful way creates determination and builds character, despite the odds.

Likewise being in a place where individuals can grow and feel proud of what they do is one of the best cultures to foster.   When people feel a sense of achievement, when they’they’ve gone the extra mile and made a difference, it can not only be for them, but can brilliantly move the whole team to action.

You might laugh to think that workplaces could be exciting, inspiring and create enthusiasm.  It might be that it is difficult to muster these states in ourselves and people we work with for long.  But it is these factors which the majority of us will remember about our working lives.

These qualities don’t have to be present only for world changing products.  Making a difference to the care of our elderly population or with our kids who need help to have a better sense of themselves and therefore achieve more with their lives for example, can be equally inspiring, even on a one to one.  Providing an everyday service, or producing inexpensive products can be inspiring if they make a real difference to others’ lives.

I’ve met many wonderful people over the years and worked with some inspirational leaders and individuals across all different roles.  The ones I remember the most are the ones who could laugh in the face of adversity.  The people who had a sense of fun.  This entailed a sense of detachment and lack of  seriousness about the job in hand at times, but never a lack of commitment or dedication.

Studies have shown, that laughter can have the following positive effects on our own and others wellbeing in the following areas:

  • Reduce the effects of stress
  • Invoke muscle relaxationHappiness at work
  • Reduce pain
  • Invoke essential cardiac exercise
  • Maintain healthy blood pressure
  • Improve Respiration

And we all know that people who feel better and have a greater sense of wellbeing are more productive.  So can you afford to spend the time to focus on happiness at work?  I would suggest that you can’t afford not to.

Wishing you happiness at work today, and if you aren’t feeling happy, try to bring some sunshine into someone else’s life today.

What do you think?  Is your workplace a happy one?  Do you have happy memories of work?  We’d love to hear from you.

The above blog post is available in audio.  If you aren’t able to see the audio button below, visit: https://peoplediscovery.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Happiness-at-work.mp3

 

If you are a leader, you are continually developing and "Sharpening the Saw".  If you lead and manage teams, then you must read about our Inspirational New Leadership Programme.  Sign up now to find out more details when we launch in July 2014.  There is no obligation to undertake the programme, if you sign up today, you will simply be sent more information about the programme.  You can unsubscribe at any time!  Click below to register for further information.

   
No comments

Sparking Creativity

  By Guest Post • March 8, 2012 - 9:38 am

Welcome to this weeks’ Guest blogger – I am really pleased to introduce Claire Marriott.  I have known and worked with Claire over a number of years.  We instantly developed a rapport as we both had similar views about innovation, creativity and life!  Claire has a flair for weaving creativity and innovation both in her communications expertise and other interests.  As you can see she is the perfect person to talk about sparking creativity!  You can  learn more about Claire below.   

Let your Creativity Sparkle!

Hello everyone! Having worked with Christina on a number of projects I am delighted to be her guest on this blog.

For many managers, creativity is something of a holy grail. How many of you, if asked about your ideal working environment, would end up describing a free-thinking, energetic set-up where ideas flow like water and innovation is the norm?

Unfortunately, the day-to-day realities of working life and the typical structure of organisations often work to hamper the very qualities that we desire most in our team members, limiting their ability to generate new ideas or their willingness to think differently.

Letting go of expectations

The first step to unlocking creativity is to let go of expectations. Creative people aren’t fixated on what others think of them and tend not to focus on the ‘right’ way to do things. Instead they try a number of different approaches and see what happens. They follow their instincts and their intuition to see where it takes them and, above all, they ask questions.

Here are two exercises that you can try with your teams to increase the amount of creative energy in your organisation.

  • Summarise a challenge that you are facing in just one sentence and then ask each team member to spend ten minutes writing down everything that occurs to them about the situation. Tell them that they don’t have to worry about spelling and grammar but should just write anything and everything that comes into their head when the y start thinking about the problem. This type of free-writing helps people to overcome their internal censor and can give rise to intriguing new ideas.

 

  • Over a number of weeks ask your team members to save any images that they come across which remind them of your organisation, or what they would like your organisation to be. Gather the images together and paste them all onto a board then discuss what you see. Look for themes that the pictures have in common.  Identify any colours or settings that recur. Imagine the lives of any people in the pictures and see how the images make you feel. Using images activates different parts of the brain and can be a wonderful way to bring a company’s vision and values to life.

 

If you would like to find out more about living creatively then I would thoroughly recommend ‘The Artist’s Way’ by Julia Cameron, a classic book on the subject. I leave the last word to film-maker Frank Capra who said ‘A hunch is creativity trying to tell you something.’

 

[message type="custom" width="100%" start_color="#FFFCB5" end_color="#F4CBCB" border="#BBBBBB" color="#333333"]After a 16 year career working in corporate communication for a range of public and private sector companies, Claire  redesigned her life and became a freelance writer, craftsperson and reiki practitioner. As well as providing communications advice to a number of organisations she has also begun to write creatively and is currently studying scriptwriting with the Open University. To find out more, please visit her website: www.clairemarriott.com[/message]

If you are a leader, you are continually developing and "Sharpening the Saw".  If you lead and manage teams, then you must read about our Inspirational New Leadership Programme.  Sign up now to find out more details when we launch in July 2014.  There is no obligation to undertake the programme, if you sign up today, you will simply be sent more information about the programme.  You can unsubscribe at any time!  Click below to register for further information.

