Newly Promoted MD wants to Establish Respect

Recently, I worked with a newly appointed Managing Director, Robert. He said he didn’t want the job and felt no-one in his senior management team liked or respected him. He was thinking of selling the business but was feeling confused on what was the right decision to take.

On exploring the problem, we were able to turn it into a desired outcome solution, or goal. Robert was clearly a competent professional, but with people, he considered himself something of a disaster. 

This ‘belief’ arose from the challenging relationship with the Operations Director who was resentful of Robert’s appointment and had a strong influence over the rest of the senior management team. Robert was feeling undermined, doubting his ability to be an effective MD.

On reframing, the problem gave Robert clarity of what he wanted. From this position, he was able to recognise his thoughts and possible decision to sell was driven by his insecurity and lack of confidence; it became an excuse, an ‘easy way out’.

The Coaching Outcome defined was to develop his identity the Managing Director. 

To be confident working with his senior management team to set and lead the direction. 

By mapping Robert’s experience, skill set, knowledge and capabilities, he was able to see he was more than capable, getting clarity of his role and responsibilities, to be the leader the business needed.

The Learning Strategies included:

• Self-Awareness: being aware and understanding of his reluctance to manage the OD’s confrontational behaviour.
• Communication: by utilising his psychometric profile to learn how to adapt his style of communication to increase understanding by others.
• Relationships: develop and practice building trust, rapport and engagement.
•  Assertiveness: through understanding his profile to flex his style of assertion to advance his opinions and decisions in a manner that constructively drives accountability.
• Weekly Reflection: to strengthen and embed as habit his learning and continuous self-development.

Results: Robert’s key learning was that in becoming self-aware, in understanding his strengths and how his limiting beliefs had driven some unhelpful behaviours. 

Robert successfully and consistently took action. He increased trust, engagement and respect of his SMT. He gave constructive feedback to the OD. 

He became confident and self-assured. He learnt he could take a different approach and achieve the outcome both he and his father wanted.

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Is Your Motivation Waning?

There is much research into how to motivate people at work. However, I always advocate the starting point has to be with yourself.  What would your answer be to the question, what motivates you? Do you know?

What Motivates You?

Frequently I am asked, “How do I find a job that’s more rewarding?” Well, my question straight back is, “What is it about your current job that attracted you in the first place?”

So what does one do?  The first step is to raise your self-awareness and find out what are your core motivators, your key career drivers. 

• Is it material rewards or power and influence?

• Is meaning or purpose in your job your number one driver?

• What about expertise, seeking a high level of accomplishment in what you do?

• Are you driven by the ability to be creative and innovative in your job?

• What do you think about relationships at work?

• Does autonomy drive you?  Without it how do you feel, do you prefer to make decisions on your own?

• How about security, having a certain and predictable future?

• Moreover, what are your thoughts about status? Are you driven to be recognised, admired and respected?

Sadly what gets in the way of people enjoying their jobs is relationships at work. For many people the ability to seek positive relationships is crucial. Either their boss or their team is perhaps not as proactive or constructive as they would like or what it could be.

Statistics show people leave their boss not the job, nor the company.  However leaving your boss, does not solve the issues you were avoiding, all you are doing is taking the same issues with you to your next job. Once the honeymoon period is over in the new job, you find yourself unhappy and unmotivated all over again.  Work becomes like the movie Groundhog Day, and you find yourself back to square one.

Understanding what motivates and drives you is the first step to being happier in your day to day job. You will start to notice what is missing in your current job. If this is the case, speak to your boss or colleagues about doing tasks that give you an opportunity to thrive.

Being motivated by our work has a direct and positive impact on our performance, so it is a win-win for you and your employer.

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Plan Your Way to a Cracking 2016

Do you find yourself tempted with yet another round of New Year resolutions to help change your life, and achieve your goals? According to Gallup about 90% of us fail to keep our New Year’s resolutions.  It is not the goal that is wrong, this is the easy part, but where it can go wrong is to do with commitment; this is the hard part. 

It’s not about having to try harder; the key is, do you have the motivation?  To increase your chances of achieving resolutions are to connect them to a strong purpose that will keep you in action, no matter how tough things become.  You need a strong ‘why’ that is bigger than any ‘but’. For example, "I want to get fit, but I don’t have time.”  Overcoming the ‘but’ is the hardest part.

