The middle manager is back!

For some time the role of the ‘middle manager’ has been discussed in less than complimentary terms. Now it seems the wheel has turned. In a new management series, Leading from the Center, (See Recommended Resource section below) a new and positive perspective is being placed on those people in leadership roles in the middle of organisations.

The authors argue there are 6 key roles that these ‘leaders in the center of organisations’ need to play:

• Strategy Translator: involves understanding and translating the broader organisational focus and direction in a way that can be committed to and then implemented by their team.
  
  Some questions to ask yourself and others here: How well do I ‘get’ the overall organisational strategy? To what extent does it impact on my day to day activities? How well do I help those I manage, align their priorities with the organisational direction? How would I know this is happening well?
  
  
• Influencer and Collaborator: involves communicating and working across organisational boundaries to achieve greater results.
  
  Some questions to ask yourself and others here: How well do I create and maintain effective relationships with other departments and teams in the organisation? How well do I manage the competing commitments of team/unit vs the wider organisation? What would other managers say about how well my team contributes to wider organisational success?
  
  
• Leader of Teams: involves facilitating team alignment, commitment, creativity and communication to deliver the desired results.
  
  Some questions to ask yourself and others here: How well do I lead my team? To what extent are we clear on goals and purpose? Are we aligned with broader organisational priorities? Are our roles clear so that we know and agree on who does what? How effective is our internal communication?
  
  
• Coach: involves growing capability, stretching people, giving feedback to help individuals learn and develop.
  
  Some questions to ask yourself and others here: How well do I coach my people? How well do I listen? Are my questions penetrating and leading to insight and awareness? How much am I talking during coaching conversations? To what extent do my coaching conversations lead to ACE – specific Actions – greater Clarity and increased Energy for the person I might be coaching?
  
  
• Innovator: involves bringing a creative focus to the way work gets done so that fresh approaches to organisational challenges and client needs are regularly being explored.
  
  Some questions to ask yourself and others here: How often do I find myself looking for new ways to ‘tweak’ or improve the way things get done? In what ways do I challenge the status quo? How comfortable am I with the way things are?
  
  
• Owner of Systems and Processes: involves taking ownership of systems and processes and being active in streamlining them so that they work better or replacing them if they are no longer working.
  
  Some questions to ask yourself and others here: How much do I own the various systems in our organisation? Do what extent do I see myself as operating mindlessly as a user of various processes rather than as refiner and enhancer of processes that may have outlived their usefulness?

As well as helping rethink aspects of how we operate in our own roles, a framework such as this can be helpful, when coaching others...

• It provides a way of seeing middle management roles from a different perspective, creating greater awareness and choice.
• It helps focus coaching conversations in highest leverage areas
• It has relevance across a wide range of organisations and industries

Middle manager roles occupy a place in organisational life that impact significantly on what actually gets done. Making explicit, these implied key roles can assist in ensuring that things ‘get done’ in smarter and more intentional ways.

Have a great month!

John Campbell

The internal voice or ‘chatter in the head’ has long been identified as a source of influence on the successful completion of goals. More often than not the ‘voice in the head’ is viewed as an obstacle to success since it seems frequently to undermine confidence and challenge our ability to undertake the goals and challenges that we aspire towards. Quite a lot has been written about the power of affirmations and positive statements as a way to rewrite the voice in the head ‘tapes’ so that they are more supportive of what we might be trying to accomplish.

Now it seems that there might be a bit more to it...

Recent research1 at the University of Illinois investigated the impact of positive affirmation self statements, and the findings indicate that self questions may have more influence in building motivation and commitment to goal achievement than self statements!

In experiments conducted by Professor Dolores Albarracin , participants , prior to undertaking a simple word puzzle task were required to either spend 1 minute wondering whether they would complete a task or telling themselves they would. Participants showed more success on tasks when they asked themselves whether they would complete it than when they told themselves they would. Similar results were confirmed in follow up experiments.

"We are turning our attention to the scientific study of how language affects self-regulation," Professor Albarracin said. "Experimental methods are allowing us to investigate people's inner speech, of both the explicit and implicit variety, and how what they say to themselves shapes the course of their behaviors."