   
No comments

Make your Innovative Idea come to Life

  By Christina Lattimer • March 5, 2012 - 6:36 am
The innovative process is available to everyone!innovative

You either own or run a business, and so you know what it takes to make a concept work.  You must be providing a product or a service which is or has been in demand.  If your business is thriving then congratulations, if not doing so well, then take heart.   You have the means within yourself to expand and create new and innovative products or service.  You just have to believe you have and that you can.

You may be in the position where you aren’t sure about how you expand and accelerate growth in your business, or you may have a great idea, but are not sure how to make it a reality.  Either way, the first thing you have to do is get clear.

The innovative process is not going to begin until your mind formulates a clear outcome. The problem is, is that we get fixated on the details, and the “how’s” and this actually inhibits the creative process.  All you need to do, to start is have an outcome.

I remember coaching a young entrepreneur in her 20’s.  She had paralysed herself into inaction because she wasn’t sure which career path to take.  She had got to a crossroads in her life, and wasn’t sure what she wanted.  After some exploration, she realised that she didn’t need to be specific about exactly what her career looked like, but she did need to be specific about how she would feel about what she did.

Thus her success criteria and outcome became.  “She would feel enthused and love what she did.  She would feel motivated and grateful that she was doing work which made a huge difference”.  Ok, so she still had to make choices, but outlining an outcome that meant something to her gave her a standard or a benchmark to work towards.   As she tried different things, if her outcome didn’t materialise, then she knew she had to try something else.

You may have an innovative idea, and a clear outcome for a product or a service which is going to make a difference, but are not sure how to make it happen.   Alternatively, you may just want to make your business profitable, more profitable or make a bigger impact, but at this stage you may have no idea about how that is going to happen.  In both situations simply set out the outcomes that you want, and that process will give you a massive head start.

The next step in the innovative process is to believe it can happen.  Doubt is the biggest prohibitive force in the innovative process.  Doubt shuts off your mind to the possibilities out there.   If you think you can’t then – guess what – you can’t.  If you doubt you can, then it either shuts off the mind, or delays the realisation of your innovative idea.

I’ll give you an example.  A number of years ago, a team I worked with wanted to be great at customer service.  To change the mind-set, the only way was to access some in-depth customer service training.  After some research, across the board of all the providers who could help, the cost came to some £25k for all of the staff to be trained (It was a large team, and the training stretched over  a number of  months).

There was no way that sort of budget was available.  There was a resignation across the management team that it wasn’t going to happen.  But I asked the team to keep open to possibilities.  That if we kept out doubt then a solution would appear.  And it did.  About 3 weeks later we received a call from a company who had heard we were looking for customer service training, could they come and talk to us?  Because we hadn’t dismissed the possibility, we agreed.   It turned out the training company had access to grant funding for just what we were looking for.  Altogether, a team of 30 people were trained for 9 months, with a City and Guilds qualification for under £2k.

I could relate many stories like that which show the power of trusting that you can make things happen is key to the innovative process.  The vital message here is that you simply need to get started with an outcome and then believe it can happen.

Here at People Discovery, we help clients formulate their success criteria, and then find a way to make things happen, which works to each owners individual style, to realise their outcome.

If you have any questions, or have a great innovative story to tell, then let us know.  We would love to hear from you.

This coming week, I have a brilliant guest blogger who is a writer and entrepreneur, who will talk about sparking creativity.  Look out for her blogspot in the next few days!

If you are a leader, you are continually developing and "Sharpening the Saw".  If you lead and manage teams, then you must read about our Inspirational New Leadership Programme.  Sign up now to find out more details when we launch in July 2014.  There is no obligation to undertake the programme, if you sign up today, you will simply be sent more information about the programme.  You can unsubscribe at any time!  Click below to register for further information.

   
No comments

Emotions – What People Managers Need to Know – Part Three

  By Christina Lattimer • March 2, 2012 - 3:58 pm
 People Managers need to know about Emotions!

This is my third blog in a series of 3, where I take a look at 3 basic psychological components which great people leaders and managers know and work with to create great teams. In Part One, I outlined the importance of the power of belief and understanding how your employee’s beliefs can influence your business.  In Part Two I explored why how you think is important both in relation to your team and being more effective.

In this final part I explore emotions.

If you are a person who is not in touch with their own emotions, (and many of us aren’t and there’s nothing wrong with that), then it’s likely you haven’t even read this far.  But if you have, then please bear with me.

I have seen more conflicts arise in the workplace because some people prefer to live their lives logically, thinking things through and applying facts, and some people use their feelings and how they feel as a barometer for what they like, dislike, how they relate to others and how they make decisions.   The thinking and feeling divide, unless understood and appreciated can cause havoc.

