Learning Curve

Managing Career Conversations – 7 Top Tips

Julie — Mon, 07 May 2012 08:00:33 +0000

Why do managers often avoid having conversations about career aspirations with their team members?

We’ve had a whole host of responses to this question on our programmes. Here are the most common:

“I don’t want to raise their expectations.”

“They think they’re ready for promotion, but I don’t!”

“I don’t want to lose my best people.”

“I don’t want to make any promises that I can’t keep.”

A Career Conversation does just what it ‘says on the tin’

It’s a conversation about someone’s career aspirations, not a promise to sort out their career and promote them.

Remember, if you’re not having career conversations with your team members, they are certainly having these conversations with someone, even if it’s with their mates down the pub! Failing to show interest in someone’s future and supporting their development is a sure fire way of losing your best people.

So, how do you manage a career conversation that is helpful and motivating for the individual, ensures that you continue to get the best from them and yet doesn’t promise them the world or leave YOU with yet another responsibility – sorting out their promotion?

I’ve found the 7 steps in the following framework really helpful; it covers all the bases and helps to keep the conversation on track. It’s intended as a set of steps and a sequence for the conversation, but there’s no need to be too rigid about it, as long as you don’t jump too quickly to solution before you have the full story.

Opening the Conversation

Use a PEA! It’s worth spending a couple of minutes at the start of the conversation outlining its purpose (why you’re having this conversation), endpoint (where you hope to get to by the end of the conversation) and agenda (what you’ll discuss). This should help to avoid the misconception that you will be taking ownership for your team member’s career progression.

Aspirations

This is the first hurdle that many of us stumble over when identifying both our own and others’ career aspirations! When I was 18, and in my first job in a retail bank, I wanted to be a bank manager (of course, we all did!). Unfortunately, I didn’t spend too much time thinking about why I wanted it so much; everyone else wanted it, so I should too! After all, you got your own office, a company car, a great job title and you could decide who to lend money to – who wouldn’t want that job?! I didn’t want that job but it took me almost 7 years to work that out as I was too busy trying to get there!!

So here your role as the career coach is to discuss your colleague’s aspirations, not just in terms of the job they want next but to help them identify the type of work they enjoy and which interests and motivates them. Are they interested in managing people or projects, analytical type work, being customer facing, working in sales and so on? What do they see themselves doing in the future? To help them to identify the type of work they enjoy, you could also explore what they have enjoyed about their current and previous roles. Understanding this will help you both to work out how they can move closer to their aspirations.

Potential

What is their perception of their potential to move in to work of this nature? How do they know they have the potential? To what extent have they demonstrated the ability to learn and develop so far? How well does their potential align with their aspirations? What is your perception of their potential and is it different to theirs? You may want to give feedback on your view and how it is the same or different to theirs.

Areas for Development

Now you’re ready to move on and start considering possible areas for development. What development needs does this person have to enable them to realise their aspirations? Are they many and varied or are there a few specific needs? Make sure you explore all the needs before moving on to think about how they might meet them.

Identifying Career Milestones

If the person’s aspirations seem quite stretching in relation to where they are now, it’s worth discussing career milestones. There is nothing more de-motivating than having a 3 to 5 year plan with no ‘hand holds’ on the way to help them feel like they are making progress. What might be the ‘hand holds’ for this person – the steps on the way? Again, it’s helpful to think about these in terms of skills, competencies, knowledge and experience they want to acquire, rather than a series of jobs they want on the way. Are there any quick wins or development needs that will add real value for them and for the business? This will help you both to prioritise their development needs.

Planning Learning Activities

This is the second hurdle that many of us stumble over! As the manager, it is really easy to fall into the trap of taking responsibility for the person’s development by promising all sorts of opportunities and help that you later regret or simply can’t deliver!

Your role here is to help the person work out how THEY can:

· take responsibility for their own career development

· acquire the knowledge and experience they want through their current role

· find opportunities to develop specific skills and competencies

· get involved in other work/projects, or take on additional responsibilities to acquire these skills (without of course interfering with their current role and level of performance).

Asking open, probing questions will help the person to think more broadly about the opportunities that may already exist for them, or that they can create with some support from you or others.

The Action Plan and Support Required

That leads us on to the final and most important part of the conversation – the action plan. What are they going to do, when and how? Make sure that they make a note of the actions to which they commit, when and how they will implement them and how they will review their success. When are you next going to meet to discuss progress? I would also encourage the person to put their plan in writing after your conversation so they have something to refer to when you next meet.

Whilst it should be the individual who takes responsibility for their career development and implementing a development plan, they are likely to need some support to achieve this. What support will they need from you? Is this reasonable and feasible? What support might they need from others and how will they get that support? How would networking and relationship building help with their career development?

If you follow the framework and steps above, and make sure that you continue to ask "What will YOU do. . . ” type questions, to identify learning activities and a development plan, you should avoid feeling like you’ve over promised or need to take responsibility for developing your colleague’s career!

What tips do you have for managing career conversations? Perhaps you have an experience you’d like to share. Whatever your comments, we’d love to hear from you.

Look out for next month’s blog on Giving Feedback.