"The popular idea is that self-affirmations enhance people's ability to meet their goals," Professor Albarracin said. "It seems, however, that when it comes to performing a specific behavior, asking questions is a more promising way of achieving your objectives."

All this seems to add further to the mystery and the impact of questions, both those posed to us by others and those we ask ourselves. We know that the questions we ask have a powerful role to play in moving those we coach towards new insights and new actions, now it seems that the unspoken, internalised questions people ask of themselves have an impact as well. All the more reason to keep building our repertoire of incisive and thought-shifting questions!

Happy coaching
John Campbell

1University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2010, June 1). Will we succeed? The science of self- motivation. Science Daily. Retrieved September 7, 2010, from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100528092021.htm

The coaching industry has grown significantly in the past decade with increasing awareness of what coaching is; more organisations using coaching as a people development strategy; more university programs and more PhD’s being undertaken into coaching related research.

All this is good. This growing interest though brings with it greater questions and challenges about the impact of coaching.

A recent research paper published by Jericho Partners in the UK (Gilkes, 2010)* sought to identify current practices in organisational coaching. A qualitative survey and interview process involving senior HR professionals in 17 leading UK firms across different industries concluded that... “The organisations surveyed were generally found to be using coaching in a relatively unsophisticated way. Executive coaching was often tactical rather than strategic and the systems and processes remain quite under‐developed.”

In response Gilkes developed the Coaching Maturity Profile as a framework for thinking through some of the strategic and system issues that can impact coaching effectiveness. He proposed that organisational coaching be evaluated against 9 criteria:

• Strategic or Tactical?
  Is coaching positioned to support broader organisational strategy or is it more a response to immediate needs?
• Organisation based or Individual based?
  Is coaching positioned with an organisational wide improvement methodology or is just something that selected individual leaders experience?
• Integrated or Stand Alone?
  Is coaching incorporated into existing leadership development initiatives or does it operate apart from these?
• Controlled or Chaotic?
  Is coaching established and monitored in a structured way or does it just happen?
• For Many or for Few?
  Is coaching positioned as a broad development initiative that many participate in via external and internal coaches or is it just for a select few?
• Investment or Cost?
  Is coaching seen as a longer term investment in people or is it viewed as just a cost?
• Outcomes Measured or Outcomes Assumed?
  Are the results of coaching interventions evaluated systematically or are anecdotal positive comments seen as sufficient evaluation?
• Professional Selection or Contacts Led Selection?
  Are coaches engaged on the basis of rigorous selection criteria or is it who happens to know someone with whom they had a good experience in the past?
• Focused on Benefits or Focused on Disappointments?
  Is the focus on how to maximise and extend the benefits or coaching or more on the challenges associated with the organisational factors potentially undermine coaching effectiveness?

While this brief report was based on a small sample it does raise key questions about the strategic context of coaching in organisations and offers some suggestions about how to move forward on some of the challenges.

Currently we are in the process of undertaking some of our own small research projects evaluating the impact of several coaching interventions in which we have been involved. Watch this space for more the results and trends emerging from these studies.

Those of us committed to coaching will do well to consider these questions and better still integrate responses to them as we set up coaching projects so that we can ensure that coaching retains a place as a legitimate and valued people development approach.

Happy coaching!
John Campbell

*Gilkes, John (2010) The Challenge of Coaching in the Current Climate. Jericho Partners. London: UK To view full report click on this link

Over recent months we have featured a number of articles on feedback and the response to these has been very positive. It seems that this is something that most of us have some challenges around – we believe we can both give it and receive it better. In response to the interest in this topic our Queensland associate, Aubrey Warren, takes the discussion further. ...

A friend told me about an interesting experience he's had upon moving into a new role.

He's committed to ongoing learning and development - for himself and those in his team. As part of that he actively seeks feedback and he's learned to make a habit of giving feedback as well. But his new environment has reminded him that feedback is very much part of the culture that we create.

He'll say to someone, "Can I give you some feedback?". The reaction he typically gets in this new environment is: A concerned look ... A hesitant "okay" ... Folded arms, tightened facial muscles, a furrowed brow. Wariness.

He can't know what's happening inside the person's brain, but all the externals suggest that their reaction to an invitation to get some feedback is not good. Which bothers him for three reasons: The first is that it suggests that "feedback" is pretty widely interpreted as "bad news", "correction", "failure" or "problem".

