Ianwindle's Blog

Engage my emotions and I’ll follow your lead

Ian Windle — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 15:22:30 +0000

Introduction

Wouldn’t it be great if you could change the way your staff think and act today to create business performance change?

Unfortunately, most businesses focus on changing structures, processes and all the operational parts of a business first. These are the tangible parts of a business, they are black and white, look good on charts and are easier to quantify than the ‘softer’ parts of a business.

Tackle the people issues

So why do organisations focus on these areas first? Frankly, many senior managers are uncomfortable dealing with the people issues; they may not be sure how to engage people in a way that will truly engage them, or how to create an environment where they can listen, learn, discuss and conclude for themselves why the changes need to take place. If you focus on your people first (and do it in the right way), then the operational changes will be supported and embedded by your people, rather than running the risk that many of your employees will resist them because they’ve not bought into them.

The second problem is that managers pay lip service to the engagement of their staff through a combination of so called speed and ignorance. They use the tried and tested traditional ways of communicating with staff: CEO briefings, roadshows, magazines and e-mags and Powerpoint cascaded through staff briefings.

People need to be engaged emotionally as well as rationally. There is enough evidence now to show that we make our decisions – be it a purchase decision or a decision to change the way we do things – based primarily on emotional grounds, and we then look for rational data to evidence our conclusions. The traditional forms of communication tend to focus on the rational side of things – showing people the performance graphs and the 2 x 2 matrices of analysis, which is interesting, but doesn’t change the way we look at things.

Tap into the emotions…

Emotional engagement comes from a passionate vision, a motivating rationale for change in the midst of cut-throat competition, a point of difference for your Brand, customer comments that show how great you are, or even how awfully you deliver something! It also comes from stories, stories from our customers, from our staff and from our leaders that demonstrate how well we can do things and show the behaviours we are looking for in action. People remember stories and then repeat them. So instead of showing a powerpoint chart, tell a story – it has so much more impact.

The ‘right brain’ that controls your emotions, your creativity and your visual engagement with the world, must be front and centre when trying to create change:

• Create visual spaces and materials, that follow the rules of change, leverage those Brand stories and learn to create sensory experiences for your people – such as introducing a Changemap programme.

See http://www.livechange.co.uk/changeMaps.php

• Create a clear rationale for the change that appeals to the emotional and the rationale side of our brains.

• Harness leadership passion and ownership of the change, with a call to action.

So do something different – but make sure you engage your people first and your processes, systems and practices second and your change will be successful.

Do let me know if you’ve any questions or would like to know more.

Best wishes,

Ian

PS: if you want to hear the audio just click on this link for the Podcast http://livethink.podomatic.com

The 5 Cs of Change

Ian Windle — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 10:27:33 +0000

Understanding how to coach, challenge and inspire others around us to change is so valuable in our daily lives, whether we are at work or play.
You can have the most compelling personalities or the most extraordinary creative ideas driving the change – yet to no avail, without coupling them to the ‘5 Cs of change’. LiveChange’s 5 Cs of Change help any change to take place in our lives, be it in or out of the workplace – and you have to navigate all 5 steps in the right order….or you risk wasting your time.
So what are the 5 Cs of Change?
1. CONTEXT – Why?
Context is the first C. Something in our lives is demanding that things need to be different. It stems from one of two things:
ONE. There is an overwhelming desire to do or be something different and to move away from where we are to something new and exciting. Moving to a new place could be because we want to get a new job, earn more money, live in a new country or learn a new skill. These may be goals in themselves, or sub-goals along the way to an ultimate goal. But a word of caution; people who are motivated to move to a better place and who’ve taken time to figure out what this will look like often don’t take time to engage others in this first phase. They try to short-cut the process of change, and guess what, it fails!
When you get this stage right, all the rest falls into place. In fact, do it really well and people can pretty much demand the change take place – ultimately, what you want.
As in all phases of engagement, you need to think ‘whole-brain’. Unfortunately in organisations today we spend more time camped in the left-brain with lists, graphs, charts, papers and endless PowerPoint presentations containing all you know on the subject. To take people with us on a journey we need to grab their emotions and use right-brain thinking too! How do we do that? Tell a story, show an image, provide an inspirational speech, paint a picture. In short, try to get people to ‘stand in the vision’ of the future – to really imagine for themselves what it will be like when they’ve got to that place, and only then, will they want to work out how they can get there. That’s one part of context.