Posted by Julie Turner

Managing the BASICs for Effective Performance Management Conversations

Gill — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 08:15:04 +0000

Like many, my first performance management experience was not a good one! It was an excellent lesson in how NOT to manage a performance conversation…I worked in the head office of a well-known jewellery retailer and my mid-year review was to be "managed" by Emilia* the HR Director (even though I didn’t report directly to her.) I had no idea what to expect from the conversation and once I was in it, this didn’t become any clearer. I wasn’t invited to put forward my own views, she simply told me what SHE thought. Despite the fact that my immediate supervisor was always singing my praises, Emilia only focused on negative areas (although to be fair, she did tell me I always wore smart clothes!) No specific actions were discussed, or if they were, I certainly wasn’t clear what they were. The only action I left with, was one I came up with myself…to make sure I found another job!

So…clearly, it wasn’t a great experience and I left feeling even more demotivated than I was before the conversation. What chance did I have if Emilia couldn’t even get the BASICs right?

How well do you manage the BASICs?

Not all performance conversations are as awful as my early experience but it’s amazing how many negative stories we hear on our training programmes.

So, if you don’t want YOUR staff sharing their own horror stories about the way you handle performance conversations read on to ensure YOU get the BASICs right.

When you have a performance conversation with a team member, whether it’s an informal “catch up” or a more formal review meeting, there are 5 BASIC Elements that you need to manage to get the BASICs right:

Buy-In

There are two levels of buy-in to aim for – buy in to the performance conversation itself and buy in to the actions that are discussed and agreed.

Is it clear what the individual is going to get from the performance conversation? If not, they’re less likely to buy into the conversation. So, what’s in it for them? Have you thought about this from their point of view? You can either articulate this early on in the meeting, or you can ask them what they want to get from the conversation (and then do your best to meet their needs.) If you can manage this, you’ve jumped the first buy-in hurdle.

The second hurdle is getting buy-in to actions. As you progress through the conversation, it’s likely that you’ll talk about successes, issues that need resolving and actions that need to be taken. Increase your chances of getting buy-in by encouraging your team member to come up with the ideas and actions themself. You can always build on them to refine their ideas if they’re not quite up to scratch. If the ideas originate from them, they’re more like to be committed to them.

Atmosphere

What’s the climate like in the performance conversations you manage? Is it warm or frosty? Perhaps it starts off clear and bright but there’s a sense of dark clouds looming. Are you looking for open, honest communication? If so, you need to create an atmosphere that is conducive to this by being open and honest yourself, allowing the other person air time and creating a safety net so that it’s OK to talk about things that aren’t going so well. You might want to create a more formal atmosphere because there are some difficult areas to discuss and you want to reinforce how seriously you are taking the need to improve things. Ensure you choose the atmosphere you want to create and then manage your own behaviour and the environment to make it work.

Shared Understanding

Have you ever wondered why despite having conversations about performance, the actions you thought you’d agreed simply don’t happen? It’s easy to put this down to the capability or motivation of the individual but could you be partly to blame? Do you work hard enough to ensure clarity – to establish a shared understanding of the key messages and actions? Remember to summarise often and encourage the person to do the same, particularly at the end of each performance area – you can ask them to recap the actions they’ll take and you can do the same – this way, you’ll KNOW you’ve got a shared understanding…if there is any ambiguity or confusion, better to find out in the meeting when you’ve got chance to clarify things, rather than two weeks later when you discover they’re not doing what you thought you’d agreed!

Involvement

When I had my performance discussion with Emilia, I was given little opportunity to be involved. She did almost all the talking. As a result, I felt like it was “done to me”. This is a common complaint according to people we meet on our programmes. Who does most of the talking in the performance conversations you manage? Who is putting forward the ideas? Who is getting more of the airtime? If you’re the manager and it’s YOU, you might want to think again about who this meeting is about and what you’re trying to achieve. If you want to find out how things are progressing for your team member you need to let them contribute to the meeting. Ask them questions to steer the conversation and probe for a deeper understanding but let them do most of the talking. You’ll learn more this way. When you’re tempted to suggest actions or next steps, ask them for their ideas first (you never know, they might come up with ones that are better than yours!)

Confrontation

Sometimes, during performance conversations, we need to tackle difficult issues. It’s all too easy to dance around these or worse still, avoid them completely in the hope the problem will go away. In your role as a manager, you need to be able to manage confrontation appropriately. This means, not shying away from it when there is a difficult issue to tackle. Handling confrontation in a performance conversation is a bit of a balancing act – you need to raise the issue so that a clear message is received but you need to do this without damaging the person’s self-esteem or creating conflict. If you can get all the other BASIC elements right, you’re in a much better position to do a good job with Confrontation. Be open and constructive with your feedback and then move on to identifying solutions to the problem.

*****************

Effective performance conversations don’t just happen by accident. You need to consciously manage the BASICs. So, next time you need to chat to someone about how their work is going, don’t fall into any of the traps Emilia did …or you may have people talking (or blogging!) about you one day!

What other tips do you have? Or perhaps you have some good and bad examples you’d like to share. Whatever your comment, we’d love to hear from you. Look out for next month’s blog on Managing Career Conversations.

*names have been changed to protect the guilty.

Posted by Gill Bonello

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Business Partnering – How should you weigh up your Client?

Gill — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 09:51:44 +0000

You’ve just had an initial conversation with a new client who is the head of service within a medium sized organisation… the initial meeting went well, you established your credibility (using the techniques outlined in our earlier Developing Credibility blog), you’ve gathered information about the background to the situation, got a clear idea of the scope of the project and you have arranged to meet again to discuss things further.