The second is that this team has no other competing interpretation for the word "feedback", whereas his previous team understood it in much broader and more positive terms.

The third is that it makes his task of passing on constructive feedback more of a drama than it should be. Because typically what my friend is setting up when he asks "Can I give you some feedback?" is an exchange in which he wants to pass on some supportive acknowledgement or appreciation for what the person or group has done.

The good news is that despite the early wariness about feedback, his intentional efforts are being noticed. And appreciated.

"Feedback" shouldn't be a word solely associated with "bad news", "wrong" or "performance problem". Consider four types of feedback that can be part of healthy and positive everyday workplace life:

• Instructive - there are few more frustrating things than being given something to do without proper instruction (and often without clear performance expectations). Instructive feedback enables us to improve, develop and refine. Giving instructive feedback shows respect for the task and the person performing it.

• Corrective - yes, there are times when, despite instructions, we fail to follow procedures or meet standards. There's no sense letting mistakes, faults, failures, or poor performance go on unchecked. No one wins from ignorance. And there's no respect for either the task or the individuals involved if we don't correct problems. (And few things erode our authority more quickly than failing to address problems in a timely and professional manner.) Corrective feedback should be matter-of-fact, directive, clear and specific. It doesn't need to come with an apology. It loses impact if it comes with personal judgement. And of course it will be rightly ignored and resisted if it's delivered with abuse or aggression.

• Supportive - perhaps the least acknowledged but potentially most powerful form of feedback. It's said that we tend to take strengths (our own and others') for granted and damage control weaknesses. And that's often how feedback works. We remain silently grateful for the good things people do and summon up courage to tackle the faults in emergencies. Supportive feedback takes a number of forms including empathising when things are tough, encouraging in the face of challenges, acknowledging and participating. It's perhaps the easiest and most "everyday" form of feedback we can engage in.

• Appreciative - similar to being supportive, appreciative feedback actively says "thank you". It looks for opportunities to celebrate and highlight achievement, persistence, ingenuity, creativity, character, service, high standards, and positive example. It respects unique contributions and outstanding endeavours and sometimes (though not always by any means) comes with a tangible expression of gratitude in the form of a reward or gift. It's about "catching people doing something right". It's amazing how motivating a simple expression of appreciation can be.

When we consider these four types of feedback, most of us would probably say "yes, please" if we were asked "would you like some feedback?”

In Sharpening the Focus: Managing performance in the APS (2006), the Corporate Leadership Council noted that some of the key factors shown to drive employee performance are: "the fairness and accuracy of informal feedback the employee receives, and their manager's emphasis on the employee's performance strengths" (p16).

Note the word "informal". Feedback is too often seen as some formal - even artificial - form of communication. In fact, the more we normalise it the richer and more useful it becomes. In healthy relationships feedback is frequent, informal and, of course, honest and constructive. Because the goal of feedback is to build up, not tear down.

And one of the most powerful ways to create that culture is to help people become confident enough to actually invite feedback.

So, what will be the response when you next ask, "would you like some feedback?” Whatever the initial response, you can take a step towards better conditions for success if your feedback becomes known for being appropriately instructive, corrective, supportive and appreciative.


Aubrey Warren represents growth coaching international in Queensland and is Australia’s only Master Trainer of Situational Leadership®

Giving feedback is one of the key coaching skills that separates the average coach from the outstanding coach. When feedback is skilfully integrated into the coaching process it adds a level of immediacy and edge to coaching conversations that often brings breakthrough results.

Feedback though is frequently seen to be about helping people identify blind spots and to take action on things that need developing. Since these conversations can raise tricky emotions and sometimes lead to defensive reactions we think carefully about how we do this. It seems though that we ‘underdo’ how we go about giving positive feedback. Since this is often a more pleasant, easier task we don’t put as much time and planning into how we do it. As a result we ‘under-leverage’ positive feedback. With some thought and planning our positive feedback can have greater impact.

Here are some higher leverage ways to deliver positive feedback...

Deliver it – don’t just think about it!It is not uncommon to have thoughts about the good and effective work that our team members do. Too often though this is all that happens! We acknowledge to ourselves the good work that a team member has done but it does not always get expressed. Clearly this has no impact at all. So if you think it, translate that into a note or comment so that people know what you are thinking!