Some of you may have come across the book “Men are from Mars – Women are from Venus” by John Gray.  The book aims to help male/female relationships by analysing the different ways “Thinkers and Feelers” communicate”.  It can seem a little stereotypical because it assumes that men are thinkers and women are feelers.  And frankly that’s not always true, as you know.

Now everyone is able to use both thinking and feeling to inform decisions, we just usually have a preference one way or another.  As we mature, we usually are able to learn out less preferred way, and fingers crossed end up being fairly balanced.

Just to be clear though.  Our emotions are based on what we think about something.   We take in information, we process it, and then we interpret the information.  Depending on whether our interpretation is a negative one, or a positive one, will decide on how we feel about it. Often our processing is so instantaneous and/or unconscious that we don’t know why we feel that way.

Like it or not, many people make decisions based on how they feel about something.  It is well known that great employee engagement usually goes hand in hand with people feeling good about what they do, when they feel valued and respected.

Being able to harness positive emotions and getting people involved positively is a real skill.  If you are in touch with your own feelings, then this can work for and against you in the workplace.  Why?

Being in touch with your own emotions means you can more easily empathise with what other people are going through. And when that works it is great.  But and there’s a big “but” here.   I have found that unless you have emotional intelligence then quite often you can misinterpret another’s reaction, identifying how you would feel rather than the other person.

Emotional intelligence is a great science and needs to be balanced alongside intellect and academic prowess.  Wikipedia describes emotional intelligence as” the ability to identify, assess, and control the emotions of oneself, of others, and of groups”. The great thing about emotional intelligence is that if you haven’t got any, you can learn!

My first challenge as a young manager was learning how to control my own emotions.  In the early years I was quite often scared to bits about having to deal with some larger than life characters I had to manage.   Managing my fear was one of my first and probably my longest lessons.  I am quite adept, but hey, Mr Fear still comes knocking at my door even now.  But now I know him well and I know what I have to do.

My second challenge was to learn how to manage the emotions of my team.  I could at times seem to quite inadvertently make people angry or upset.  I was bamboozled at times by some of the reactions I had to suggestions I made or action I took.

I remember having a review with one of my team managers.  I held her in high regard, she was an excellent manager.  We had always gotten along well, or so I thought.   I can’t remember what we were discussing, but I had challenged her about something, in what I thought was a friendly way.  But her demeanour changed, she got angry then got upset.  At this stage, I was completely at sea, I asked her what on earth was wrong, at which point she stormed out of the room with tears streaming down her face, stating “You don’t care about us!”

As you can see, I had to learn fast.   Her reaction wasn’t about me; it was about her interpretation about what I said to her.  I realised that I needed to be vigilant, and make sure I chose my words with care.  I realised that she had no idea that I valued her so highly.  I hadn’t ever told her.  I just thought that she must know I did.  Like Magic!

My emotional intelligence learning in relation to my team was a long one.  I still fall into the trap at times, I crack a joke, and someone looks stonily at me, and I realise I’ve done it again.

The final stage in my learning came when I had to think about engaging large teams.  Some of who I didn’t see for months at a time.   Although I did try to do the best I could to have physical contact as much as I could humanly manage.  Trying to encourage people to feel good, fulfil their potential and understand how much I appreciated them was more difficult.

There are some basic components to great emotional intelligence at all levels.  I have practiced these in the latter years, and wished I had access to and learned them in the early years.  These are:

  1. Accepting people completely for who they are
  2. Always looking for the good in people, there is always some
  3. Dealing with negatives in an impersonal but practical way and getting over it!
  4. Not judging – we all make mistakes.
  5. Giving people the benefit of the doubt
  6. Listening to what people need and wherever possible – obliging
  7. Reacting neutrally to anger or other attacking behaviour and helping the person to reframe it in a positive way.
  8. Caring about people, even when they were difficult.

What do you think?  Is emotional intelligence important in the workplace?  Have you had difficult situations to solve?  We’d love to hear from you.

If you would like to know more, or want to claim your free consultation.  Contact us by visiting peoplediscovery.co.uk .

Emotions – What People Managers Need to Know – Part Three is in audio.  If you can’t see the button below visit: https://peoplediscovery.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Emotional-intelligence.mp3

To find out more about people managers and emotions click here

emotions

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you are a leader, you are continually developing and "Sharpening the Saw".  If you lead and manage teams, then you must read about our Inspirational New Leadership Programme.  Sign up now to find out more details when we launch in July 2014.  There is no obligation to undertake the programme, if you sign up today, you will simply be sent more information about the programme.  You can unsubscribe at any time!  Click below to register for further information.

   
No comments

Thinking – What People Managers Need To Know – Part 2

  By Christina Lattimer • February 29, 2012 - 5:06 pm
People Managers need to know about thinking! Thinking

This is my second blog in a series of 3, where I take a look at 3 basic psychological components which great people leaders and managers know and work with to create great teams. In Part One, I outlined the importance of the power of belief and understanding how your employee’s beliefs can influence your business.

In this part I explore thinking skills.