You know that, during the first meeting, the client will have been assessing you and your ability to do the job… but against what criteria should you have been assessing them? Their fashion sense? Their sense of comic timing? These things might interest you but it’s unlikely that they’ll help you to successfully assist your client. You need to assess your client in order to maximise their resources and those of the organisation.

So have you properly sized them up and what's the risk if you don't?

In our second blog on Business Partnering, we explore what you need to be looking for in your client during your first meetings.

If you don’t get the measure of the client and what they can bring to the party at the outset, it can cause things to unravel later… and you might be the one having to hold it all together! So, what should you be looking for?

There are TWO levels on which to assess the client:

1) The individual who is representing the organisation and who you are dealing directly with

2) You could also assess the whole client organisation

And there are FOUR things to look out for:

1. How Energised are they?

Whatever solutions you agree, you will need energy from the client to fuel the exploration process. You’ll also need energy from the organisation to implement your agreed solution. How energised are they? Are they weary, cynical, cautious, and resistant to your talk of change? If they were a mate of yours, would they encourage you to take risks, have fun and be creative? Are they motivated, committed to improving things and creative in generating change?

If there is an energy deficit… you will be the one having to pour in energy at all stages, and it may get to feel like an uphill struggle. If your contact has flat batteries, then immediately look elsewhere in the organisation for someone to co-opt who is charged up. If the whole organisation has a flat battery, make sure you choose interventions that will work in that environment, or consider changing the timing of your intervention – otherwise you will need to be the Duracell bunny!

2. How in Control are they?

If you are going to work well in partnership, you will need to rely on effective control of their resources – whether that is efficient administrative services, or their human resources being deployed effectively in the solutions you create. So ask yourself, “Do they manage their energy well? Do they assess things effectively? Do they know their own strengths and weaknesses? Do they harness their energy to good effect or does it leak away on ill thought through initiatives?”

Poor control in your client can be a liability, even at the simplest level – we have at times taken over the entire administration of our client’s development programmes, because it took less time and energy for us to do that than cope with an unpredictable and inefficient internal administration.

3. What is their level of Expertise?

Any intervention will be more successful if you can capitalise on expertise within the business. Do they have the level of expertise required? For example, do you think they have the management capability to manage people through change effectively? Or do they lack skills in key areas?

If they don’t have the level of experience required, it means you may have to either limit the level or type of intervention, or inject the expertise yourself (build in some professional development for the internal change agents) or find it elsewhere in the company, e.g. co-opt a non-executive director to be an internal sponsor/mentor of the programme.

4. Can they Influence the right people?

Whatever solutions you agree will only work if you have the support of key players within the organisation. Your contact will need to get others on board and their influencing skills will be tested. So how good are they going to be at it? Would they stand up to Jeremy Paxman? Can they influence the wider environment effectively? Do they have the position and clout they need within the wider organisational context, for example? Do they have the right contacts and do they use them well? Do they have people/contacts with sufficient political and influencing skills?

We all know the difference between working for an organisation where your contact person sits on the Executive Team or Board, and one where they are much lower down the food chain, and if they personally lack ‘clout’ it’s going to be hard to get commitment at senior levels.

In conclusion, no client contact or client organisation is necessarily going to have all of these four attributes in abundance (if they did, they probably wouldn’t need to call on you!) BUT…. (and here it comes)….. in your work with this person, or organisation, if unplugged gaps remain in these areas … guess who is going to provide them? Yes, … got it in one…. YOU!

So, let’s rewind to that initial meeting and if there are any gaps in relation to these four areas, you need to start talking about how they will be filled and by whom.

What criteria do you use for assessing your clients? Do you look for anything different to the attributes we’ve described? Do you have some stories to tell? We would love to hear from you so please add your comments below. Look out for our second blog on Performance Management, coming next month.

Posted by Shona Ward

Personal Effectiveness – The View from Everest

Caroline — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 13:48:03 +0000

There are many opinions on what it takes to be personally effective; a view from the top of the world offers another perspective!

How can this perspective be applied to your effectiveness at lower altitudes?

To find out how, read on….

At 8,848 metres, roughly the altitude at which planes fly, Everest is the highest mountain in the world. On 23^rd May 2008, at 6.30am, I stood on its summit!

The climbing of Everest is a good test of personal effectiveness because it is such a challenge to climb. It was first climbed in the year that Queen Elizabeth II was crowned, 1953, by Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tensing.

Since then, fewer than 3,000 people have ever been to the summit. There's a reason for this – it’s hard work and, potentially, dangerous! For every 10 people that have summited Everest, one person has died. Above 8,000m is referred to as the death zone because you can’t survive for more than a few hours, due to the extreme cold and lack of oxygen in the atmosphere.

You have to be effective to get to the top.

You’ll know that many authors have defined Effectiveness as "Doing the right things" (and Efficiency as" Doing things right"), so my blog is about doing the right things.

I want to use my experiences, during this expedition to Everest, to illustrate The 3 Ps of Effectiveness:

1. Purpose

2. Perseverance

3. People

1. Purpose

So what are the right things around Purpose?