Be Direct: Deliver your positive feedback directly to the person. This especially applies when in a group context when praise can often be delivered in the 3rd person. It has much less impact this way

Be Specific: When positive feedback is specific people are clear about the action or behaviour that is being praised and its impact on the other person, team or organisation. As a result it is more likely to great repeated.

Make it Timely: Feedback loses some punch when it is separated from the action that is being acknowledged so give positive feedback as close to the event as possible.

Be Non Attributive: Our positive feedback has greater impact when we make it about how we have specifically experienced the person and their action. “I appreciated the extra time you took to support the new member of the team. It really helped me out”, works better than an attributive comment, “I appreciate what a generous person you are!”Attributing the generalised quality ‘generosity’ weakens the impact and even allows the person to more easily discount the comment since she may not see herself as being all that generous.

Mix it up to Suit the Person and the Occasion: There a number of ways in which positive feedback can be delivered. In the Business Coaching Toolkit* the authors suggest that positive feedback can be given in a number of mediums and contexts... It can be spoken or written, public or private, expected or unexpected. Some of these will work better with some people and in some contexts. Think about what suits the person and the occasion and add some variety to how you do this.

It can sometimes be tempting to think that positive feedback is not that necessary. Why should people receive positive praise for just doing their jobs? Well maybe. When we are regular givers of positive feedback it means that when people hear the comment... “I’d like to give you some feedback!” they will not automatically be assuming that it is going to be about something that is wrong! And we now know that the positive emotions that flow from authentic, positive feedback are not just warm feelings – they actually serve to help us be more creative, productive and resilient. That’s something worth shooting for!

Have a good coaching month!

John Campbell

If culture is about ‘the way we do things around here’ then building a coaching culture is about embedding a conversational culture that contributes to a learning environment focused on constant improvement, where everyone feels confident and motivated in their roles (O’Bree, forthcoming). Effective school leaders help develop school cultures that embody shared values and beliefs and promote caring and trust among all members (Leithwood and Riehl, 2003).

We interviewed three Principals who were leading their school’s development by a strategic and sustained approach to coaching conversations and skills. Each of them had initially been interested in coaching for their own professional development but soon saw the potential it held for a broader way of working with all staff in the school. Each of these Principals had participated in one of growth coaching international’s coach training programs.

Margaret, Principal of a newly established secondary school, was trying to develop head teachers’ leadership capacity, shared ‘ownership’ and to have a process for supporting staff. “We decided that that was what we were looking for – that empowering process of owning what you were saying, owning where it sent you and clarifying what your goals would be.”

For Sharon, Principal of a large primary school, coaching was initially an “opportunity for people to explore who they were and become a little more than they were … there was also an opportunity for us to all learn to be able to talk to each other more productively”. All staff were given the opportunity to participate in coaching.

Linda, the Principal of a School for Special Purposes (SSP), wanted to build distributed leadership. “I wasn’t happy with my leadership around developing leadership in the rest of the team … I was looking for something to give me a bit of a boost and to get it kick started with others … I wanted us to start having a bit of headspace around leadership being more than a list of jobs.”

What elements of the coaching approach were important?

Principals were asked whether any particular elements or aspects of the coaching model stood out as being important. The capacity of well-articulated goals to be drivers of change was prominent. Margaret, in a newly established school where building a whole school vision was a priority, saw this as critical. “The goal setting was a lynchpin for the whole process because setting ‘where do we want to be in five years time?’ was really important.” At Sharon’s school, working towards an individual goal has created more pathways for professional dialogue and reflection: “People in the school are talking about ‘my goals’ and ‘this is what I have to do for my goal’ and ‘I have to follow that through’.” The concept of working towards an authentic and meaningful goal became motivating and purposeful.

At this school, the Options phase of a coaching conversation was also important and offered opportunity for personal empowerment: “They (staff) might say ‘How might I do this?’ Or ‘What resources are available to me?’ Or talk to somebody else about ‘qualities I have that would enable me to achieve this goal effectively’. I like that part because I see it as empowering. I see that people can be a bit freed from themselves … when you see people who have actually found a way forward for themselves, it’s life changing for some people.”