To reach your goal starts not with the goal itself but a committed decision, a burning desire, a willingness to take repeated action, for as long as it takes and for whatever it takes.

Keep Growing

Here is a practical process to goal planning:

1.       Get clear on what you want. What did you tolerate in 2015? What was challenging? What do you not want to have happen again? Make a decision on what you want your life to be one year from now.

2.       Get clear on why – what are the reasons you must absolutely achieve this no matter what?

3.       Get momentum: Break it down into smaller steps and tasks. Identify one small thing you can do immediately toward achieving your goal.

4.       Schedule your actions monthly, weekly and daily.

5.       Take action. Masses of action. Stay committed to your decisions, but also, be flexible in your approach.  

6.       Review, measure and evaluate. What actions have worked well, what hasn’t? What can you do differently?

7.       Review steps 3-6 every week.

Remember to celebrate success and repeat the cycle as you continue to make progress.

If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they have planned for you, not much.

It’s not what we do once in a while that shapes our lives or our careers, but what we do consistently.  There’s always a way – if you are clear on the purpose and you’re committed to take action.

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Blue Monday blues? It might be time for a career change

Reportedly the most depressing day of the year, Blue Monday typically falls on the third Monday of January and is said to be the result of the festive come-down and the reality of returning to work. Did you find yourself groaning about another Monday in the office this morning? Chances are, Blue Monday is not to blame. Have you considered that maybe it’s time for a career change?

If it isn’t work that’s getting you down, Dr Cliff Arnall (the psychologist behind the original study that highlighted Blue Monday as the most depressing day of the year) has some top tips for increasing motivation and happiness at this time of the year.

·      Be your authentic self – stop pretending to be somebody that you’re not. Embrace your real personality and your true hopes and dreams, and live your authentic life. If this means giving up your day job and pursuing your childhood dreams, then so be it. Don’t squash yourself into a predetermined mould.

·      Get rid of toxic people – negative people bringing you down? Then it is time to remove them from your life. While we may feel we are harsh cutting out toxic people from our lives, it is better for our wellbeing in the long run. Positivity and encouragement are key from friends and family.

·      Simply decide and choose to be happy – a favourite quote from the famous bard, “Tis nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so” – Shakespeare. Take charge of your thoughts. Happiness is not something to be found or to be sought after. You just decide and take action.

·      Understand your goals – Dr Cliff Arnall advises a little bit of self-reflection and forward thinking - sit down with a piece of paper and title it “I choose to…”. Follow it up with goals you want to achieve throughout the year, whether this will be to learn a new sport or travel to your dream destination. While these may seem similar to New Year’s Resolutions, heading the sheet with a self-declaration enables you to take responsibility for your actions, motivating you to really take them forward in the following year.

Speaking to the BBC in 2012, Arnall said he was keen to use the day as a “springboard into looking at what actually matters in our lives”, a sentiment that aligns perfectly with reassessing your work-life balance. Do you need a career change? Does work fulfil you as a person? Are you suppressing a life’s dream that you’ve always wanted to pursue? Instead of accepting Blue Monday as the most depressing day of the year, why not use it as an excuse to start pushing yourself to achieve what you’ve always wanted?

While many feel it’s too late to switch directions, with the proper coaching and industry expertise, it is entirely possible to achieve your dreams. As part of the Baker Coaching New Years resolution, we have created a new online career coaching package called ‘Project Star’. This is an engaging and thorough career coaching programme that operates on a three step basis, guiding you through who you really are as a person, what career change would fulfil you fully and how to go about getting there. If you are looking to Explore, Dream and Discover a new year in 2016 why not get in touch so you can be part of this new programme when it launches towards to the end of this month.

Don’t box yourself in and sell yourself short – harness the Blue Monday buzz and get in touch today about maximising your career change potential. Call 01638 751087, email jennifer@jenniferbakercoach.co.uk.

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People Spend More Time on Planning their Holidays than their Life!

Work is one of the most significant and time-consuming elements of many people's lives. It’s also the area where people most often feel dissatisfied and unfulfilled. The average person will spend 40 to 50 years of their life at work. That's too long to spend in the wrong job.