Everyone needs a sense of purpose – the reason for doing something (that answers the ‘why’ question). It’s that sense of purpose that gets you going in the first place. Goethe said “What you can do, or dream you can do, begin it; Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.” The boldness to begin comes from a sense of purpose and you have to be bold to climb Everest.

So, why did I climb Everest? What was the purpose?

Well, for me, I had a dream from an early age of climbing the highest mountain on each of the seven continents (The Seven Summits) and Everest just happens to be one of them (highest in Asia). I also read many books on the early attempts on Everest that had inspired me. I'd spent many years imagining what it would be like to climb Everest and on building a personal commitment to it. Attempting Everest was to be the culmination of many years' climbing mountains around the world.

The learning applicable to lower altitudes is that, if we are to be successful at a difficult and challenging undertaking, we need to have a Purpose to get started, to “feel the fear and do it anyway”. Entrepreneurs find that purpose when they first have an idea but where do the rest of us find that sense of purpose? It really is important to find purpose in our work if we are be fully engaged and therefore effective.

2. Perseverance

To be successful, people need to persevere; success doesn’t always happen instantly or without effort!

On summit night, there's every reason to turn back: it’s very cold, tiring and dangerous. Of the eight people in our team, five turned back! What gave some the Perseverance to push through the pain and others not? The Purpose has to be big enough to find the strength to Persevere but I also enjoy climbing at altitude because it energises me. This may appear surprising and is more mental than physical – it’s mentally uplifting.

Strengths are well documented in the world of positive psychology. The definition of a 'Strength' is something that you are good at which energises you. This is important when it comes to the second P. The energy to persevere has to come from somewhere. There is a line in the film ‘Chariots of Fire’ that I love “So where does the strength come from to see the race to it’s end, it comes from within and when I run I feel God’s pleasure.” Now, I’m not religious but I can still relate to this. I feel pleasure from pushing myself at altitude with the beauty of the mountains around me. Perseverance also comes from experience. It is easier to Persevere when you are less out of your comfort zone – you have the confidence that everything will be alright. This comes from similar experiences on other mountains.

The learning applicable to lower altitudes is that we should seek out tasks that play to our Strengths; tasks that energise us as that will help us to persevere through challenging times. It also helps to have experience so that the stretch isn’t quite so great.

3. People

People are the third key to effectiveness. We can only achieve so much on our own.

Massive credit should be given to the Sherpas; the local guides and porters who carry equipment up the mountain to the high camps and who are close by on summit day. Even more important is the relationship of trust you develop with your climbing partner. For me, this was Pete with whom I tent shared throughout the expedition. We were both as committed to summiting as each other, were of a similar pace and on summit night kept each other going alternately when the other tired. It was this teamwork which helped us both to Persevere and made the whole experience more enjoyable. It is so hard to reach the summit that you have to overcome your own mind and body to make it and it’s much easier when you share the experience with a like minded team member.

The parallel in business is that you need the right people in your support team and the right partners, coaches or mentors to be effective.

Edmund Hillary, who was the first to summit Mount Everest in 1953, said “In conquering the mountain we conquer ourselves”.

I really believe this to be the case and it’s the same in business. You could say “in conquering the challenging objective we must conquer ourselves”. We must connect to the purpose of what we are doing, we must persevere by aligning ourselves with our strengths and experience. Finally, we must gather the right people in the support team around us and partner with, or receive coaching from, someone we trust.

Do you have a clear Purpose? Are you sufficiently aligned with your strengths and experience to Persevere? Do you have the right People around you?

How does the view from Everest translate into your work? We'd love to hear your thoughts so please let us know by adding your comments below.

Look out for next month's blog on "Your Role as a Business Partner".

Posted by Mark Procter

How to be a Mentor – 7 Tips

Gill — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 23:36:34 +0000

You’ve been asked to be a mentor. You’re delighted, but have no idea what’s involved!

What does a mentor do? What will the mentee expect? How much time will it involve? What do you need to do to get started? What can you expect from the mentee?

And finally . . . . what’s in it for you?

These are all common questions that people ask when they first step into the role of a mentor.

If you want to know how to get it right first time, read on . . . . .

7 Tips for Establishing an Effective Mentoring Relationship

1. Get to know each other first

Before you embark on the mentoring relationship, take time to get to know each other personally. This doesn’t mean you have to share your darkest, deepest, secrets! Spend time finding out about each other’s careers, interests, experiences and motivators. You may also wish to share a little about your personal life, although this certainly isn’t a requirement of the role!

Knowing each other on a personal, as well as professional basis will really help both people feel comfortable in the relationship.

2. Clarify the purpose of the mentoring relationship

Mentoring relationships are usually, but not exclusively, set up by the organisation to support people to develop and enhance their career potential.

Whilst a great idea, often the reason why mentoring has been chosen and the purpose of the relationship are not explained.

Spending time talking about and agreeing the purpose of the relationship and what you hope to achieve from it will help you keep on track. Remember too that there should be something in it for the mentor as well, not just the mentee!!

3. Agree the groundrules for the relationship at the outset

Agreeing the groundrules for how you will work together will ensure that both parties’ expectations are met.

Groundrules might include:

how often you will meet

how much time is feasible for the mentor to give to the mentee

the type of support the mentor is able and willing to provide and the type of support the mentee anticipates they may

need (see tip 5 below)

what you’re both happy to talk about and what would you prefer not to discuss

the expectations you have of each other about preparing for your meetings and keeping to agreed meeting times

the ‘rules’ about cancelling scheduled meetings

how you will handle urgent requests to talk from the mentee.