TWO. The classic ‘burning platform’ is the other driver of change – we just have to get away from the current context or situation . The best drivers of change often have both. The burning platform on its own is a great driver of change, but it doesn’t help with where we want people to go, it just engages people in what we need to leave behind. It has risks – it’s negative – it can paint a picture that says that everything we’ve been doing for the last few years has been wrong or a waste of time! If it is external changes that have put you in the current position, then that’s easier to deal with. One of the best ways to show things ‘can’t go on as they are’ is to show a ‘truth’. John Kotter has some great examples in his book ‘The Heart of Change’ and one of the best is the ‘gloves on the table’ below:

Gloves on the Table
A large national company in the US was looking at ways to cut costs and drive efficiency. An intern was employed to visit every factory they had and see what he could learn. He came back and reported that amongst his other findings each factory bought different gloves for their employees to wear to handle their goods. The gloves varied in price from just a few dollars to $18. Also he found that even for the identical glove, different factories were paying different amounts. The manager asked the intern to get one example of each glove and label it with the price paid. With this large bag of gloves the manager covered the board room table and asked the Board members to take a look. ‘Seeing’ the truth of the massive cost differences between the gloves captured the full attention of the Board and helped to unblock the decision making logjam that had previously existed. The Board adopted the technique to break through other, much greater decision making logjams at the US company.

2. Leadership COALITION – Who?
For any change to lead to success it not only needs a sponsor who will be a passionate advocate and driver, but a coalition of people at the top of the business to support it. This group must be committed to creating the plans, engaging the right people, communicating with the workforce, shouting about the quick wins and overcoming the challenges along the way. They won’t do all the work, but they’ll make sure that it happens.
Critically, this group should have representatives from different functions and layers in the business – and not be simply from a single layer or level of job ranking. They need to own and drive the change, making sure it’s on track against clear milestones. They need to demonstrate and celebrate successes that will show to people that it is working. They need to create opportunities to be evangelists about what’s happening and what will happen to benefit the business and the people.
The group must have the complete confidence of the CEO who must be an advocate of their work and their achievements.

3. CHANGE – What?
What exactly is the change and what is required of the business and everyone in it to make it happen? The right information needs to be put in front of everyone in the business in the right way at the right time. This isn’t about sharing everything the senior management team know about the situational analysis, the goals, strategies and drivers and the actions required. It is about what people need to understand in order to fully buy-in to the change. As described in the ‘C’ for Context, it’s about engaging with their right-brain (visual and emotional buy-in), as well as their left-brain (facts, figures and analysis) and allowing them to discuss, digest and consider in order to arrive at their conclusions.
The changes that are going to take place in the business need to be part of a Communications and Engagement programme that gives employees enough time, different formats and media to appeal to different learning styles, the ability to discuss with colleagues, where they can discuss their concerns and have face to face Q & A time with the leaders of the organisation. This takes time and effort and cannot be done through a one-off event or sheep dip – it can only be part of an ongoing programme to be really effective.
4. Personal CLARITY – Aha!
‘I get it!’ is what you want to hear your people say in any change programme. Your people have to get it for themselves and if you’ve got the first 3 ‘Cs’ right, they will get it. Once people have real clarity and when they have joined the dots for themselves, the stress and tension will be lifted and the motivation to be part of the change kicks in.
If the other steps are all carried out correctly, personal clarity will happen for people. And this is where you start to measure the effectiveness of the change programme. How well do people understand the changes that are about to take place, how well do they feel engaged in the process and how committed are they to playing their part? Personal clarity is about people really ‘getting it’ and deciding for themselves if it is right for them.
5. COMMITMENT to Action – How?
When your people have a complete understanding of what is going to happen and have bought in to the changes, they will naturally ask ‘what is it I need to do?’. To get the ‘C’ for Commitment , it’s vital that everyone has the opportunity to take action. With any behaviour change, statistics show you need to repeat something around 20 or more times to make it a new behaviour. It’s critical that an early opportunity to do something different, which is constantly reinforced by the leading coalition, is provided.
So there you go, don’t blinker yourself to what change is possible. Use LiveChange’s 5 Cs of Change and you’ll surprise yourself about what you can achieve!