Don't feel trapped in your career you can take control

Continuous professional development is a key requirement for success in any field. It is vital to manage yourself and continuously raise the bar to improve both your personal and professional skills.

The majority of people describe their career as “a series of fairly random events”.  How then, do some people have really successful and fulfilling careers? The answer is, they take control by:

• Having a clear insight into their personal goals
• Understanding their own personal characteristics (strengths/weaknesses) and seek to grow and develop
• Understanding what motivates them
• Find a range of ways to show how they add value to the organisation
• Understanding how others perceive them and actively manage these perceptions
• Learning how to adapt their jobs and keep improving them

In order to determine your drivers and to shape your future aspirations it is important to analyse and reflect on your career to date. 

You can start this process by creating a Career Timeline: draw a horizontal line and divide this into intervals appropriate to the length of your working life e.g. 1, 3, 5, 10 years. Then note high points, above the line, low points, below it. Draw a line to join both the high and low points together to reflect your career history. Then answer these questions:

• What trends are apparent?
• What do you remember most about the high and low points?
• How have the high and low points impacted on your career path i.e. the choices you have made?
• What was the most significant point in your career?

As you journey through life you will need to proactively continue to evaluate and adjust your career plans in response to external factors – such as changes in the workplace, a change in your interests or a change in your life circumstances.

Recognising the high and low points will help you examine the choices you made and consider the thought process you went through. You cannot change the past but you can decide how you let it influence and inspire your future.

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Appraisals aren't just for Bosses

As year-end approaches many organisations will be embarking on annual appraisals.  The process is often seen as little more than a tick box exercise with the same comments reported each year with little significant meaning resulting in a thankless task.  HR spend a lot of time coercing people into doing them while managers look for a variety of other priorities to delay the process, often resulting in appraisals being incomplete or rarely done.

Proactively Develop Your Career

For many managers and employees alike they hate the thought of them finding it an uncomfortable practice, undertaken for the wrong reasons and from the wrong perspective. This can result in putting the manager and the employee on opposing sides.   The employee may feel defensive or expect an unfair review.

If done right however appraisals can be an invaluable feedback tool for managers and a powerful tool for developing your career.

Utilise the appraisal process as an opportunity to raise your profile, to be formally and officially recognised.  Here are a few things you can do:

·         Well in advance ask for a copy of the appraisal form. Become familiar with it. If necessary clarify with your line manager and/or HR any sections you don’t understand.

·         Ideally you should have received confirmation of your yearly objectives.  Have the strategy or any processes changed making them no longer relevant or obsolete?

·         Without blame or being harsh on yourself, objectively and critically evaluate your own reasons for any shortfalls. If you haven’t met your targets have you had access to the right resources? Start to think about how you could go about achieving these targets in the coming year. What could you do differently?

·         Against your key objectives complete a self-assessment and determine your development needs. Assess your skills, knowledge and experience required to do your job satisfactorily and assess the same criteria to achieve above expectations.  Identify your strengths as well as any gaps. Start to think about how to proactively develop any short falls.

·         Are you ready and capable of taking on more responsibility? Are you ready to step up? What else could you do in the coming year to add more value to your organisation?

The appraisal process is not an exclusive tool for managers to assess performance, be proactive and manage your career by taking ownership of your appraisal, thereby ensuring it is meaningful and worthwhile.

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Manage Your Reputation 

This month I’d like to reflect on work recently completed with the millennial generation.  A burning question they often ask is how to have a successful career?  

Career Success

My question in return is, what do you want to be known for, what results do you want?

The starting point is about who you are and what reputation do you want. What do you want people say about you when you’re not in the room?

If you were a brand how would you summarise your value or attributes? For example, think of some high profile brands such as Cadbury Dairy Milk, Green & Blacks or Apple iPhone or an Android brand of smart phone, each have strong quality attributes delivering value.

Creating your personal brand starts with understanding what your good at. Can you answer the following?

• What are your unique strengths, skills, and attributes?
• How do others see you or perceive you?
• Where do I add value?
• What do you want to be known for?
• What was the most successful project you ever tackled, and what made you successful?
• When faced with an overwhelming obstacle, what’s your “go to” skill to overcome it?
• What are the strength’s that others acknowledge in you?

Drill even further to identify themes and key strength’s you want to put centre stage!