These are just a few examples of groundrules you could put in place; there may be other groundrules that you and your mentee wish to agree on.

4. Clearly define the responsibilities

The mentee often waits for the mentor to organise everything. This is prone to difficulties as the mentor is most often a senior member of management with calls on his/her time from everyone.

In my experience, the most effective mentoring relationships are ones where the mentee takes responsibility for driving the relationship. This includes:

setting up a suitable time and place to meet

putting together an agenda, if appropriate

being fully prepared before meeting with the mentor

giving feedback to the mentor on the usefulness of their sessions together

making realistic requests for additional support and time.

As the mentor, you have responsibility for turning up on time, giving the mentee your undivided attention and keeping your meeting commitments. If you frequently cancel meetings, you send the message that the mentee isn’t important to you.

5. Consider the possible contributions you can make as a mentor

It’s likely that you’ve been chosen to be a mentor because of your knowledge, experience and great people skills! Some of this will be of great value to the mentee; but which parts?

Typical, valuable, contributions from a mentor include:

organisational experience – providing help on ‘how to get things done around here’

knowledge of career options – helping the mentee to see all the possible options available to them

networking – sharing your experience of networking and helping the mentee to work out how they establish their own network

people skills – providing coaching on managing relationships at work

life experience – providing support on personal issues and work/non-work challenges

organisational sponsorship – promoting the mentee’s visibility within the organisation.

Don’t just assume that you know what they need – find out what they need right now and what will be most helpful. Remember, unwanted advice is often heard as criticism!!

6. Agree what you will do if the relationship isn’t working

Despite the best intentions of both the mentor and mentee, it’s still possible that the relationship won’t work for one or both of you. How will you handle this? Be proactive about this possibility right at the start and agree what you’ll do should this situation arise.

7. Help the mentee find other sources of support

Even if the mentoring relationship is a great success, it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to help with every challenge the mentee faces. So who else can they count on for support? Helping the mentee to establish other relationships, both within the organisation and externally, will ensure that they have the appropriate support to meet their needs.

Encourage the mentee to become increasingly self sufficient, establishing a network of people that they can turn to for support and, in turn, support.

Finally, the mentoring relationship won’t last for ever. Many mentoring schemes have a defined lifespan – one year, 18 months, maybe two years. If this is the case, at the end of the scheme, make sure the mentee is ready to move on and can find others to support them if necessary. You may both decide that there is value in continuing the relationship beyond the formally defined period. In this instance, it’s worth revisiting the purpose and groundrules as you may need, and want, to make a shift in the way you work together.

For those of you that are about to embark on a new mentoring relationship or perhaps want to re-engerise an existing mentoring relationship, I hope these tips have been useful and help you both to have a fruitful relationship.

We’d love to hear your experiences of being a mentor, or a mentee, as well as tips that you’d like to share. Please do add your comments below.

Look out for next month's blog on "Everest and Effectiveness".

Posted by Julie Turner

Handling Presentation Horrors

Gill — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 09:00:26 +0000

You’ve prepared your presentation, you know your subject, you’ve even rehearsed in front of the dog (but he wasn’t interested). So, why are you still having nightmares about what could go wrong?

When I work with groups to develop their Presentation Skills, I always ask them about their worst fears so that we can tackle them head on and work out ways to: (a) limit the chances of their worst fears coming true and (b) have a plan up their sleeve to cope with the situation if it does happen.

The most common presentation horrors are detailed here, along with some ideas to help you minimise or negate the impact they have on delivering a fluid and effective presentation.

So typically, what are the top 5 presentation horrors and how can you handle them if they happen to you?

1. Your mind goes blank

Most of us have experienced this phenomenon – you are mid flow and then, suddenly, your mind goes blank. Being thoroughly prepared and rehearsing your presentation is likely to reduce the chances of this happening but what if it happens anyway? Calmly taking a sip of water might bring your thoughts back but if not, in my experience, the best approach is to be honest and move on. Rather than staring intently at your notes (which now look like they’ve been written in Double Dutch) or blinking at your audience like a rabbit caught in headlights, be honest – calmly say something like:

“I wanted to make a specific point about this but it seems my mind’s gone blank – I’ll move on for now and come back to it, when it comes back to me!”

Chances are, as soon as you move on, the point you wanted to make will find its way back to the front of your brain. You will be forgiven for this if you handle it well.

2. Your audience don’t seem interested

To limit the chances of this happening, find out as much as you can about your audience beforehand and include facts, examples and anecdotes that relate to them and their situation. Involve them by asking rhetorical questions to keep them engaged. Use humour where you can – even serious subjects have opportunities for a light touch. If you’ve done all this and they still seem uninterested, be brave and say what you see:

“So, it looks like there’s a lack of enthusiasm in the room – if this isn’t hitting the mark it would be good to know what you need from me to put this right…or perhaps there’s some other context that I’m unaware of?”

This type of statement demonstrates that you want to do a good job and will have the effect of either re-energising your audience or opening up a discussion about what’s going on for them.

3. You don’t know the answer to a question

As long as you’re thoroughly prepared, it’s unlikely that you’ll be asked a question that you don’t know the answer to. If there’s any area of your presentation you don’t feel comfortable with, think about questions you could be asked and find out the answers in advance. You could also talk it through with a colleague.