MAKING POWERFUL PRESENTATIONS

Ian Windle — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 15:43:56 +0000

1. Introduction

Presentations should be fun, entertaining, informative, engaging and useful. So why is it that they are often confusing, boring and unimaginative? I bet more corporate hours are made putting together endless PowerPoint slides than almost anything else these days and to what effect? Of course it is something we all need to do and when progressing up the corporate ladder it is an essential skill to get right. Research on verbal v non-verbal communication is interesting. It suggests that the receiver trusts the non-verbal aspects of the speaker more than the actual words. So hold back on the overuse of PowerPoint slides and make sure you consider the ‘how’ as much as the ‘what’. The following article is a summary of some of the things I think you should consider when you have to make that all important presentation.

2. Preparation and rehearsal

When preparing, think about what the audience want to hear and what they should do with the information afterwards. Any presentation should be like a story and as such it must have a beginning, middle and an end. The beginning should grab people, interest them and set the scene, the middle should tell them what it is you want to get across and the end should sum up, conclude and perhaps include a call to action (or next steps). Presentations will contain different types of information; there is analysis (rational information) contained in graphs and charts and descriptions as well is more emotional information in the form of pictures and stories. Research shows us that stories are remembered much more that graphs and charts, so always look to give people examples. If you listened to David Cameron on the 2010 Election campaign trail he had always met a member of the public that day and wanted to share a story. Of course it brought his point to life, showed he was ‘in touch’ and gave it validation.

The best presenter I worked with in one of my clients looked like he did the whole presentation ‘off the cuff’; he was so passionate, covered all the points he needed to make and really engaged with the audience. He only ever glanced down at a few bullets on a piece of paper. I found out later that he spent hours rehearsing! Spend at least twice the amount of time rehearsing as the time given over to the presentation – it will pay off. When rehearsing make sure you do it for real: use your body language, especially your arms and hands to make a point, project your voice, move through your slides and talk to the imaginary room. Enjoy the rehearsal; imagine there are people out there looking at you. If you look like you are enjoying it the chances are your audience will too. Rehearse the timing too it is crucial that you run to time or finish just slightly early.

3. Media

PowerPoint is of course what everyone uses (unless you use Apple and have the luxury of Keynote) but be really careful how much you get drawn into it’s tangled web and functionality and be especially wary of clip Art! Presentations by committee and ones that have been cut down at the last minute are usually pretty horrible, as they don’t hang together. Create your presentation flow separately from PowerPoint and keep the number of slides as short as you can. Use pictures and images and not just words, and where you are using words on the slides, use as few as possible.

Never read directly from the slides, you should know what you have to say and have a few bullet points on a page in front of you. Often the best way to use the slides is to tell stories around them that bring the information to life and allow people to make sense of it. These days you can drop in video very easily which you can grab from YouTube and many other sources, but make sure they’re good quality and the sound is good too. Videos are a great way to back up your message(s), but think about what you want people to do or think during the video. I often like to ask people to jot down the key points from the video, that way they are really tuned in to the content and you can have a great debrief afterwards. Make sure the quality of your video, images and sound is high. Poor quality means you end up dimming the lights in the room, which can be a disaster as it allows people to drift away and check their Blackberries in peace!

Posters can be a really good way to theme a workshop, with quotes, verbatim comments etc. Don’t put too much information on them and don’t assume everyone will read them all either. Think of putting them in the coffee area so that people can read them when they arrive and over breaks, this will get them in the right mindset ahead of your presentation.

