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New Coaching Tips Podcast

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Our podcast series is designed to help managers to put into practice what we teach.  They are available whether or not you have attended a workshop.

Typically a podcast will provide a review of the main topic plus some further information developed in response to conversations with practicing managers who are trying to put the ideas into practice – and who either need a little extra guidance, or have ruin into a problem.

Our 7th podcast – Extra Tips for Successful Coaching is now available here.  You can also get it from i-Tunes.  Just search podcasts for ‘Progressive’ to find our feed.

Just Imagine…part 2

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Stairway to Organisational Heaven?

Just imagine…

1. You work in an organisation where everyone gets 30 minutes every week 121 time with their manager to look at how the right work can be done more effectively and to work on communication, trust and respect;
2. Everyone is coached – every week – by their manager. They learn things on a weekly basis and use what they learn to create value;
3. Everyone gets feedback – several times a day. The feedback recognises, appreciates and encourages the good stuff. It also raises awareness around behaviours that people might want to re-think. Everyone knows that feedback is not an emotional big deal. It is just information that is designed to help;
4. Everyone delegates effectively. They expect to be delegated to at least every other month as part of their professional development. Managers ‘delegate and develop’ routinely so that they can consistently do the important (but never urgent) stuff well (stuff like strategy, RnD, customer contact, stakeholder management etc).
5. People who struggle to deliver on their role in the time that the organisation pays them are helped – through feedback and coaching – to find ways to get what they need to get done in the work hours available to them.

What difference would developing these 5 management processes make in your team?

The Most Annoying Person in Your Workplace (Could It Be You?)

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According to a recent survey conduced by Snag A Job, the awards for most annoying co-worker go to:

In 5th place – ‘The Hypochondriac’ – 5% of votes cast

In 4th place – ‘The Loud Talker’ – 12% of votes cast

In 3rd place – ‘The Gossip Hound’ – 18% of votes cast

And finally in joint first position, with one third of the total votes each:

“Kiss-ups” and “Slackers”.

There is no doubt that many of these characterisitcs are common-place and often tolerated at work because managers are afraid of the consequences of consistently using feedback to help encourage the good behaviours and influence change around those that aren’t as successful.

This survey focuses on the negative characteristics of the workplace.  What if we developed a list of the most effective co-workers and then encourages positive feedback around these characteristics.  My guess is that it would have a greater net positive effect on performance and culture.  Wh would make it onto the list?  Here would be my nominations:

The Dependable – do what they do, when they say they will do it….

The Change Monkey – always looking to make things better…

The Listener – goes without saying…

The No-man – always happy to speak their mind – even if it means saying No!

Who would your nominations be?

Who have you already got in these roles?  Do you appreciate them enough?

Can you use feedback and coaching to encourage more of these types of behaviour?

Developing People and Gardening

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Michael McKinney over at Leading Blog has found some great stuff on developing people from Lord Sharman.

“To some degree, developing people in an organization is impossible. You can’t develop them; they develop themselves, and so your job is like that of a head gardener. You figure out what the various microclimates are around the place, and then you figure out the qualities of the plants that you need to go into those microclimates. Similarly, you select the people based on their strengths and place them in those jobs.”

Key point: If you have someone who is under-performing ask yourself “is this person in a microclimate, a context, in which it is possible for them to thrive?” If not – then move them. A cactus won’t thrive in a bog.

“I’ve seen notes of appraisal interviews, which say that two-thirds of the interview is spent talking about what the guy’s not good at. Now, that’s great—I can’t imagine anybody coming out of an interview like that feeling anything other than very depressed.”

The Gardener

“What you want to do is spend time talking about what the person is good at and how he’s going to develop that. Sure, see whether you can do something about the weaknesses, but to my way of thinking, appraisal interviews should be two-thirds about what the person is good at and how those great assets can be used within the organization.”

Key point: accentuate the positive – and get locked into a virtuous spiral rather than a death-roll of negativity and decline. Have you caught someone doing something well today?

“You’ll always have people that find it much easier to be critical than to be encouraging… If you start criticizing your colleagues about what they’re bad at all the time rather than encouraging them, that’s sure as hell going to get down through the organization very quickly.”

Key point: Learning to recognise, encourage and promote the positive is a surprisingly hard habit to acquire. In many organisations it is almost counter-cultural! I know this is something that I always have to keep working on personally.

How Top Companies Breed Stars

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Geoff Colvin, Fortune Senior editor at large has just done a great piece for Fortune Magazine on how the best companies go about developing leaders. It is a long piece – but here are the headlines:

“You couldn’t be blamed for rolling your eyes when American Express chief Ken Chenault says, “People are our greatest asset.” CEOs always say that. They almost never mean it. Most companies maintain their office copiers better than they build the capabilities of their people…”

“A close look at the companies on our list reveals a set of best practices that seem to work in any environment… These companies operate in every kind of industry and are based all over the world. But what’s most striking are traits they share – specifically, nine practices that combine to create world-class leadership development.”

  1. Invest time and money
  2. Identify promising leaders early
  3. Choose assignments strategically
  4. Develop leaders within their current jobs
  5. Be passionate about feedback and support
  6. Develop teams, not just individuals
  7. Exert leadership through inspiration
  8. Encourage leaders to be active in their communities
  9. Make leadership development part of the culture

Great to see that much of this resonates with what we teach in the Progressive Managers Network! Delegation, coaching, feedback all come through strongly in this research.