What if you are asked a question which gets into more detail than you’d anticipated or covers an angle that you haven’t explored? Worst policy – wriggle your way out of it by making stuff up (this is NOT a good idea!). Best policy – be honest – say you don’t know or that you’d like to look into the answer in more detail before responding and make sure you get back to them. Don’t over apologise and lose credibility. Keep it brief and move on so that you don’t draw more attention to the fact that you can’t answer the question. You also have the option of using your audience as a resource – ask them what views or experience they have on the matter – if you’re lucky, one of them might just end up answering the question for you!

4. You have a technical hitch

First, as a preventative measure, make sure you know how the equipment works – I always arrive early and test it out. However, if it goes wrong anyway, DON’T PANIC! I’ve seen people frantically pulling at leads, pushing buttons or simply staring in disbelief at the offending article. This isn’t a pretty sight. Instead, suggest a 5 minute breather and assertively ask for help.

This approach takes the attention (and pressure) off YOU and invariably leads to someone coming to your aid because they think they know how to resolve it (or they know someone who can). If the problem can’t be fixed quickly, resort to an alternative solution – see what other equipment you could use in the moment to help you convey your message (a flipchart or whiteboard, perhaps). If your laptop dies and you are reliant on your slides to continue, make sure you’ve printed them off in advance and have a soft copy on a memory stick too.

5. Your audience aren’t “behaving” themselves

Ever experienced this… someone talking or whispering while you’re presenting; someone who makes comments that indicate a personal agenda that’s very different to yours; someone who is continuously tapping on their laptop or smart phone as you present? All of these are annoying and distracting – not just for you, but for the rest of the audience. If someone’s behaviour is annoying you, chances are its annoying and distracting for others too!

The best advice I can give is to: assertively NIP IT IN THE BUD. I learnt this lesson the hard way very early in my career. I let a situation snowball because I didn’t know how to tackle it. Don’t let that happen to you. Use a “light touch” to avoid your feedback coming across as confrontational, but DO be assertive. Highlight that the activity is distracting and ask the person if they need to take 5 minutes away from the presentation to get something done. The distracting behaviour is more likely to stop once they know it’s been recognised.

********

These are just some of the horrors that can happen, despite the fact that you plan, prepare and rehearse your presentations in advance. I hope I’ve given you some ideas about how you might cope with them to ensure you continue to deliver effective and engaging presentations.

We’d love to hear about your Presentation Horrors and how you’ve handled them, so that we can share ideas. Please add your comments, "horrors" or tips in the box below.

Look out for next month’s blog on how to be an effective mentor.

Posted by Gill Bonello

Gill

Maximising the potential of your Coaching Conversations

Caroline — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 09:31:13 +0000

It’s well known that Coaching is one of the essential tools in a leader’s toolkit. So, do you have it readily accessible in your toolkit or is it buried so deep that it rarely sees the light of day?

How do you ensure that Coaching is a readily accessible tool that helps you to grow and develop your people?

And how do you ensure you get the best results from your coaching activity?

The well known GROW model is a great structure for managing coaching conversations but, to really maximise your effectiveness as a coach, skilful use of a number of fundamental communication tools is required. (Click here for more detail about the GROW model for coaching.)

In this blog, I share my thoughts on how to use these skills so you can ensure Coaching is part of your leadership toolkit!

When working with coaching groups, I always start by asking what are the key skills and attributes of a coach. Of course, the list varies, depending on the group, but there are two skills that appear at the top of the list every single time:

Listening & Questioning

We all know how to listen and ask questions, but how do we best utilise these skills in coaching situations? If you can hone your questioning and listening skills, you'll be well on the way to conducting effective coaching conversations.

Listening

Listening is key in order to demonstrate that you value and respect the person you’re coaching. If you don’t listen, how can you ask the ‘right’ questions? But how do you actually listen and give your full attention to what the person is saying? So often, there is other ‘noise’ going on, either internally or externally, which stops us from truly listening.

Someone once said to me "are you really listening or are you just waiting to speak?". For me, this is a brilliant question in its own right. I’m sure you can think of many situations where you were doing exactly that…. waiting to speak! If there is something, front of brain, that you want to share with your coachee, it will stop you from listening as your brain will focus on what you want to say next. Whilst your coachee is talking, explaining their situation, it's tempting to start thinking of ways to solve their problem – but, as a coach, this is NOT YOUR job! Doing this will stop you from listening and may even mean that you miss some vital information that would help you get a full and accurate picture of the situation.

So, if you find yourself thinking about solutions at this early stage, jot them down as they come to you (but don't share them yet – save them until later when you have a complete and accurate picture of the situation) and then get back to listening. A great test to check if you're really listening is to see if you can accurately summarise what you've just heard!

Questioning

The GROW model provides you with a framework for asking questions in a structured way and you may have already developed your own repertoire of questions for each of the four stages.

Over the years I have developed my own bank of questions which I have 'at my fingertips' and can readily access at the appropriate time. For each stage of GROW, I'd like to share one or two key questions that may help you too.