4. Body Language

Body language is so important. The bigger the group you have in front of you the more you need to emphasise your body language; big gestures for big rooms is the rule. You have to understand that presenting has a certain amount of acting in it and therefore you need to adopt a more exaggerated version of yourself. Make sure you scan the room regularly and have eye contact with your audience. Don’t fix on one person or look over their heads. In really large groups pick out someone you know and engage with them, this shows the audience you know people. This something politicians do all the time, although it’s debatable whether they always know who they are pointing at! In smaller groups walk amongst them and bring people into the conversation if you can (briefing someone in advance is a good plan as it avoids people surprising you with a blank expression and no answer!).

Comedian Michael McIntyre is great at using all aspects of body language

Show passion and belief in your subject and really look as though you mean it. If you don’t show that it is important to you, then your audience is unlikely to think it is important to them!

Movement is very important, but as with everything else it needs to be controlled. When you are making a point stand in one spot and when you are moving onto another point move to a new position. Intonation in your voice is vital; you need to vary your pitch during your delivery otherwise it will sound flat and monotone. The use of the pause…. and silence…. for a second or two can add great emphasis and effect to your presentation. If you do it well people will be waiting for your next point.

Humour is another important part of presentation skills, make sure you get it right though – too much humour can seem to the audience that this is not a serious subject you are dealing with, too little and you may come across as boring and dull. The bottom line is that if you look like you’re having fun and projecting some humour your audience is likely to have fun too. One note of caution, unless you are a part-time stand up comedian, steer away from telling jokes!

A couple of specific points about body language. Where do you put your hands when you’re not gesturing? Well if you put them behind your back you tend to look like you are trying to be royalty, whereas if you hold them in front of you, below your belt, you can look like a footballer. The best place is to have them just above your waist, loosely coupled together or with all your fingers touching each other, that way they are in a neutral position and you can bring them out to make a point when you want to. Another thing some presenters do is hold something in one hand, perhaps the clicker or a pen that you might then use on a flip chart later.

Tony Blair uses his thumb to make a point

One thing you must never do when you’re presenting is point at someone. You can point in the air or at the ground to confirm how things are going. You might be trying to emphasise a point but it may actually look like you’re saying you’re fired! That’s all right if you are Lord Sugar! So do what Barak Obama, Bill Clinton and Tony Blair perfected and that is use the ‘thumb of power’ to emphasise your point.

5. On the day

When people arrive connect with them; circulate and chitchat to a few people, this will relax you and your audience and you can gauge the mood of the room before you start talking.

Organise yourself. Have your notes and timings on one piece of paper each, on a small table at the front. Make a conscious note of where to stand so not to block out the projector beam. Test everything to make sure it all works and finally go over your opening in your head. If you have prepared well, that is all you will need to do to get going.

When you start, make it punchy and lively and engage your audience straight away – perhaps give them something interesting to think about or a story to demonstrate one of the key points of your talk. Then give them an overview of the session, what you will be covering and anything you want them to consider. Also let them know if they will be getting a copy of the slides or a handout at the end, so that they know to take notes or not.

Barack Obama a master of presentation

A good way to emphasise a point (as well as good body language, intonation etc.) is to use the power of three. Obama did it really well in campaign speeches in the US. At the beginning of his campaign when he talked about the Whitehouse he would say ‘We’ll reach for it, we’ll work for it and we’ll fight for it’, and on the night he was made President as usual he used it again

“If there is anyone out there

1. who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible;

2. who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time;

3. who still questions the power of our democracy,

Tonight is your answer.”

The power of three started when we were in our nappies: ABC, 123, three blind mice, three musketeers, etc. So you could say that we are preprogrammed to look for three!

Should you ever ask the audience questions? Well, rhetorical questions are really good, they keep people on their toes as they think you may be about to ask a real question, but be careful if you do ask the audience a real question. For example ‘how are you all feeling today’ might not get the response you want if the last session was awful, or it is early on a Monday morning or after lunch on a Friday! If you want to ask questions here are a couple of tips. You can sign post that one is on the way, so the audience can think about it whilst you carry on talking ‘I’m going to ask you to think about the best thing that’s happened to you this year in a minute I will ask some of you to share your stories, but first…’ This way everyone will be thinking of a story to share (so all will be engaged). Another useful way to engage everyone is with a show of hands and this can then be followed up with a question ‘so if you all think we should go ahead, then why is that?’