Wikipedia describes thinking as “Thought generally refers to any mental or intellectual activity involving an individual’s subjective consciousness. It can refer either to the act of thinking or the resulting ideas or arrangements of ideas”

Actually despite what some people think (pardon the pun), the way we think is a learned skill.  Decisive thinking around interpretation of information you take in creates beliefs.  The most startling and powerful effects of thinking are that firstly:  thinking creates your reality and secondly:  the way you think creates your energy.  We can also use different ways of thinking as a skill to get things done.

Thinking creates your reality in a number of ways.  What you focus on is what you experience.  If you think constantly about positive things, ideas and concepts then you will feel positive, and you will perceive good and helpful people, events and situations in your life.   Conversely, negative thinking can create discontent, unhappiness and even depression.

We all have experienced positive and negative thinkers haven’t we?  We have people with “can do or can’t do” attitudes.  We have people who see the bright side or the bleak side.   In the workplace, we tend to be grateful to positive thinkers and tear our hair about negative thinkers.   But how does our own thinking influence a team?

A friend of mine has an 8 year old son, he was getting into trouble at school for irritating but fairly low key behaviour, for example, shouting out in the class, digging a hole in the school garden.  He was brought to task for these misdemeanours but then an insidious pattern began to emerge.  As he was “punished” i.e. sent out of the class, taken to the heads office, things began to get worse.  My friend suddenly began to dread picking her son up from school, as she would often be ushered into the classroom for another update about what her son had done that day.

Things came to a head when her son, told her he didn’t want to go on any longer, that he hated school and broke into tears.  At a meeting with the head teacher, she found that a report was being kept, passed around teachers where any poor behaviour was being recorded, and reported to the head at the end of the week.   After all the school had a strict behaviour policy.  The head would then relate the misdemeanours to the young boy and wrangle a promise out of him that next week he would behave better.  He never did.

My friend was horrified that the focus was on her son’s poor behaviour.  After a lengthy, frank and difficult meeting with the head teacher, my friend managed to persuade him that focusing on her son’s positive behaviour would generate different results.  Reluctantly and with some professional advice, the head changed tack.  My friend’s son never looked back and the label and thinking around him being a “naughty boy” dropped and he became happier and brighter.

Whether you are a teacher in a class of young children or a manager of a team of adults. What you think about them is what you get.  If you concentrate on what your team doesn’t do well and how they perform badly.  Guess what.  You are creating and strengthening that reality in your team.

I used to tell my kids off for speaking and thinking negatively.  I was always aware of the energy or vibration about a person when they thought positively or not.  They used to think I was weird.  But now in their adult years they know that the way they think creates the energy they give out into the world.

If you think positively, openly, truthfully and generously; that energy will vibrate to everyone you meet.  In the words of Buddha:  “What you think you become” Mostly commonly coined “You are what you think”.  Good leaders and managers know that their thinking creates their energy and that energy is what impacts their team.

We can use thinking skills to increase efficiency and improve performance too.  Understanding different ways of thinking and how these can be used effectively in different situations is critical to becoming sharp, focussed and clear.  When solving problems and creating new ideas, different thinking approaches broaden out and give depth to concepts and ideas.

Eduard De Bono wrote about 6 thinking hats.  In summary these are:

White Hat:  Focus on data, information and analysis

Red Hat:  Using your Intuition focusing on how others react emotionally

Black Hat: Focus on negative aspects

Yellow Hat: Focus on positive optimistic thoughts

Green Hat:  Creative thinking

Blue Hat: Process or procedural thinking

Using different thinking hats to approach a problem from all angles is a powerful way to provide breadth and depth.   The trick is to be able to use and switch between types of thinking at will and that takes some skill.

When I was a middle manager, I went through a stage of being overwhelmed at times by the number of tasks, projects and problems I had to think about.  I had high energy and got through a lot.  But the turning point for me came when I read De Bono’s book “Teach yourself how to think”.  At that point, I wasn’t terribly good at structured thinking,   but I learned and my working life changed significantly for the better.

What do you think?  Do you use thinking skills in the workplace?  Do you and your team understand the power of focussed and positive thinking?   We’d love to hear from you.

If you would like to know more, or want to claim your free consultation.  Contact us by visiting peoplediscovery.co.uk .

Watch out for Part 3 in the next few days.

This blog is available in audio.  If you don’t see the audio button below visit

To find out more click here

thinking

If you are a leader, you are continually developing and "Sharpening the Saw".  If you lead and manage teams, then you must read about our Inspirational New Leadership Programme.  Sign up now to find out more details when we launch in July 2014.  There is no obligation to undertake the programme, if you sign up today, you will simply be sent more information about the programme.  You can unsubscribe at any time!  Click below to register for further information.

   
No comments

Great Leaders Communicate at the Level Of Our Beliefs

  By Christina Lattimer • February 24, 2012 - 9:59 am
Understanding how people tick is essential for a leader, especially on the level of our beliefs.
Beliefs create our individual and collective worlds.  Millions of pieces of information are available to us at any one time.  Our beliefs and the parameters which are then laid down by our beliefs determine which pieces of information we receive.  Our beliefs determine which pieces of information we accept or reject.  If we don’t believe it, then we simply don’t perceive it, or won’t allow ourselves to perceive it.  In the words of the song

“No matter what they tell us

No matter what they do

No matter what they teach us

What we believe is true”

Beliefs come in all sorts of packages and create all kinds of effects in our lives.