GOAL – The Steven Covey principle of Begin with the End in Mindis a useful starting point for any coaching conversation so the question:

“What do you want to achieve?”

be it in this coaching session, short, long, or medium term, is a good place to start and I would follow it up with a subsequent question that asks:

“How will you know that you’ve achieved this/been successful?”

as this will help the coachee to visualise success so they are clearer about what they do and don’t want.

REALITY – This is about getting the coachee to articulate the current situation and, sometimes, it’s important here to grow the sense of problem and need so that the person creates their own motivation to act!

The questions:

“In what way does it IMPACT you, when ……?”

and

“How would it help if you were to resolve the situation?”

will help to develop a sense of dissatisfaction with the current situation and create a sense of need to do something about it.

OPTIONS - This is where possible solutions are discussed. It's useful here to help the individual really think through all the possibilities for themselves. Sometimes, you may have additional ideas that have not emerged from the options' generation discussion. You could, of course, just tell them your suggestion but that goes against the spirit of true coaching where your job is to help people realise their own potential in order to maximise their performance!

In these circumstances, I would pose the hypothetical question:

"What would happen if you put "x" in place?"

as this helps the coachee to consider other options. This question is more helpful than asking:

"Why don't you just do "x"?

as this is more leading and may not encourage the coachee to think the idea through.Of course, even if they do think it through, they may not act on it but at least they will have thought about another perspective!

WILL – Here, we're working to identify and clarify what they will actually do. This is one of my most used questions and gives me a real sense of how committed the coachee is to undertaking the work required.

Once the action and plan has been developed, you can ask:

"On a scale of 1 to 10, how committed are you to seeing this through?"

And, if their response is low, you can then ask:

"What needs to happen for it to be a 9 or 10?"

so you can then help them to think through what else needs to happen to increase their chances of success.

Really listening to what your coachee is telling you and subsequently asking good, open, questions will help you to really understand the context in which they are operating. Listening and then formulating the 'right' questions will ensure you help the coachee to generate their own solutions to which they are committed to achieve.

So, to what extent do you Listen and Question effectively in coaching conversations? Is coaching readily accessible in your leadership tool box?

What tried and tested questions do you use that you'd like to share with others? We'd really love to hear from you so please add your thoughts in the comments box below.

Look out for December's blog which is about How to Handle Presentation Horrors.

Posted by Caroline Lewis

ghgghf

Business Partnering – How to Develop your Credibility

Gill — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 08:00:12 +0000

Does your role involve you helping senior managers make effective business decisions?

…Have you moved from being a specialist 'expert' to working alongside managers in a more

consultative way?

…Is there an expectation that you need to be operating as a business partner with your

internal or external clients?

All of these scenarios require you to rely on skills which are in addition to your specific area of expertise but still require you to demonstrate credibility and gain trust.

So how can you develop your credibility? In this blog we offer three simple techniques that will develop and enhance your business partnering skills.

Your credibility will be built up over time and will depend on your ability to help clients get better results through analysis of needs and development of appropriate solutions. If you win their trust from the start, it will make your partnering job all the easier. There are three simple things you can do at the outset of a new project or business relationship to demonstrate your credibility……

1. Demonstrate your understanding

So often we nod and say we understand, but what is really impressive is if we are able to demonstrate our understanding by encapsulating, or summarising, the situation as we hear it.

This will give you a head start on getting to grips with what may be a complex scenario and, by demonstrating your ability to interpret and understand the complexity of the situation, your client will think you have a good head on your shoulders!

Achieve this by asking open questions, paraphrasing as you progress through the conversation and summarising at the end.

2. Control the process

Controlling the process is all about managing the conversation effectively. Sounds simple but how often do we fall into the trap of jumping from topic to topic because it is not clear where we were meant to be heading in the first place?

By controlling the process of the conversation, you are taking an early opportunity to demonstrate you’re a safe pair of hands. If you can elegantly organise the conversation to ensure it is effective, then your client gets a preview of what you could provide as an on-going partner and will be impressed and reassured! Don’t assume that your client will have an organised agenda or has thought about how to structure the conversation and don’t let yourself be intimidated into deference by the person’s seniority! 8 times out of 10, they won’t have had time to think about this and you get an 'easy win' in terms of your credibility.

One of the things I always do when I first sit down with clients is use a simple PEA introduction to set the overall purpose of the conversation, the endpoint that each of us wants, and the agenda we’ll need to cover to achieve that. (Take a look at our Meetings Blog for more info on using PEA.)

Additional elegance comes in your ability to signpost your way through the meeting. At each stage, neatly summarise where you’ve been and point the way to the next part of the agenda. This will enable both of you to stay on track and ensure you don’t walk away with only half the information you need.

3. Challenge the Client’s Perception

An early chance to demonstrate that you can be a 'critical friend' will demonstrate good value. The trick here is to 'be curious' rather than ‘challenging’ and use a light touch.

“I notice that you want to implement the new process in the next month and you have also talked about anticipating some teething troubles. I have a few questions about your timescale; perhaps we can come back to this later?”

By tactfully picking up on ambiguities, discrepancies, assumptions and limited perspectives, you signal to the client that your contribution will be substantive and your focus will be broad and strategic.

So how do you spot these? Look out for changes in body language that could indicate uncertainty or avoidance and listen out for aspects that are glossed over. Often, a question to check whether you have correctly understood will be enough to challenge their perception.