Timing your presentation is crucial. Don’t stand up and tell people you will be talking for about an hour, because no matter how good you are, that will feel like a very long time. People will generally know from the agenda how long your session is anyway. The key thing is not to overrun and if possible finish just a little bit early – giving them the gift of time!

6. In summary

So here are my top ten tips for making a great presentation:

Start with your audience; who are they, what are they expecting you to say and what do you want to get across.
A presentation should be like a story. Plan the flow of the presentation with a start, a middle and an end
Tell stories. People remember stories and they bring to life the points you want to make
Rehearse for real. Rehearse you’re your whole presentation, including timings, body language etc and imagine it going really well (this will bolster your confidence for the real thing)
If using PowerPoint keep it short and as visual as possible.
Never read from the slides. It looks like you don’t know what you are talking about and is becomes really boring.
Remember to act! Use body language to emphasise points, project your voice and connect with your audience
Have fun! Even if you are shaking inside, look like you are enjoying it and you have more chance of your audience enjoying it too.
Give the gift of time. Rehearse your timings, never run over and try to finish just a little bit early
Give people something they can take away. Be it some ideas they can re-use with their teams, a tool they can run themselves, a synopsis of your talk etc.

Creativity is just for those Agency types, right? Wrong! Although they are quite good at being creative!

Ian Windle — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 13:24:25 +0000

The Business Challenge

The business challenge we are all facing is how to get more for less, how we can keep our level of business at least as good as last year’s and the year before. Impossible, I hear you say, we just need to knuckle down and carry on riding the storm with fewer people, fewer contracts and less money.

Well, some will go down this route. And these businesses will probably be pigeon-holing creativity as something their agencies do and ‘we can’t afford them, can we?’ Wrong. Creativity is about you, not just your Ad or NPD agency.

Your Competitiveness

Creativity IS your competitiveness. If you are doing exactly the same as everyone else, then why would anyone use you? Are you quicker, smarter, cheaper or higher quality than the competition? Where is your advantage? Think about it, work it out, market the hell out of it and sell it.

With your current clients and customers you’d better start thinking creatively too! They are going to be faced with the same economic pressures as you, and they will be looking at their suppliers to see what value you are adding and many will be rationalising the amounts they spend. So what is the Return on Investment from continuing to use you? Put yourself in their shoes! Work it out and make sure they know.

Getting the most our of your people

What about getting the most out of your own people. How do organisations release the creativity of their people? As sure as eggs is eggs business leaders don’t have all the answers, and the best businesses manage and lead their people in a way that empowers them to want to come up with the ideas, develop plans and own their implementation.

There are organisations that have developed a culture of creativity, like Toyota for instance, where it has become part of their DNA, but they are in the minority. Why? Well there are many reasons; a lack of understanding about how to create the right environment for creativity, no reward and recognition system linked to ideas, no big picture provided for people to see exactly what they need to impact and perhaps most importantly, leaders feeling reluctant to spend the time helping their people to think through their ideas in the context of local team-based challenges, because they think nothing will come of it.

Our ten step guide (for starters)

So how do we release the creativity in our organisations? Here is a ten-step guide for starters:

1. How dull is your office space? Think about the environment people work in. Does your office space have magnolia walls, grey cabinets and desk dividers between people or is there a bit more thought behind it? It doesn’t have to cost more to create a better environment to work in.
2. Is your brain working in the right gear! The brain operates at four speeds. If we use the analogy of a car then in 1st gear we are asleep (the brain is at it’s slowest), 2nd gear we are waking up and nodding off and we often have ideas at this point, but often forget them. Move up to 4th gear and we are really motoring – we are in work mode, with loads to think about and achieve; not the speed to be creative. The one when we are most creative is, to continue with the car analogy, when the brain is in “neutral”. This is when we are idling; in the shower, the gym, going for a jog or cutting the lawn. The brain is under no stress or pressure and guess what, that great idea just springs to mind. The trick is to either catch those ideas and feed them into work, or to create more time at work to chill out and come up with ideas.
3. You’re having a laugh. Well we should be, we are more likely to come up with ideas, when we are relaxed and having fun. Start team meetings and workshops off with something fun and you may be surprised how much more you get out of it.
4. Turn the music up. Music is conducive to creativity and relaxation and Baroque music in particular.
5. Take the stress and pressure off. High challenge, low threat is the ideal environment to foster creativity, and telling people we’ve got an hour to brainstorm new ideas for one of the big challenges we are facing, is unlikely to cut it.
6. Get the drinks out! Hydration is crucial to clear thinking and surveys of school children has shown that those that are drinking enough water perform at a much higher standard (mental performance can increase by 10% when fully hydrated)
7. Cut out the muffins! Well, not all the time, but a rush of sugar will give us all an instant high followed by a low. The same goes for that graveyard slot after lunch; if you want to come up with great ideas, get around the table first thing in the morning.
8. Probortunity is the word! People not only need the big picture of what you are trying to achieve as a business and in your local area, but they also need a focus for their ideas. This could be a problem that you need to address or an opportunity you need to grasp – hence probortunity.
9. Don’t be afraid to try something left-field: Since actions will speak louder than words with your teams, look at using new creative techniques as part of proven brainstorming processes.
10. And follow the core rules (of brainstorming that is). Brainstorming is generally done really badly. Here are some simple rules: go for quantity, no criticism allowed, the wackier the better, think of opposites, think what if we do nothing, flip chart the output and then vote on the best ideas to take forward.

So there we are, get creative, get your people creative and start solving those problems and grabbing those opportunities you’ve got. A final thought is that you should think of the brain as a muscle (not just a tired, inflexible organ!), the more you use it to be creative, the more creative it will be the next time you need to use it.

Moving to a ‘consequential corporate culture’

Ian Windle — Fri, 07 May 2010 10:51:35 +0000

In any organisation it is the behaviour of its’ people that lead to success, mediocrity or failure. In The Heart of Change John Kotter says that the most fundamental problem in all of the stages of change is that of changing the behaviour of people. Having a great strategy can be intellectually stimulating to develop, but in itself achieves nothing. Creating the right structure can allow an organisation a fighting chance of operating more effectively and should compliment the strategy, but doesn’t affect behaviour. And good processes and systems are vital in aligning people, providing consistency and enabling more efficiency.
So where do behaviours come from? First of all they need to be established. With a set of values, behaviours can be extracted that show people what they look like and what they can achieve. Different parts of an organisation will have slightly different behaviours, which deliver a common theme and reinforce the values. The values themselves must reflect the culture the organisation wants to be, not the one it is now. This is more difficult than you think, as values are often created by a group of Execs on an away day and are grounded in current thinking and not in the context of a vision of where you want to be.
Behaviours must also have consequences for the values to have any credibility; an up side for good behaviour in terms of recognition and reward and a downside for poor behaviour in terms of challenge, coaching, training and development and perhaps even having to leave the organisation.
With a set of values and behaviours established everything else must then be in support of them, otherwise you have wasted your time. Your Performance Management system, communications and your leadership behaviours must be aligned behind and support the values. Here are ten areas you must align in your business:
1. Do you recruit people based on your values? How well are you aware of the way they have behaved in their previous jobs? Have you taken verbal references; have you assessed their behaviours in assessment centre conditions, have you quizzed them at interview to give examples of previous behaviour?
2. Do you induct people into your values? Are your values explained and discussed during induction? How much time and attention is put to this, or are you paying lip service to it?
3. Is your appraisal process linked to your values? It is no good just appraising whether people have taken action, they must be evaluated on how they did it too, otherwise the wrong behaviours may be seen as supported and even encouraged.
4. Are good behaviours recognised and rewarded? Do you have a recognition and reward programme that recognises good behaviour and rewards individuals and teams?
5. Are bad behaviours addressed and people coached out of them by managers/ leaders in your business?
6. How well do your communication channels help to embed the values internally in the business?
7. How aligned is your external communications and PR behind your values, telling good news stories of how your business lives its values?
8. Are your leaders role modelling the values in the way they act and the stories they tell?
9. If ‘Challenge’ is not one of your values, then how often do your people challenge each other when they see values not being lived?
10. How engaged have your people been in understanding and seeing the big picture of why the values are important, what they can do for the business and what their role is in living them?