  • When conflicting beliefs come into our awareness it can create confusion
  • Holding opposing beliefs at the same time can cause internal conflict
  • Limiting beliefs can prevent you receiving what you want
  • Subconscious beliefs appear to control your behaviour and make you feel  helpless
  • You can bring subconscious beliefs into your awareness
  • You can choose your beliefs.  No belief is ever fixed
  • The key to changing your world and experience is to change your beliefs
  • How you interpret reality around you can inform and shape your beliefs.
  • Beliefs are simply an interpretation that you choose to determine as true
  • Beliefs can be changed.

I’m not suggesting that every Leader or Manager needs to get a psychology degree.  Nor am I suggesting that it is your job to change people’s beliefs.  And certainly we need to make sure we respect people’s beliefs, particularly in the arena of equality.

So why  is an understanding about beliefs vital for people managers?  You know that your people act and react in accordance with their beliefs and uncovering those beliefs to enable positive growth is extremely powerful.    Brainwashing people or trying to force people down a different route is not ethical, and it is not what I am suggesting.  Everyone has a free will, and this must be respected.  But it is useful to know,  how and what you need to do to understand when your employees are holding unhelpful beliefs about themselves or others which can help you to influence and persuade your employees to more positive beliefs.

I’ll give you an example.  I worked hard for a couple of years engaging with a particular team and helping them to think and feel like a successful highly motivated team.  In those days I was pretty idealistic and hoped that I would win everyone over, and that everyone would enjoy working in the team.  But there was a core of people, who no matter what,  were still unhappy.  They habitually criticised and caused negative waves.  Simply put, they had fixed beliefs about their working lives and maintaining their belief was more important to them then changing beliefs.

I was talking to one of the employees who could be particularly negative.  I asked her why she seemed so resentful and was there something I was doing which was causing this particular resentment?  Her reply was a real eye-opener.  She told me that it was nothing to do with me at all.  I had come in and she observed that I was trying to get the team on board.  However, she didn’t like management, never had and never would.  She went as far as to say that nothing I would ever do would persuade her otherwise!

We did come to a somewhat uncomfortable compromise in the end, which limited her impact in terms of negativity within the team and how our relationship would work in the workplace given her fixed and unrelenting views.  Not ideal, but then, not my job to change her beliefs.

The real power of understanding beliefs and belief systems is when managers are instigating change.  Work on drawing out existing individual and team beliefs and then understanding how to help people see things through a different lens for the better within the workplace is the key to fundamental and lasting success.

Encouraging your employees to reach positive beliefs about themselves, their contribution and the meaningfulness of your vision and task are the building blocks to brilliant success.

Incidentally for the sake of clarification:  in the Equality Act; belief is defined as “including philosophical beliefs, such as humanism, which are considered to be similar to a religion. Other categories of beliefs, such as support for a political party, are not protected by the Equality Act.”

This blog underpins the work being developed for my leadership programme which will be released later this year.  If you’d like to be updated when this is available,

 

If you are a leader, you are continually developing and "Sharpening the Saw".  If you lead and manage teams, then you must read about our Inspirational New Leadership Programme.  Sign up now to find out more details when we launch in July 2014.  There is no obligation to undertake the programme, if you sign up today, you will simply be sent more information about the programme.  You can unsubscribe at any time!  Click below to register for further information.

   
No comments

Values – an Important Way of Working

  By christinapd • February 20, 2012 - 9:22 am

Values Values  –  A Question of Integrity

I have always been a values driven person.  During my early years I wanted to make a difference and to help people become happier and more satisfied.  As a result I went down the path of people management.   Although I found I had a gift of business acumen and creating successful teams, it was the people underneath who inspired me and where my focus lay.

I remember also a time when my intrinsic values were challenged.  A lady who I was assigned to deliver a project with had somewhat different values to me.  At that time I believed in equal opportunities for all.  I believed that fairness, openness and transparency were paramount. I realised the potential to indirectly discriminate, and also about the power of our minds to subconsciously discriminate on appearances.  I believed in being honest, doing the right thing and respecting everyone.

I also at that time thought that everyone shared some if not all of these fundamental values.  I was mistaken.  The project manager who was leading a programme I had been appointed to work on was very different from me.

Working along side this person, I recalled a story my friend had told me about a boy at her son’s school.  When caught cheating by copying some exam questions from another, his response was “its not cheating, it’s simply getting the answers by an easier route” Or words to that effect.  We laughed at his audacity.  But in my naivety I didn’t think this expedient approach would appear in my world of work.  Again I was mistaken.

The project manager I discovered was tough, ruthless and had the same principles as the boy at school.  Her philosophy was that the end justified the means.  That you sometimes had to make tough decisions which overrode any values you might have cherished upon the way.  You eye had to be on the end result and all that mattered was the result.  What’s more I found that senior managers and people of influence bowed down, respected and encouraged this approach.