Another element that was important was the use of the GROWTH structure for a ‘difficult conversation’ – the one you might otherwise avoid having because it is too challenging or threatening. In all three schools it had become easier for Principals and executive to give feedback on performance because they had learned how to do this as part of their coach training. As Margaret said, “The real power of it was when it started to trickle down with Head Teachers talking to their staff. They had a structure that they had experienced for a number of sessions. They could use it. It’s simple to follow, it makes sense and it can be done effectively.” Linda also commented on the benefits of being able to give effective feedback: “One of the greatest advantages for all of us has been that we’ve felt more courageous, having a model to use in giving feedback has been very empowering.”

 

What were the factors contributing to success?

Principals identified several factors that supported the learning and practice of coaching conversations, including:

• an executive team who were supportive of each other and willing to share ideas, successes and disappointments;
• a sense of a shared learning journey where all executive were learners, exploring the possibilities of coaching for their school;
• a structure for coaching conversations, such as the GROWTH model, that provided a framework and sequence;
• an explicit commitment to coaching within the school plan, so that funding for professional learning in coaching skills is seen as an investment in the school;
• leadership support, both from the Principal and from their supervisors, especially those who had also had some coach training.

What were some of the challenges to success?

All whole-school change initiatives bring challenges. Building a coaching culture needs that precious commodity: time. It can also place demands on the school’s professional learning budget to meet the costs of training and in some cases, of one-on-one coaching of executive as a follow-up to training, to assist in embedding coaching into leadership practice. As with other changes, there is always normative pressure that makes old habits quite resistant, and therefore it is difficult to ‘keep true’ to new intentions. Coaching is about helping others take responsibility for issues rather than offering solutions. This is often referred to as ‘asking’ versus ‘telling’. Initially, this can be a challenging practice. “It is very easy to revert to old habits and just keep being a ‘solution’ person, just so things get done between now and the end of the year,” one Principal observed.

Another challenge observed by Linda was that of being explicit to staff about the Executive’s intention to use a coaching approach, “to start the year off with staff and be up front and say ‘we’re using a coaching model in our supervisory practices’ and let them know that we’re learning it.” However, there can also be an upside to this, as she noted: “The fact that we’re taking on something new and learning it and practising on (staff) gives them permission to try something new and practise, make mistakes and recover from it – move forward.”

How is coaching supporting the school’s development?

For each of the schools in this study, changes in ‘the way we do things around here’ were already happening.

At Linda’s school, the GROWTH model is being used for decision making and planning. “We’ve embedded the coaching model in some key activities at the moment … the formation of classes (and) the Learning Support Team. We’ve identified some key decision making forums and some staff forums where it’s important to just keep practising, asking questions. We have used it for our end of year planning for next year – we put some goals up, then we’ve been working more around team coaching than individual coaching.”

Sharon observed staff growth, particularly in readiness to address ‘hard’ conversations as a result of growing confidence in using the GROWTH model for feedback. For her, this was related to something she was deeply passionate about: “this notion of dealing with people and moving them forward in the profession in a real and deep way”, which she felt was generally not done well in organisations. She gave this anecdote as an example:

“The other day I overheard part of a conversation and I thought ‘wow there’s some courage going on in this conversation’. There was courage from (an executive staff member) to have a conversation in a way that was supportive but there was a weighing up. I thought ‘we wouldn’t have been there four years ago, without coaching’. I wouldn’t have been there saying ‘what are you going to do about it’ and she wouldn’t have looked at me and said ‘it’s my responsibility, I have to go and do this, haven’t I?’ Those words wouldn’t have been said between us … and coaching got us there.”

This observable impact on the development of individuals as well as the whole school aligns with Sir John Whitmore’s definition of coaching: ‘unlocking a person’s potential to maximise their own performance. It is helping them to learn rather than teaching them’ (Whitmore, 2005). Given that so many people find it hard to give effective feedback, this is a critical skill area for professional learning.

Margaret was enthused about how professional coaching conversations had become a vehicle for shared ownership: “In our context, there was a process of clarifying that set of shared beliefs as leaders in our school. That was the most powerful thing about it and it has helped us grow by giving us the tools to have conversations that were future focused.” The capacity for professional dialogue to build engagement and shared values and aspirations has been noted in studies of relational trust (Bryk and Schneider, 2002) and in community building (Preskill et al, 2000).