Your Core Values may be a waste of time

Ian Windle — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 11:42:10 +0000

If your core values do nothing more than clog up wall space in pretty posters and appear in your annual report, then you are wasting your time. In fact it is worse than that – you are promising something to your people and perhaps your customers too, that you are failing to deliver.

High performing organisations have a set of Core Values that are translated into concrete actions. People should be hired and promoted on adherence to the values; the Appraisal process should be aligned to reflect the values and people judged not only against what they have achieved, but also by how they have achieved it. Your values should be the backbone of the organisation where your people are rewarded and recognised for living them and coached if they do not live up to them.

However, as with all things in organisations, having the right HR processes and systems to integrate the values through the spine of the business is one thing, but living and breathing them is another. It must start with leadership being visible and not only showing the values in action (and searching for opportunities to do so), but also catching people doing things right (and rewarding) and coaching people who are not living up the values. It is so important for people in organisations to see the consequences of their actions; otherwise we promote a culture of mediocrity that no one wants.

There are many things that leaders need to do to help to embed the values in their organisations:
• Tell stories. When you see a value being lived in a part of your business, recognise and reward the individual or team and then tell the story. We all remember stories.
• Be visible. People must see you, otherwise how can you be living the values. Get out there, walk the corridors and speak to people, not just your direct reports, but right through your company.
• Recognise publicly, coach privately. When you catch people doing things right you should make sure others are aware and can see what happened and that they are being rewarded for it. But when people fail to live up to the values, then take them to one side, talk them through what happened and what the consequences are of behaving in this way to them and the business.
• You are what you do – diarise opportunities to demonstrate the values. When you are a leader / manager in successful organisations you will never have enough time in the day. So the key is working out what is important, developing / empowering your people to take some of the work off your hands and making time to get out. You have to create the time to make presentations, tell stories, have Awaydays with your team and generally instil in them the values that are key to the culture you want to create.

Finally, although a truism, if you want your culture to be different to the one you have now, you have to act in the new way today, not in the way that you currently are and that you want to change.

are we all pushing in the same direction?

10 Organizational predictions for 2010

Ian Windle — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 13:01:57 +0000

1. Employees demand more involvement. The trend continues for employees to want greater involvement in the workplace. And greater involvement means greater commitment and more action.
2. Leaders get tougher. As the economy gets tougher and businesses demand more from their leaders, leaders themselves will demand more from their people as well as their colleagues.
3. Teamwork is key. How well individuals perform in a team is vital. Dysfunctional teams will damage rather than strengthen your business.
4. Weak links weeded out. People who don’t perform will need to be retrained or weeded out, as organizations require everyone to operate at full capacity.
5. You are your own brand! How others view you and what you stand for will become even more critical, with self-awareness and self-appraisal being key to success.
6. Creativity from the ground up. The best ideas are in the heads of our customer facing staff. Unleashing this often untapped potential becomes ever more crucial.
7. More demanded from Consultants. The climate for consultants gets tougher. They must provide greater value for money and leave their clients with newfound skills that they can use after they have gone.
8. Partnerships flourish. Finding and using specialists that can help you to achieve your goals is key.
9. Consider yourself self-employed. The concept of everyone thinking of himself or herself as self-employed becomes more critical. What are you worth? How much value do you really add? Would you employ yourself in your business?
10. Reward where it is due. Top performers will still be rewarded and incentive schemes will become even more essential in motivating and keeping your best people.