For some of you reading, I guess you might think that my own values were soft and unrealistic in what can be a ruthless world.  And as I came upon this stark contrast to my own way of doing things, I spent 6 torturous months, re-evaluating my approach and what this new information meant.  It was a steep but necessary learning curve for me.  I began to doubt my own values and began to feel ineffective in the wake of someone who steam rollered over all my suggestions about how things should be done.

This period of self doubt and discomfort is often a necessary stage of learning and growth, and one which I had often sidestepped.  After all it’s much easier to make the other person wrong rather than admit you might well be.

What I learned in this time was this:

  • Examining others values and incorporating their philosophy into your own values can actually help you grow.  I am glad I didn’t reject the values I was being faced with; I learned a lot about myself and others through this process.  I would urge you to look at this in this light.
  • I always had a :  So for example, I would respect that sometimes the boundaries between my employee’s personal life and work sometimes encroached, particularly during stressful life events, but that the business could only bend so far to accommodate.  We had a business to run.  I learned that other people had a much shorter bottom line, and that was their prerogative.
  • That organisational values and ideals could and would erode when faced with crisis or major change, and that senior managers could and would often support this.  This can arise quite often when faced with a financial crisis, or a battle for survival.
  • I realised that I could respect other people’s values even when they weren’t my own.  I might not agree with them, but there were occasions when I had no choice but to accept them.

Even in times of crisis or change, your values don’t need to actually change, indeed to maintain the credibility and trust of your customers and employees; this is the time you need to demonstrate your commitment to fundamental values even more strongly.  But you must also be diligent and articulate your bottom line.  So for example, you might have a policy around family friendly policies, but that if your business is on the verge of bankruptcy, you might have to review these and ask people to do more.

The lady in question wasn’t a cheat.  She just valued outcomes more and the way people came along with the change came second.  She wasn’t dishonest, just didn’t value the input of others because it would slow the process down.   She got the job done, but she didn’t make many friends upon the way.   Did it make financial sense?  Yes in the short term.  Did it earn the respect of the employees affected?  No, not in the long or short term.

In the process of my learning, did I change my values?   A big resounding no.  I realised that a values driven approach can be seen as slow and soft.  It isn’t.  What I learned is that having a commitment to values, with a clear and transparent bottom line is essential to gaining credibility and commitment.

What I don’t do, is dismiss other people’s values because they are not the same as mine, or indeed judge them.   I consider them in the context they are being applied.  If I am working with people whose values don’t coincide with mine, I try to put myself in their shoes.  If I am standing in their shoes and still feel so uncomfortable I can’t walk, then I simply walk away, in my own shoes with my own values intact.

What do you think?  Are you able to respect others values when yours are in question?  Do you think its imperative for employers to maintain their values even in times of great change?  How important is it to have a values driven philosophy?

 

 

If you are a leader, you are continually developing and "Sharpening the Saw".  If you lead and manage teams, then you must read about our Inspirational New Leadership Programme.  Sign up now to find out more details when we launch in July 2014.  There is no obligation to undertake the programme, if you sign up today, you will simply be sent more information about the programme.  You can unsubscribe at any time!  Click below to register for further information.

   
No comments

Coach? – A facilitator’s advice

  By Guest Post • February 14, 2012 - 12:12 pm
For regular readers you will know that I am introducing a guest blogspot from time to time.  I am hoping that my guest bloggers will expand on themes you are interested in and give a whole new valuable perspective.  I am really thrilled to introduce my first Guest Blogger Juli Campey.  Read more about Juli below.  
Juli  is an inspirational coach and has a wealth of experience and is inspirational in her approach to learning.  Enjoy!
Hello Readers,

I am delighted to be invited to be the first guest blogger on the People Discovery website, thanks Christina for the opportunity!

As someone who has worked in people development roles for most of my career, I am now in the fortunate position of working with the academic community as a Senior Teaching Fellow at Newcastle University Business School, where I am Director of the Executive MBA programme and responsible for the innovative Understanding and Implementing Coaching and Mentoring Module on the Masters in Human Resource Management, which is accredited by the CIPD.

Since the late 1980s, organisations have asked me to coach their employees, from supervisory staff through to senior managers and directors, and to be honest, until I became involved in the new Coaching and Mentoring Module, what I did and how I did it had become one of those “unconsciously competent” activities that I did automatically and comfortably after years of training and practice.

The process of designing an academic module on such a practical subject has been quite challenging and as novices to coaching, my postgraduate students are currently asking me lots of “What if” questions about coaching within organisations from international and multi-cultural perspectives. We have discussed the limitations of coaching within organisations and the importance of setting clear parameters, not just a coaching contract between the coach and coachee, but the explicit and implicit requirements of the organisation as the provider of internal coaching to ensure the coach does not reach beyond their remit. I have to say that my responses to many of the questions I get is “It depends …”.