Conclusion

Each of these three schools was using coaching as a strategy to move away from a culture of ‘telling’ to a culture of ‘asking’, where staff were working towards individual and collective goals in a collaborative context and taking more responsibility for generating their own solutions to issues. A fundamental belief in the potential of staff, rather than their limitations, guided this process. ‘Asking’ people how they plan to move forward will take more time than simply ‘telling’ them or the team what to do, although it is an investment that can save a lot of time in the longer term. Coaching was building distributed leadership and responsibility.

The final word comes from Linda, reflecting on changes made possible by focused reflection, using the ‘balcony and the dance floor’ metaphor (Heifetz & Linsky, 2002).

“The nicest thing about coaching is that it has opened our minds to other possibilities, for ourselves as leaders in schools, and for the ways we work with other people. That balcony time – just taking time off the dance floor to have a bit of a look and a bit of reflection - has given us some time to have a think about that and to think about how we want things to be different, and some strategies in moving in that direction rather than just thinking ‘that’s a good idea’.”

References

• Bryk, A. S. & Schneider, B. (2002). Trust in schools: A core 1. resource for improvement. New York: Russell Sage.
• Heifetz, R. & Linsky, M. (2002). Getting on the balcony: The 2. single most important skill for exercising leadership. Retrieved 16 March 2006 from www.ritinjai.org/articles/marty.htm
• Leithwood, K. & Reihl, C. (2003). What we know about 3. successful school leadership. Retrieved 12 June 2007 from http://eric.uoregon.edu/pdf/whatweknow103.pdf
• O’Bree, M. (Forthcoming). The leadership coaching guide: For 4. growing you and your organisation. (2nd ed). Sydney: Growth Coaching International.
• Preskill, S., Vermilya, L. & Otero, G. (2000). Skills for democracy: 5. Promoting dialogue in schools. Melbourne: Hawker Brownlow Education.
• Suggett, H. (2006). Time for Coaching. Nottingham: NCSL.6.
• Whitmore, J. (2005). Coaching for performance: GROWing 7. people, performance and purpose. (3rd ed.). London: Nicholas Brealey.

As we begin another year it’s good to look ahead and to be intentional about what we would like to achieve and be. After all if you don’t know where you are planning to be in 12 months time it is not likely to just happen.

Perhaps though you have set goals before or made resolutions in the past only to forget them by February. What’s the secret then for making this year a year of real, sustained achievement and growth?

In a series of studies Golwitzer (1999) found that when people had clear ‘implementation intentions’ around their goals and plans they were much more likely to persist in striving to achieve these goals than if they did not. So what do these implementations look like? In fact they relate closely to the Tactics and Habits steps in the gci GROWTH Model.

Golwitzer’s research supported the value of:

• Identifying specific next steps and the what, when and where around these next steps. When these things were identified and made explicit the actions were more likely to take place. So in coaching conversations it is worth pushing for specifics of time and place when next step actions begin to emerge. Leaving them vague and unclear, almost always mean they just won’t happen. It is helpful to ask: What is the very next thing you need to do to progress this? What day next week will you do it? What time?
  
  
• Anticipating barriers to achievement and identifying specific actions to be ‘triggered’ if these barriers occurred. When these contingency actions were pre-identified before the potential derailing event, goal achievement was again, much more likely.

It is helpful to ask: What might happen that could get in the way of you sustaining your     focus and effort on this? If that does happen what alternative actions could you put in place to respond to that?
And some additional tried and proven tips for ensuring your plan for the year really does lead to sustained achievement...

• Start quickly
  Begin to get your plan for the year moving within 24 hours of finalising it. Getting started immediately gets the momentum going and gives a sense of being on your way. That feeling of getting started provides fuel for the longer journey.


• Make it visible
  Post your plan up somewhere you can see it on a daily basis. This way it stays top of mind and means that you are more likely to keep doing things that contribute to achieving your plan.


• Make it public
  Talking through your plan with a partner or friend puts you ‘on the line’ and builds your commitment to keep going when things get tough.