Productive Conflict in Leadership teams

Ian Windle — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 09:15:06 +0000

How often do you find leaders talking in the corridor about how a member of their top team should have done this, or why did they say that? This can be so destructive and such an unproductive waste of time. Leadership teams need to indulge in productive conflict to thrive and survive. They need to have a level of trust and understanding that will allow people to challenge each other, not in a personal way, but in an objective way that will be accepted and respected by all.

Teams that do not have a level of productive conflict can live in a state of artificial harmony, where the real tough issues are skirted over and not addressed openly. In Patrick Lencioni’s excellent book, ‘Five Dysfunctions of a team’, he says that the best teams aim for a point just to the left of the mid way point on the Productive to Destructive Conflict Continuum. That way they don’t stray over to the destructive side where it can seem like personal attacks, but at the same time the conversations are challenging enough to keep everyone on their toes.

This constant challenge in team meetings keeps people focused, holds people to account and means that real commitments are made to do things and act behind agreed goals. As with all good teams, the role model needs to be the leader of the team, who will set the standard. She must show the way by challenging her team constantly to deliver on their promises, set clear goals and involve and engage their people in delivering on the business plan. This way the role model is clear for others to follow.

We all want a strong leader, someone we can respect and want to follow. Someone who can be completely honest and objective, who will challenge subordinates and peers equally to perform and who sets the right tone and preaches what they practice. That way we can all be part of challenging and rewarding, high performing teams.

Conflict is vital to teams

Ian Windle — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 16:42:34 +0000

Conflict is vital in productive teams, but it must not be personal or destructive. Teams who do not open up and encourage productive conflict often end up with artificial harmony, when the real conversations takes place in the corridor after the meeting.
In order for teams to create an environment where people are comfortable with productive conflict there has to be a basis of trust. People have to get to a stage where they are able to show their vulnerabilities to team members, without fear of personal attack. For more infomational on creating functional teams see Patrick Lencioni’s book ‘Five Dysfunctions of a team’.

10 ways to motivate your employees

Ian Windle — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 08:04:53 +0000

Recent research has proven that staff engagement is key to recovery in the recession: The MacLeod Review of Employee Engagement ¹ – an independent report for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills – shows that involving employees in the future of their firms could be the key to business success.

Staff who trust their employers and feel they have a stake in their firm’s future will outperform those who feel ignored or taken for granted because of poor employment prospects elsewhere.

Here are some of the best ways to get your staff on side and boost productivity and innovation.

How to involve staff in the running of the business

Provide a structure and process that encourages and rewards employees for their loyalty and enhanced contribution.
Commit to an ethos and structure that nurtures employee engagement skills development. This must be board-led with support for managers who directly manage the employees on a day to day basis.
Ensure all work descriptions include stimulating challenges – and provide investment in training to help staff meet the challenges.
Enable employees to understand the valued contribution they make to the business – wherever they are positioned in the hierarchy. Have a clear and well-defined job description for each individual with constant reviews as the employee evolves.
Senior management should recognise and appreciate their employees. Be approachable and give employees praise for a specific contribution they have made – whatever level they are. Recognise that employees want the chance to be acknowledged and rewarded in other non-financial ways such as development of skills or promotion opportunities.
Maximise day to day employee autonomy in accomplishing the task they have been given to develop mutual trust and respect. Let employees stretch themselves and shine with the potential of being rewarded with further responsibilities.
Offer all employees the opportunity to be mentored. This is the most powerful tool that an employer can use to demonstrate the commitment they have for their employees and can be used to identify and develop the potential future stars of the business.
Develop and build company reputation. Accolades such as Investors in People give recognised kudos.
Respect your employees’ work/life balance and personal time. Take an interest in and support this with family activities and events. Alternatively, support and help with the employee’s commuting.
Offer training to improve weak skills or encourage job advancement. Staff can become disengaged and unproductive if they have been doing the same role for a long period of time, or when a new technology or process is introduced without adequate training and support.

Generally, the offer of relevant skills training from basic numeracy and literacy up to professional qualifications is a key motivational factor for staff.