As coaches, we have a variety of learned and intrinsic personal and interpersonal skills. Some of us have achieved recognised and accredited training and qualifications, many coaches use models such as GROW and CLEAR to enable the interaction with their client. Yet because every coach is different; every client is different; every intervention, coaching session, environment, context, culture, organisation, values and belief systems is different, there is no easy way to generally describe the dynamic or process of coaching, or to give easy answers to the “What if”s.

So, my conclusion is that to learn about coaching, one has to observe coaches and coachees; one has to experience being a coach and being coached; one must experiment with different coaching techniques in a safe environment; and mostly we all need to share our experience to keep improving personally and to encourage incremental and organic growth of our clients and to answer each “What if” in context.

[message type="custom" width="100%" start_color="#FFFCB5" end_color="#F4CBCB" border="#BBBBBB" color="#333333"]For over 30 years Juli has been working in the people development business, in public, private and third sectors, as an employee, owner manager, consultant and in her latest reincarnation, a Senior Teaching Fellow at Newcastle University Business School. Born and brought up in Newcastle, she loves the city and is delighted to be working in one of the country’s best Universities showcasing the North East and all its glories to international and UK students.[/message]

 

 

 

To find out more about being a coach, click here

Coach

 

If you are a leader, you are continually developing and "Sharpening the Saw".  If you lead and manage teams, then you must read about our Inspirational New Leadership Programme.  Sign up now to find out more details when we launch in July 2014.  There is no obligation to undertake the programme, if you sign up today, you will simply be sent more information about the programme.  You can unsubscribe at any time!  Click below to register for further information.

   
No comments

Lifelong learner at The University of Life

  By Christina Lattimer • February 10, 2012 - 9:22 am
Being a lifelong learner is a decision anyone can take. Are you a lifelong learner?Lifelong learner

I was at a seminar a few weeks ago when the host asked the audience for a show of hands to indicate if they considered themselves “lifelong learners” Yes, I knew the answer to that and my hand shot up. It was interesting to see that nearly everyone else did too. It got me thinking about what people meant when professing this.

For me, my love of learning didn’t start at school. I remember choosing my “O Level” options, (Yes showing my age). I opted for shorthand and typing. A brave decision then: This was in the days of typewriters and dictaphones. PC’s and word processers were still just a twinkle in someone’s eye. My teachers were horrified. Apparently I was far too bright to throw away one of my options learning something I could apparently do in a night class. I stubbornly dug my heels in and insisted. Little was I to know that learning how to speed type and present information was probably one of the most useful skills I would need in the world of work.

I often thank my intuition for helping me hold out for what seemed at the time an illogical decision. I left school at 16 and became a typist. It lasted for 9 months.

So, school was good for fundamentals, but it wasn’t where my inspiration for learning started. My love of learning started in my first managerial position at the tender age of 23. I became the office manager in a busy Court office, with around 15 people. All who were considerably older than me, and all who had masses more experience than me. I had to learn fast. I had also been infused with a purpose.

For the next 7 years or so, I consciously began learning the art of managing and understanding people. I steadily climbed the ladder of management roles. Not an academic course in sight, but the richest and most fertile seat of learning anyone could be handed. For the first half of my life, my learning really was the University of Life.

In those years I learned: •

  • To listen to my intuition, my inner coach and guide •
  • To sharpen my emotional intelligence, vital if you want to succeed in this world •
  • Understanding myself, knowing how I operate and how others operate is essential to keep moving. •
  • How to use my own personal power to make things happen.
  • My core values and acceptance of other’s values not necessarily the same as mine.

My academic learning began somewhat later. Throughout my management career I had undertaken and enjoyed masses of work based learning. I became a trainer alongside my management role and subsequently designed learning, as well as managing a variety of teams. My love of teaching what I knew was born in those years too.

I was a mature student when I embarked on my first management and teaching qualifications, and then my degree course. By then, I knew my learning style – and academia wasn’t it. I realised of course by then that I was only going to get my foot in the door of better work opportunities if I had the credibility of good qualifications behind me. So I persevered and the whole experience has helped me become more rounded. With age too, I am less likely to want to learn wholly by experience and getting things done, I have become much more of a reflector.

For me, being a lifelong learner has been one of the most purposeful motivators in my life. I have learned the tools of my trade well. I continue to add to my skills and knowledge and can’t imagine a time when I won’t do that. If I want to achieve something, there is always someone who has the skills and knowledge I want and I am always open to learning from someone with greater knowledge. That might be in the form of a book, a training event, or being coached.

But even learning to widen my knowledge and understanding on a wide range of subjects still isn’t my whole reason for proclaiming to be a lifelong learner. The richness in my lifelong learning has been my continuous self-development. Learning about how I operate, create my own reality, my limiting beliefs and how to overcome them. How I relate to others, and how to make things happen. In the word of Covey I am constantly “Sharpening the Saw” of my own self-awareness.

My business, People Discovery is about sharing my knowledge skills and experience both as Manager, Educationalist and HR expert. As well as sharing my knowledge about charting your own self-development.

Throughout the years, I have been coached and coached others. It is a vital and valuable tool to help yourself and others to grow in knowledge and skills. More importantly for me though, it is one of the most powerful ways to help with self-development, raising self-awareness and tapping into your own intuition.

