What People Managers need to know - Part Two

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 www.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

http://www.peoplediscovery.co.uk/PD/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Thinking-skills.mp3

What People Managers need to Know - Part One

Managers need to know about beliefs!

Over the next week, I will look at 3 basic psychological components which great people managers instinctively, if not unconsciously already know.  During my career, I have gained management, learning and human resources skills.  However, my basic understanding about “how people tick” has been the most influential factor in creating successful teams and enthused employees.

In Part One, I take a quick tour around our belief system.
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 by Boy zone

“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.

Now don’t get me wrong; 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.

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.”

So why then is an understanding about beliefs vital for managers?  If you know that your people act and react in accordance with their beliefs then that is extremely useful information.   No.  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 influence and persuade your employees to buy into your mission and plans.

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, they were still unhappy.  Still criticised and still caused some 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 ethically change beliefs 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.

If you would like to know more, or want to claim your free consultation.  Contact us by visiting www.peoplediscovery.co.uk .
Watch out for Part 2 in the next few days.

This blog is available in audio.  If you’re not able to see the audio buttons please visit http://www.peoplediscovery.co.uk/2012/02/24/what-people-managers-need-to-know-part-one/

Can a Sales Person be 100% Honest?

Welcome to my second guest blogspot – I am really pleased to introduce Richard Lane of durhamlane, Sales Consultancy.  Richard has a fresh and honest approach to his expertise which helped me when I was first starting up.    Much gratitude to Richard for his blog post.  You can find more about Richard and durhamlane below.  Enjoy!

Sales and Integrity?

“Can a sales person be 100% honest? That would make for an interesting blog post” a good friend said to me a while ago.  The question has been playing on my mind ever since. I suppose a similar question would be is something Black or White. To me, being a sales professional relies on being able to see the colours in-between – or ‘grayscale’ to use the language of my HP printer.

If we relate “100% honesty” to having integrity, being the consummate professional and always trying to do the right thing by your clients and prospects then it is essential.  Success in Sales means being able to navigate around a customer’s organisation – listening here, offering advice and providing feedback there. It is not our place to make controversial statements or to disenfranchise. Rather we must challenge – where and when appropriate – and build rapport and relationships that make someone want to buy from us. Offering value, becoming a trusted advisor and delivering products and services that have a positive impact.

There are times when it is better to stay quiet rather than speak up, others when we focus on one feature at the expense of another. Does this mean you are being dishonest? Only if you do so in the knowledge that you are not offering your prospect or customer the best solution possible.

The Sales Profession has built itself a reputation that not many envy. Perhaps this is because of a tendency to focus on short-term success. Worse, Management has pushed a culture of short-termism. This type of self-preservation is not long-lasting. Trust rapidly disintegrates. The most important sale is not the first to a new customer but the second – when you have successfully delivered so that they want to come back for more.

I know lots of great sales people who are focused on developing win-win relationships built on trust, reliability and professionalism. The word cloud above comes from a survey we ran a year or so ago where we asked sales people what first words came to mind when they thought of Sales. We intend to run it again soon and will share the results.

The Sales Profession knows it has to do better and it is rising to the challenge. I could point you to many sites both here in the UK, the US and around the rest of the world where sales individuals and organisations are helping others to make a lasting difference. Just four examples of sales pro’s I respect include:

Dave Stein at ES Research
Paul Castain at Sales Playbook
Neil Warren at Modern Selling
Donal Daly at The TAS Group

2012 will see all of us here at durhamlane continuing do our bit to put a positive dent in the sales universe. What can you do to put Pride back into Sales?

Before becoming a recognised sales trainer and coach, Richard spent his career in sales, management and sales leadership positions for learning and software/technology companies.  Having won numerous global blue-chip customers, Richard successfully managed global client teams to service and grow these accounts.  His passion is in crafting solutions designed to solve complex business challenges, always with the goal of creating win-win and long-term value.

Business fit, business value and long-term relationships are at the heart of everything Richard does.  He is driven by a desire to raise the bar of the sales profession in the UK.  Having worked every sales role, he has an instinctive ability to relate to both business owners and their individual sales staff, motivating, increasing confidence and providing inspiration.  No matter the title, Richard has always kept selling; leading by example.

He is a blogger, a runner, a blues guitar player, a self-confessed “non-techie-techie” and a member of the Institute of Sales & Sales Management. To find out more about Richard and durhamlane, visit:www.durhamlane.co.uk. To sign up to durhamlane’s newsletter, visit:  http://www.durhamlane.co.uk/newsletter-signup  You can also follow Richard on twitter @richardmlane and @durhamlane

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 bottom line:  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?
Later this week, I have a great insight from a brilliant guest blogger with a sales background who talks about values, in sales.  If you ever question the integrity of people who want to sell you something, then watch this space!

Growing as a Coach – A facilitator’s advice

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  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.

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.