• Get some help
  Regular check in times with a coach or someone who will keep you on track may well be the best action you can take to achieve your goals. Making a time to connect monthly with this person to rate your progress, celebrate successes and set tasks for the next month is a powerful way to keep the momentum going for a successful year.

So get going and make it a great year!

Reference: Golwitzer ,P.M.(1999) Implementation intentions: simple effects of simple plans. American Psychologist 54(7) 493-503

While reading a recent biography these words, No reserve, No retreat, No regrets, emerged as a wonderful summary of this person’s very full life. As we head towards the close of one year and the start of another, it can be helpful for us to reflect on what’s been happening and to set our sights on how to make the most of the coming year.

How would things be different in your work world, in your personal world, if come December 2010 -No reserve, No retreat, No regrets - captured the essence of the way you had led your team, managed your department or school and lived your life? What would it take for this to be true for you this coming year?

What would it take for you to work and live with No Reserve?

It is not uncommon for many of us to live and work holding things back. Somehow if we have not committed 100% to a task or project we protect ourselves if things don’t work out. Giving all we have to a project and then seeing it unravel is too much to contemplate.

What difference would it make though if you went for it with No Reserve this coming year? How much more impact would you have if you did this? How much more would you have to celebrate if you did this? What’s getting in the way of you doing this?

What would it take for you to work and live with No Retreat?

Sometimes we start well – with good intentions - but the obstacles make things messy and difficult. It all starts to get too hard so we pull back, perhaps modifying our goal to something easier or putting it off until later when circumstances will be more favourable. Now these may well be the right choices to make but all too often we retreat from our original plan through default rather than deliberate choice.

What would it look like if you pursued your goals with vigour and persistence? What could you contribute if you worked and lived fully engaged in every priority project and relationship? What would you enjoy most about every project and relationship if you had contributed in this way?

What would it take for you to work and live with No Regrets?

We are where we are - we are who we are as a result of a host of decisions we have made across our lifetimes. We constantly decide about study, about career, about relationships, about family and a myriad of other things. All of these choices take place in a given moment in time, all of them with future implications that we cannot entirely predict. So what would it take for you to get to the end of next year with no regrets, having confidently made the calls that will shape next year’s experiences?

2010: a year with no reserve, no retreat and no regrets. Imagine what it would like look like...

Now get started on making a great year happen.

John Campbell, Director

Influence is a 24-7-365 occupation. Whether at home, work or school, we are all attempting to influence others as well as being the objects of others’ attempted influence.

We are asked for our support, our opinion, our cooperation, our input, our attention, our compliance. And we try to get others to support our projects, give us their input, cooperate with us, attend to our priorities.

The reality, however, is that influence is a challenge. And often we “err on the side of caution” or lower our expectations about the likely outcome of our influencing attempts.

“People tend to be better copers than influencers,” write the authors of Influencer: The power to change anything (McGraw-Hill 2008). “The fact that many of us don’t realise that it’s our duty to become good at exerting influence causes us a great deal of grief. Instead of owning up to our responsibility of becoming effective agents of change and then going about the task of improving our influence repertoire (much like an athlete running laps or a chess player learning moves), we grumble, threaten, ridicule, and, more often than not, find ways to cope.”

Now, you and I aren’t like that, of course, but we probably know people who are … So, how can we move from simply “coping” to more effective influence?

“The breakthrough discovery of most influence geniuses is that enormous influence comes from focusing on just a few vital behaviours,” write the authors of Influencer. “They start by asking: In order to improve our existing situation, what must people actually do?”

This is an apparently obvious point, but one that is commonly neglected. We want something done, we want something changed, we want something stopped. And of course the primary tool we have to use is communication - words. So we talk. We explain, we reason, we argue, we (try to) persuade. And sometimes we get the change, improvement, task or problem fixed.

Sometimes, of course, nothing really changes. Or the response is confused, uncertain, or only partial. And sometimes our exhortations are ignored.

Just because there is a good reason for something, just because it makes sense, just because we see the value in it doesn’t mean action will follow. It doesn’t mean people know what action to take - or what course of action is the best.

Perhaps what is missing in such instances is a clear focus on the behaviour we want changed or adopted.