I am working with an inspirational lady, who is teaching about coaching skills as part of a wider curriculum. Watch out for her take on coaching in my guest blog spot next week.

Are you a lifelong learner? What is your learning experience? What is it about being a lifelong learner that is important for you? I’d love to hear from you.

To find out more about being a lifelong learner click here

Lifelong Learner

If you are a leader, you are continually developing and "Sharpening the Saw".  If you lead and manage teams, then you must read about our Inspirational New Leadership Programme.  Sign up now to find out more details when we launch in July 2014.  There is no obligation to undertake the programme, if you sign up today, you will simply be sent more information about the programme.  You can unsubscribe at any time!  Click below to register for further information.

   
No comments

Succession Planning for Success

  By christinapd • February 6, 2012 - 11:50 am
Succession Planning Succession planning for success

Succession planning is a bit of an art, if it’s carried out effectively that is.  Perhaps I’m old fashioned, or perhaps I’m just an advocate of the principle of fair, open and transparent to the point of being a proverbial pain.  But do we score an own goal by disincentivising our employees, by not appearing to be fair, open and transparent when succession planning?

Why do we need succession planning?  Well in its purist form, it is to make sure that the organisation can continue to function with the right people, with the right skills at the right time. Some spin-off benefits of succession planning, can be bringing in new and fresh talent, or existing employees with a clear and possible career path.

One of the biggest confusions I have seen about succession planning, is when people are being earmarked to replace people who may be ready to retire, or they might be coming up for their next career step.   The practice of naming specific people to replace an incumbent is not succession planning.   It is a contingency plan.  There may be all kinds of reasons to have a simple contingency strategy, but usually it is because it is a specialist post which would leave a huge vacuum if the incumbent suddenly left and the talent pool is severely limited.

Even a contingency strategy like this can cause resentment with employees if it is not distinctly used away from any succession planning exercised.  To use a contingency strategy properly, employees would have no doubt that the person being earmarked for replacement was the right person, with the right skills, and the process fits with the organisational ethos.

The difference between contingency plans and succession planning is that succession planning is about helping people develop and be in the right place at the right time for existing roles, or developing roles.  Good succession planning should be about bringing in a range of talent, either in or outside of the organisation, and it should be fair and open.

Before you begin succession planning, you need to have an ethos.  Now that ethos will differ depending upon the business you are in.  For example, if you are succession planning in a family run business, it’s usually the first born son…..oh alright, or daughter.  If you are in a corporation or a public sector organisation, you might want to have a policy of growing your talent within and there are a number of ways you can do that.   If you are a business on the move, you might want to look at bringing in new talent with new and evolving skills.  Or you might have a combination of these approaches.

To successfully succession plan, my top tips are:

  1. Be clear about why you want to introduce succession planning.
    • Is it to recruit new and evolving talent?
    • Is it to develop new leaders/managers/specialists for the future?
  2. Be open about why you want to introduce succession planning with your current workforce.
  3. Be clear with your current employees about your rationale and let them see the possibilities for them.  If there aren’t possibilities for them, then be clear about that, but let them know why.
  4. Be clear about the difference between contingency planning and succession planning.
  5. If you have a list in a drawer with names, and the people who are named don’t know they are on there, then you might want to think about how helpful or not this is.
  6. If you have a list of names, and it is to replace specialist jobs and no-one but the named persons know they are on the list, then again you might want to think about your strategy.
  7. Be clear about the criteria you are going to apply to any succession planning exercise and communicate it widely.
  8. Be structured.  Make sure that you and everyone knows how it is going to work and what they can expect.  Align other employee lifecycle events with the succession plan where needed.
  9. Be open to attracting talent from everywhere.  There may be someone in your current workforce, who might not be displaying the characteristics for future job filling now, but with an open invitation, they might just go for it.
  10. If you decide the future is through a graduate scheme, try to make it accessible for existing workers, or have a route through for existing workers.  There is nothing more annoying than being great and going the extra mile, doing the duties of higher level jobs and being told that you can’t compete because you have to have a degree.
  11. If you want to source talent from within, then tie your succession planning to your appraisal/feedback scheme.  It is the easiest way to have those conversations and help people work in a way that helps them aim for different roles.
  12. If employees think they can progress in their own company, then they can be more likely to stay.  Chart out career pathways for your staff so that they can plan for the future.
  13. If your succession plan includes attracting talent from outside the organisation, make sure you have tapped the potential within first.

I have seen succession plans which have caused distrust and suspicion, the most toxic of employee attitudes.  So don’t ruin great relationships with your employees; make your succession planning, business focused, fair and transparent.

What do you think? Do you have any recommendations to add?  Do you have any views?  I would love to hear from you.

If you are a leader, you are continually developing and "Sharpening the Saw".  If you lead and manage teams, then you must read about our Inspirational New Leadership Programme.  Sign up now to find out more details when we launch in July 2014.  There is no obligation to undertake the programme, if you sign up today, you will simply be sent more information about the programme.  You can unsubscribe at any time!  Click below to register for further information.