• What strengths and skills come up over and over again?
• Which skills do you enjoy using as often as possible, regardless of the task?

It's also important to understand and be aware of what skills are missing. What skills would you like to build but have not yet had the opportunity to practice and develop?

Summarise these questions with five strengths. For example, you might use words like “creative,” “relationship-builder” or “I make the complex simple.”

If you had a strapline what would it say to capture “Brand-me”?

To manage your reputation you need to be proactive and take control. Raise your profile within your organisation and consider the messages you wish to portray. 

Demonstrate and communicate your value and proactively managing people’s perception.

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It Takes All Kinds of Brains to Make a Perfect Team

If your team isn't cognitively diverse, you're missing a huge opportunity

Creating a Perfect Team - Thinking out of the box

Have you ever wondered why a team of smart, experienced people aren't performing well? It's not owing to a lack of skills. More likely there's a breakdown in something deeper that precludes the group's ability to generate ideas, get things done, or perform at high levels.

This can happen as a result of many things, but in my mind, it really breaks down to two factors.

1. Does the team have the diversity of thought to come at things from different perspectives or is it a one-note band?

2. Even if there are multiple perspectives, does the team have the requisite openness, trust, and communication to allow divergent thinking and ideas to flourish?

From Emergenetics research into psychology and human behaviour, we know that thinking is manifested in four distinct areas--conceptual, social, analytical, and structural. We also know that every person's behaviour falls somewhere along a spectrum in each of three arenas--expressiveness, assertiveness, and flexibility.

Cognitive Diversity: The Golden Ring

Teams that exhibit a full spectrum of these seven attributes are the goal. We call it a Whole Emergenetics, or WE, approach to team building, and it is incredibly powerful in practice.

It's easy to see how this approach works--diverse teams have all the tools at their disposal. They're critical thinkers, innovators, and organized and empathic all at once. They can be accommodating or firm, process internally or be gregarious, and be peacekeepers or drivers, whatever the task requires.

Diverse teams have the ability to see every perspective and put the strength of each individual team member to work toward the common goal. Teams that lack that diversity are unbalanced in one way or another, and that imbalance erodes effectiveness over time.

A group leaning heavily toward one thinking preference may excel in the formation of ideas but lack the ability to formulate a clear plan and see the project through to the end. Or be great at planning and follow-through but short on ideas.

Another group may have the potential to embrace diverse speaking but not actually value or elicit all perspectives. A team led by a few driving, gregarious people may never let others speak, especially those on the quiet end of the expressiveness spectrum. Valuable thinking and ideas are lost.

How to Achieve It

Chances are, you're not going to just stumble across a cognitively diverse team in the wild. You need to be deliberate. If you have a tool like Emergenetics to uncover preferences, that's great, but if not, you can apply these tactics.

Ask for volunteers to fulfill roles. If you're a team leader, you can see inklings of how team members think. Ask the team for volunteers who can naturally bring a perspective of analytical, structural, social, and conceptual thinking to the table. Make sure they're responsible for the perspective. Do the same for expressiveness, assertiveness, and flexibility--you need representation from across each spectrum.

Put tasks and projects into a diverse approach. Any initiative the team works on can be seen through the lens of cognitive diversity. If you're having a meeting, ensure that you approach it from all seven attributes. As you come up with solutions, put each into a framework and test it against the full thinking and behavioral spectrum--does the solution speak to analytical concerns, for example? Is it resonant for structural thinkers? Ask this question for each attribute.

The potential for cognitive diversity exists for all groups and teams whether they are naturally diverse or not. In reality, unbalanced teams exist. What's important is that you as a leader are in touch with the team dynamic and take a deliberate approach to assigning work and creating teams. With conscious effort, balance can be achieved, and potential unlocked and channeled into results.

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Successful Managers - the Fundamentals

Newly promoted managers which despite their past success can often struggle with their new responsibilities. Its classic isn’t? You’re good at your job, you get promoted to the high echelons of management, and then find yourself struggling. I know what’s like having walked in those shoes.  The solution is straightforward, but before highlighting this I’d like to mention, the 5 greatest challenges managers worry about: sales, profitability, managing people, costs and competitors.

