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121s, Covey, and Priority Management

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Time and Priority Management Quadrants - Covey

Another reason why 121s are so powerful dawned on me this morning.  And it relates to the Stephen Covey Priority and Time Management Quadrants shown above.

121s almost compel you to focus on quadrant 2 type activities.

Quadrant 1 stuff has to be done almost immediately- it can’t wait for a 121.  And who is going to continually bring quadrant 3 and 4 items into play with their manager?

So the existence of 121s more or less forces attention onto the important but not urgent quadrant which is the one where the greatest value tends to be created.

So pay attention to the content of your 121s and see what you can do to bring the focus onto quadrant 2.

Career Readiness Certificates

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I keep track od some of the thinking on economic development and enteprise that develops in the US.  One of the current ideas on the rise (fads?) is that of the Career Readiness Certificate or CRC.  The Career Readiness Certificate (CRC) is a qualification that gives employers and career seekers a ‘uniform, standard, objective measure’ of key workplace skills. It is being used by job seekers across the country as an employment credential, and by employers as an assessment of a person’s trainability for an entry-level job or for a promotion within the company.

  • Do we have a similar qualification here in the UK?
  • What is it?
  • How is it valued by employers?
  • Can it be easily accessed by those who have failed to thrive in the education system?

You can find out more about CRCs here and here

Building Confidence – Using Feedback

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One of the commonest scenarios that managers face is that of working with employees who appear to lack confidence at work.

The starting point for helping employees who lack confidence is to recognise that this is just a label that we have attached (often unconsciously) to a set of behaviours. It is recognising these behaviours and helping the employee to manage them effectively that provides the key to building confidence.

I recently worked with a manager who presented exactly this challenge and we started by listing the behaviours that were at the source of the problem:

  • crying frequently at work (2-3 times a week)
  • prefacing suggestions with self deprecating comments such as ‘This is probably a stupid idea but…’ and ‘I doubt that this will work but…’
  • periods of withdrawal and silence especially in meetings

Frequent crying is always a worry – as it maybe a sign of some deep problems that may require specialist support.  However it is not unusual and sometimes it is not a deep seated problem at all.

We then looked at the role of the manager in giving feedback, frequently and consistently, to the employee about these behaviours and the impact that they have in the workplace – ensuring that the employee is left with the responsibility for making changes.

We also looked at areas where the employee was performing well and where confidence was much less of an issue.  Again we spent a bit of time digging for successful behaviours and again agreed that the manager would increase the amount of feedback that was given to encourage these behaviours and to make the employee absolutely clear that their positive contributions were recognised and valued.

In most cases simple, clear and consistent feedback is enough to help the employee to remove the poor behaviours from their repertoire and as if by magic the label ‘lacking in confidence’ disappears.

It’s all about dreams!

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Policy makers are keen on promoting enterprise and entrepreneurship.

Those who work in Department of Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (DBERR) see enterprise as a way of increasing competitiveness and gross national product (GNP).

The Department of Work and Pensions are interested in promoting enterprise as one way of getting people off of benefits and back into work.

Those in the Department of Communities and Local Government see it as a way of narrowing inequalities around wealth, building more sustainable communities and empowering communities to create their own future.

The Department of Health is interested because of its potential to engage individuals in meaningful activity that may reduce their needs for prescription drugs – but also because enterprise – especially social enterprise may provide vehicles for engaging the community and voluntary sector further in developing and delivering a range of health care services.

So there are a wide range of policy drivers from a wide range of government departments for the current and continuing interest in enterprise.

However what few of the policy makers seem to understand is that enteprise is not about ‘opportunities’ or social and economic policy.  It is much more personal than that.

Enterprise is driven by personal and often very private ideas of how progress can be made.

How things can be made better.

And a precursor for this is that individuals must believe that they can make things better – that they can make a difference in their own circumstances by taking action and making things happen.  They must have dreams of progress for themselves, their families and their communities.

Yet so many have given up dreaming as they associate dreams and hope with failure and disappointment.  Safer to accept the status quo than to risk the dangers associated with progress.

A key part of the work of the enterprise coach is to help their clients to dare to dream again.

Connecting with a Vision for Leeds

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Our Vision for Leeds is an internationally competitive European city at the heart of a prosperous region where everyone can enjoy a high quality of life.

Leeds Initiative Vision for Leeds – 2004 2020

That must seem like a pretty distant vision for many Leeds residents.  For the tens of thousands that are living on incapacity benefits.  For those who have no job.  For those who work in the third sector and are more interested in social justice than international competitiveness.  For parents who are struggling to raise and educate their children.  For pensioners. For migrants and refugees.

But the problem is not with the vision per se.  The problem lies with the resources available to help a very wide range of people and communities to connect with it.  To understand why it is relevant to them and how it can help them to make progress on their agenda.  How it can help them find a sense of belonging in a Leeds community that is striving to make ‘progress’.

For a vision to be effective a wide range of stakeholders have to be able to connect with it and make sense of it in their own context, and then to use it to leverage action – to make things happen.  Otherwise it is just words.  I suspect it is no accident that this ‘Vision for Leeds’ appeals so directly to the white collar community, to the developers and the investors.  To those that have power shall be given more.

Visions can help to pull us towards a more attractive future, but only if they are relevant to us and are dripping with possibilities for action.

In the world of organisational and business development the ‘Vision backlash’ has started.  Instead of dreaming of distant possibilities those leading the backlash ask:

  • ‘What is it that we are on the verge of becoming?’,
  • ‘How, at this time, is it possible that we could change?’

This ’emergence’ based on a process of ‘presencing’ (understanding the ‘here and now’ and then acting to tip the balance in favour of progress) honours the past as much as the future. It ensures that the future is rooted in the strengths and cultures of the past.  It encourages placemaking based on history as much as on the future.  And this matters because it is the history that has shaped us all.  Our cultures, our psyches our potentials and our preferences.  Development that honours who we are, what we have become and what we believe it is possible for us to be.

Perhaps we should compliment the Vision with a real understanding of what we have the potential to become – not by 2020 – but right now.