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Archives for January 2009

The Power of the Listening (Progressive) Manager

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We need to stop being helpful.

Trying to be helpful and giving advice are really just ways to control others.

Advice is a conversation stopper…we should substitute curiosity for advice.

Do not tell people how you handled the same concern in the past.  Do not immediately offer the text book solution to the problem – unless you want to kill creativity, enquiry and insight.

Do not ask questions that have advice hidden in them, such as “have you ever thought of talking to the customers directly?”

Often people will ask for advice. The ‘request for advice’ is how we surrender our independence. If we give in to this request we have affirmed their dependnece on us; their belief that they do not have the capacity to create the world from their own resources; and more importantly, we have supported their escape from their own freedom.

For more on this I would recomend almost anyhtingby Peter Block – but especially:

Community – The structure of belonging – Peter Block

“One of the basic elements of the relationship between oppressor and oppressed is prescription. Every prescription represents the imposition of one individual’s choice upon another, transforming the consciousness of the person prescribed to into one that conforms with the prescriber’s consciousness.”

Pedagogy of the Oppressed – Paulo Friere

“It was wonderful! Incredibly powerful – just to be listened to.”

Participant on an Introduction to Enterprise Coaching Programme.

Provision of Neighbourhood Enterprise Talent Scouts and Neighbourhood-based Business Advisors

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Another invitation to tender appeared today.  This time a council looking for the provision of Neighbourhood Enterprise Talent Scouts and Neighbourhood-based Business Advisors to work closely together in stimulating enterprise.

Talent and Business.  Business and Talent.  Is this REALLY what it is all about?  Or is it about frustration, unfulfilled potential, anger and possibility?

One thing I do know; If you set up a system to find people with a ‘talent for business’ you will find the same people that every other agency has already found.

Set up a system to find and help  people who are angry, frustrated and wasting their potential and you will find people with the potential to do something remarkable.

However their trust is not easily won.  More than likely they gave up trying to work with the agencies a long time ago. Set yourself up as a talent scout and they will stay well clear (they have probably spent years being told they are ‘a waste of space who won’t amount to much’ and the last thing they need is another Simon Cowell type rejection).

Set yourself up as a business advisor and likewise they are likely to avoid you like the plague – images of men and women in suits talking a foreign language of equity and turnover, profit and unit costs.

Instead just provide a service  with an unremitting focus on helping people to make progress in their lives – in whatever form that takes.  Build relationships, win trust and get busy.  It won’t be long before you are working with some really interesting people on some really enterprising ideas.

Oh, and by the way, don’t try to collect reams and reams of MIS data for the funders.  Ask for an NI number or for them to fill in an equal opps monitoring survey and they are likely to drop you like a hot potato.

Without Valleys There Can Be No Mountains

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I am not sure where I first collected this quote but the more I think about it the more I see its relevance to effective management.

To me it means that wherever there is a great strength there is also a great weakness.  You cannot have one without the other.  Ying and Yang. I think this relates to a Jungian concept that whatever light shows us our way forward will always cast a corresponding shadow.

If this is the case then it becomes impossible to minimise a weakness without compromising the strength with which it is paired.

It also means that whenever we see a weakness we should look for the corresponding strength.  This is important because so many managers become almost obsessed by fixing problems rather than by celebrating and maximising strengths.

So when you find yourself recognising a weakness in yourself or others – spend a few moments looking for the corresponding strength.

Reflecting for Effective Practice?

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  1. What percentage of your clients come back to you for further support?
  2. What percentage do you just see once?
  3. What percentage of your clients go on to open a business?
  4. What percentage decide that enterprise is not for them?
  5. What percentage decide that they want to run their own business – but decide that they can’t make THIS business idea work.
  6. What percentage open a business – but don’t make it through the first/second/third year?
  7. How many different clients do you meet in a month/year?
  8. How many 121 sessions do you run in a month/year with clients?
  9. What is your average percentage occupancy? ie how much of your capacity is being used (by the people that you are meant to be supporting)?
  10. Are you really contributing to the development of an enterprise culture?
  11. What is your reputation with:
  • clients and their friends and families
  • funders
  • partners
  • other regeneration and community development professionals in the community?