So, what are your tips for developing credibility? What are your experiences of becoming a business partner? If you’ve got any additional tips that you'd like to share, we'd love to hear from you - just add them into the comments box below. Also, if you try any of the tips above, let us know how you get on.

Look out for next month’s blog on Coaching Skills.

Posted by Shona Ward

khl

Two Fundamental Truths about Leadership

Gill — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 08:45:57 +0000

With so many differing views on leadership, how are you supposed to make sense of what you should be doing as a Leader?

What do you need to do to get it right?

If you want to know how to get it right, read on…….

To start with, it’s worth going back to the fundamentals.

When running my leadership programmes I often ask participants to name the Axioms (self evident truths) of Leadership.

How would you answer that question?

I often get lists of traits such as trust, integrity, communication, etc. Of course, all these are valid as they are about how you lead but they don’t define the truth about leadership.

For me, the Two most fundamental Axioms of Leadership are:

1. To be a leader you have to be going somewhere

2. To be a leader you must have followers.

Let’s examine what I mean by each of these:

1. To be a leader you have to be going somewhere

Leadership is about going somewhere, preferably to a better place! Leadership guru Warren Bennis rightly observes – “Too many bosses are driven and driving but going nowhere”.

At every level of an organisation, managers should be going somewhere as well as managing the status quo. You don’t even have to be a people manager to be a leader. You just have to have an idea to improve how things are done – to work ‘on the business’ as well as ‘in the business’. Your idea may be a process improvement, an improvement to customer service or a new product or service offering.

In other words, I’m talking about having a Vision.

I am reluctant to use the word Vision as it is so over used in leadership development but what I mean is an Aim. Steven Covey says “Begin with the end in mind”. So make sure you have a clear idea of where you are going and communicate this to others.

So, where are you going?

And, do your followers know?

2. To be a leader you must have followers

It’s possible to talk about self leadership but leadership is really about bringing people with you. To be a leader you must have followers. But why should anyone follow you?

This question was addressed by Goffee and Jones in the book “Why should anyone follow you?”

This question prompts self reflection:

What are your strengths as a leader?

What is it about you and the way you lead that would cause others to want to follow you?

The emphasis on the word want is deliberate: a leader may be able to get compliance, where others have to follow, but commitment, where people want to follow, is much more likely to get the best out of them – harnessing their energy, creativity and perseverance.

Goffee and Jones advocate more than authenticity – that you should “be yourself – more, with skill”. In other words, be self aware or aware of your natural strengths and weaknesses and then selectively reveal yourself using your acquired skill.

To summarise, there are two very important questions that you should ask yourself regularly:

1. Where am I going?

2. Why should anyone follow me?

So, do you know where you’re going and why anyone should follow you?

What are your Fundamental Truths (axioms) of Leadership? "To be a leader…….." Fill in the blank in the comments box below and if you want to share more, tell us how these truths impact on the way you lead?

We’d love to hear your thoughts so we can compile an exhaustive list to share with other leaders. We look forward to hearing from you.

Next month, look out for our Blog on Business Partnering.

Posted by Mark Procter

Difficult Conversations and How to Handle Them

Caroline — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 08:00:08 +0000

Do you ever PUT OFF having those ‘DIFFICULT’ conversations?

Is it because you:

… don’t want to upset people

… find it hard to use the right words

… wonder how they will react and if you’ll cope?

Do you want a straightforward, memorable, tool to help you prepare for and handle these difficult conversations?

If so, then read on. Handling difficult conversations is one of the most challenging things you’ll have to do as a manager or leader. It requires thought, preparation and skill to get it right.

So, whether you’re about to hold your first difficult conversation or if you’ve held many before and want to improve your technique, meet …………..…..

DEBRA

5 easy steps to follow from the start of the conversation through to the end.

Describe the issue and the impact of the issue: Explain that this conversation is an opportunity for each of you to have your say; it’s a discussion. Remember, you may find out something you don’t know! Explain the impact that their actions are having on the work / team.

Establish the reasons and get agreement that this is an issue: This is a real chance to let your team member talk! Use appropriate, open questions and listen to their responses. Through skilful use of open questions, try to get agreement that this is a problem. If you're able to do this, it's easier to work together to generate solutions.

Behaviour required: Remind your team member what’s expected of them and what constitutes ‘acceptable’ behaviour. When someone has 'broken the rules', you should state the behaviour / standards required and ensure they understand what’s expected.

Resolve the issue: If a problem exists, you need to discuss and agree an improvement plan. The best way to do this is to encourage them to suggest solutions to increase commitment, buy-in and motivation.

Actions to be agreed: Ask the individual specifically what they’ll do differently and how they’re going to meet the target agreed. A great question to ask here is: “How will we know?” so that measurable targets can be agreed. It’s a good idea to let them know how you’re going to support them with their action plan. Finally, set a date to review progress and make sure you do actually follow up!

So in 5, easy to remember, steps you’ll be well placed to handle those difficult conversations with confidence, knowing that you’ve got a structure to guide you through.

So when are you likely to need DEBRA by your side? How will she help you through this process?

You’ve read this far, so make it worth your while – take some action! Let us know how you get on and your thoughts on how DEBRA helped you.

If you’ve got any additional techniques that you’d like to share about handling these types of conversations, we’d love to hear from you – just add them into the comments box below. Look out for next month's blog on The Truths about Leadership.

Posted by Caroline Lewis