Sometimes, particularly for those who are “wired” to reason and explain, the information flow can confuse or obscure the actions required. The assumption is that if we’ve explained the situation or the rationale, people will intuitively know what to do.

But it’s not always that clear. “So what do you want me to do?” we’ve all sometimes find ourselves wondering after a lengthy explanation of some situation. The reason we ask is because there’s no clarity about what, if any, behaviours or actions are required. And the absence of clarity around this leads to hesitation, assumptions, guesswork or inaction.

We know from communication research that there’s a “pyramid” of responsiveness to information. At the base level we are aware that we’ve been communicated with. At the next level we pay attention to the message. Higher up the pyramid we may acknowledge the message, we may take an attitude toward it, we may even agree with it … but still we haven’t taken any action! Of course, the assumption we often work from when we communicate is that our information will “naturally” lead to action.

So before attempting to influence someone the following clear steps are helpful…

1. Clarify for yourself what the task is - what specifically needs to be done in order to comply with your request, desire, preference or requirement? What should the new/changed/improved situation look like? What specifically will those involved need to do to effect the change?
2. Remind yourself that not everyone is as ready (able, willing, confident) as you may be to carry out the required behaviours. Do your readiness diagnosis to determine how much you need to prescribe the behaviours and how much you can negotiate or delegate.
3. Having clarified the realities of task and readiness, you can now go about your influencing task using the appropriate influencing behaviours: using the most effective mix of directive and/or supportive behaviours to direct, explain, encourage or enable the change you are seeking. And be sure to keep the focus on behaviours: what needs to be done. Just imparting knowledge or information does not mean you’re going to get behaviours that lead to action.

Focusing on required behaviours is a key to effective influence and an important means of improving performance. As W. Edwards Deming said: “It is not enough to do your best; you must know what to do and then do your best.”

Reference: Patterson, K., Grenny, J., Maxfield, D., McMillan, R.(2008) Influencer: The power to change anything. McGraw-Hill. NY:NY

Aubrey Warren represents growth coaching international in Queensland and is Australia’s only Master Trainer of Situational Leadership®. He will be one of the facilitators of our new Leading People Performance program..

 

 

 

Our working lives are consumed by conversations:

• we have various one to one conversations with colleagues, peers, customers, senior managers, staff and more;
• we have range of group conversations with some or all of these people in the same place at the same time;
• we even have conversations with ourselves!

Our working week is wall to wall conversations.

Given the significant time given in any week to these various ‘conversations’ the way we talk as well as what we talk about emerges as a very important factor in organisational effectiveness. Some recent research (Losada & Heaphy, 2004) sheds some light on how the what and how of conversations is a key indicator of success. What emerged from the study was how the pattern of language in high performing, average performing and low performing teams was strikingly different.

Positive v Negative

In essence the study found that high performing teams had a ratio of 5 to 1 positive statement to negative statement ratio. (Positive comments were supportive, encouraging complimentary and expressed appreciation; negative comments were critical, disapproving, and cynical). Average performing teams had a 1.8 to 1 while low performing teams had a 0.3 to 1 ratio of positive to negative comments.

Questions v Statements

In addition it emerged that that high performing teams had a balanced Inquiry to Advocacy ratio.

They asked questions and made statements in balance where less well performing teams asked less questions and made more assertions.

It seems that these measures have an important influence on building ‘connectivity’ within teams and within the broader organisation. When these kinds of communication patterns are present people are more likely to engage with each other, to participate rather than withdraw and to open up information flows so that things get done and issues move forward.

Other v Self focus

High performing teams also demonstrated a balanced outward focus toward others and towards other sections of the organisation, compared with less well performed teams that focused more internally on their own issues at the expense of keeping the broader focus in mind.

Good coaching conversations have long provided a model for these ‘ways of talking’. Maintaining positive focus and positive emotion is a way of building resourcefulness and energy and has always been central to the gci coaching approach. And of course ‘asking questions’ and helping coachees explore and discover their own solutions is widely advocated by many coaching practitioners as a foundation coaching skill.

Now it seems that these practices have relevance beyond the coaching context.
How would your team rate on these measures?

Reference: Losada,M.& Heaphy,E.D (2004).Positivity and connectivity. American Behavioral Scientist, 47(6):740-765

John Campbell