So given this, why is a common oversight frequently made, where managers focus on the ‘hard processes’ of strategy, targets and policies, to the exclusion of ‘soft skills’ of managing people?  Let me highlight the priority by asking, in your team what’s the hardest to improve or change? Is it learning new skills, or experience or changing someone’s attitude? The answer is pretty obvious.

‘The Sunday Times Best 100 Companies’ to work for have recently been announced for 2014 and it’s interesting to note the theme across all these organisations; namely, good leadership and management; teamwork and communication. It is these soft skills if applied consistently and in balance with the ‘hard processes’ make for a successful manager.

So, here are the fundamentals for new managers:

1.  Team Climate: as a manager part of your role and responsibility is to create the culture that enables high performance. This sets the foundation for everything else that follows. You can do this by ensuring people’s behaviour and attitude are aligned to your organisation’s values. Hold people to account for bad behaviours. Do be constructive and when needed be assertive with your feedback.

2.   Effective Communication: Engage all staff and aim to influence others. Listen, be in tune with what’s not being said. The grapevine is your barometer of what’s truly going on. Is your style of communication adding to your team’s issues? Are your team confident to feedback upwards? If not, why not?

3.   Build positive relationships: make the time and develop genuine rapport particular with others where it doesn’t come easy. This means building trust, respecting different points of view and holding judgement.

4.   Manage Performance: ensure clarity of objectives, forward planning, manage resources to ensure objectives are met; and communicate; go back to step 2.

5.   Manage inappropriate behaviours: get the balance right of holding yourself and others to account in an appropriate way. Without compromising trust or respect give consistent feedback that keeps others engaged, committed and motivated; back to step 1.

6.   Give Praise. Make it your mantra to catch someone doing something right every day. Doesn’t have to be complicated or over the top, a simple thank you goes a long way to influencing your team’s motivation and commitment.

And the final building block is Confidence. Believe in yourself. You can and will be a successful manager.

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The 3 Eee’s of Leadership...Engage, Empower, Enable

Andre Villas Boas at 35 is the youngest manager to win the Europa League (with FC Porto). “Being a manager is all about emotions. I remember hearing about the Boston Philharmonic maestro whose biggest breakthrough as a leader was realising he didn’t actually make any sound himself; only his players did. He had to lead them but by harnessing their emotions.”

As a leader how do you win the hearts and minds of your team? A common theme I come across is “my team are lazy/I make all the decisions/what’s the point of delegating”.  However if you step back you just might see a different perspective.

Your leadership style is directly reflected back by your team’s performance and overall results.

Louise was excellent at her job and was recently promoted to management. She was fired up with best intentions and ideas to get more out of her team. Within a few months the team were disengaged, she was stressed, working longer hours and doubting her capability as a manager.

Her previous excellent relationships turned to mistrust, the team did not support her or the new ideas. Her boss questioned if he’d made a mistake in promoting her.

During our coaching Louise had time to reflect and see what was going wrong. The old style of management, control and command, is a fast route to a disengaged and demotivated team resulting in lower performance. There are times for this style such as crises or safety issues however, modern day managers lead by engaging and empowering their team enabling their organisation to achieve its objectives.

Louise changed her approach. She fed back to each individual what they did well, asked what were their challenges and what support did they need.

She set up regular informal one-to-ones; she learnt to listen and to give constructive feedback. She led with a coaching style of management, asking questions not telling, opening a 2-way dialogue. Occasionally Louise would fall back to old habits, however trust and rapport was now stronger and her team could give her feedback.

An engaged team become empowered and enabled to make better decisions; they accept accountability and are motivated to do more.

Invest in engaging your team and individuals. What can you do to empower them? Get it right and watch your team and the results soar.

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Manager on my Tombstone ?

Following on from the Leadership and Jazz piece, LIW's CEO Pia Lee explores the importance of purpose in business.

"Most people live lives of silent, screaming desperation, doing jobs they hate, to buy things they don't need, to impress people they don't like." This cheerful quote comes from Nigel Marsh's funny and moving talk on Work-Life Balance at TEDx in Sydney this year. However depressing it sounds, there is a ring of truth to it, isn't there? While the West's obsession with possession will have to be the subject of another article, it is clear that there's so much more that organisations can do to fulfil the working lives of their employees.

We devote the majority of our waking moments to work and yet we would all laugh if our loved ones chiselled 'Manager' on our tombstone as a fitting epitaph. Surely there is a moral obligation for leaders to provide jobs to people in which they flourish, rather than scream? It also seems logical that the organisations who do will be better at attracting and retaining talent and so have an edge on those that don't.

"We devote the majority of our waking moments to work and yet we would all laugh if our loved ones chiselled 'Manager' on our tombstone as a fitting epitaph."

The pessimistic theme of unfulfilling work was reinforced in a recent Schumpeter article in The Economist that considers the trend for companies to offer psychological wellness assessments in addition to the traditional physical check-ups. However, Schumpeter misses the biggest question of all: why do organisations feel in some way responsible for the mental imbalance of their employees? Lurking behind this movement is the unspoken belief that employers are in some way responsible for causing mental health issues among their employees. This is the corporate equivalent of choosing a high-fat diet but being diligent about taking aspirin to avoid heart-health problems. Employers need to be a whole lot more proactive and get to the root of the problem. But what is it?

A new book ‘Zilch’ by Nancy Lublin points to the answer. Lublin debunks the most prevalent myth in business today — that salary drives performance and productivity. She proposes that companies broaden their rewards and their understanding of compensation so that people become deeply motivated to excel. A key learning that Lublin brings from the not-for-profit sector is that these organisations have a clear purpose that is shared by its employees. Does this imply that purpose is the sole domain of organisations with an altruistic philosophy? Not so, as the seminal research conducted by Professors Jim Collins and Jerry Porras in 'Good to Great' and 'Built to Last testifies. High performing organisations have a unique blend of core purpose and values as well as the 'and' factor of being able to endlessly adapt their strategy and direction to a changing landscape. This rich combination provides meaning for individuals beyond making money which in turn unlocks discretionary effort.

It's a courageous organisation that asks not just what are they trying to achieve but 'why'? It's also an evolved organisation that asks what its legacy will be. It's the forward thinking organisation that creates the right climate for a motivated employee who sees their career aligned to a purpose bigger than themselves. 'Screaming desperation' now gives way to 'roaring fulfilment'.

Don't fall into the trap of seeing this as a marketing opportunity – an organisation's purpose cannot be window-dressing. Whilst it is a powerful motivator it is also a perishable good and can very easily be destroyed by misaligned behaviour. Who would say that BP stands for Beyond Petroleum now? (This question posted on Twitter came up with 'Broken Pipe', 'Be Prepared' and even 'Bastards Playing', among others). On the other hand, organisations that keep their purpose close to hand, such as Johnson & Johnson (whose credo, written in 1943, embodies purpose as well as values) can weather storms by walking the talk. J&J is applying the credo in decision making around its current Tylenol recall woes and we just know that they will come out the other side with their reputation intact and their customers and employees engaged.

"It's a courageous organisation that asks not just what are they trying to achieve but 'why'? It's also an evolved organisation that asks what its legacy will be."

So what steps can a leader take to bring the power of purpose into their organisations. Having achieved this with many organisations it is, like most leadership tasks, simple but not easy. Getting the top team up to speed on this thinking is a good start – the publications referenced here will be a good start. There is a simple exercise that will get the creative juices flowing: divide your top team into two or three groups and tell them that the organisation is to be closed down. They have one minute to explain to the government why they should be allowed to stay in business. Capture the key ideas and craft a simple statement that embodies them. It should not be a goal as the purpose is never achieved: Disney's 'to make people happy' is an example of this. Now comes the not easy part – the leaders should use this in all their communications and decision making. Everything that is done and indeed, the leaders themselves, are there only to serve the purpose.

To close, consider this: purpose is growing, not diminishing in importance. Generation Y and their successors will not put up with a toxic workplace. They expect more. We, the greying victims of the 'screaming desperation' era, have raised them to do so. They want to work in organisations that have a clear sense of why they exist and will choose them because they are aligned with that purpose. It is in these conditions that people give not just the most, they also give their best. This is good not just for the employee but for the employer and the shareholder too. For leaders, this is the opportunity to leave a greater legacy and even to earn a more inspiring epitaph.

Pia Lee is the CEO of global leadership consultancy, LIW. Pia blogs at www.liw3.wordpress.com. LIW’s company website is www.liw3.com where you will find the blog and also a number of other leadership resources and articles

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