Archive for October, 2009
When appraisals demotivate
At a recent reception I was talking to a junior solicitor. She had worked for the same law firm for nearly three years but, despite the recession, was planning to leave.
When I asked her why she said that she had had enough promises to last a lifetime none of which had materialised.
It turns out that when she first arrived at the firm she was asked to work on a project which involved a lot of telephone work. She didn’t feel especially confident on the telephone so had asked for some telephone skills training.
A truly great leader
To my mind one of the most inspirational leaders in the news today is Ross Brawn owner of the Formula 1 racing team Brawn GP.
His career glitters. He was inspirational at Benetton where he helped Michael Schumacher to win two world titles and then he moved to Ferrari where he helped them to regain past glories as well as working with Schumacher to win further titles.
However, his true leadership showed when at the end of 2008 Honda F1, the team he was working for, decided to leave F1. Brawn was left with no funding and a lot of people about to be made redundant. He took the initiative and by March 2009 had established Brawn F1, saving lots of jobs despite putting his own money on the line.
The rest is history. He announced that there would be no team orders and that both drivers, Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello would be given equal status and equal support. Brawn F1 started winning races immediately and the team spirit was enhanced when people other than team principle Ross Brawn were invited to collect the constructers winning cup at the end of each successful race.
Yesterday Jenson Button won the F1 World Drivers Championship and Brawn F1 won the Constructers Championship.
Apart from thanking his team Ross Brawn also thanked those he was not able to save from redundancy at the end of last year.
“I also want to thank everyone who has worked with the team over the years that couldn’t be with us this season as we had to re-size at the start of it.” He added: “My sincere thanks go out to them because they worked so hard and should feel a part of our success.”
Ross Brawn has demonstrated all the key features of a great leader. He empowers his people, he shares out the glories but accepts the blame when things go wrong, he is fair and honest and he doesn’t forget anyone, even those he had to leave behind.
The nervous fire-fighter
I was running a course on interview technique last week with a real variety of people. One of the delegates was a fire-fighter and he certainly had some stories which would make your hair stand on end.
However, as soon as we began the interview role play, he was reduced to a stammering, blushing wreck, speaking in a barely audible whisper. Nerves effect people in different ways but this was a very extreme example. How can a man who faces the fear of real physical danger every day be so terrified of a few questions?
After some coaching it became apparent that this was the first interview he had had in twenty years. Why should he be good at something he doesn’t practice? Also, more office-bound jobs might involve the communication skills which are helpful in interviews. However a fire-fighter will not have these opportunities. So by offering him some relaxation and visualisation techniques and also giving him a clear idea of what he could expect in an interview, he finally began to relax and to be able to tackle the questions.
The key techniques for overcoming nerves in an interview are:
Preparation – get together a list of questions, make notes on your answers (with examples from your past achievements and experience) and then practice OUT LOUD.
Breathing – when we get nervous we forget to breathe. So take two or three deep breaths in and out before you go into the interview and keep checking you are breathing during it.
Pause and slow down – don’t be rushed in to giving an answer. Pausing is not a sign of weakness – in fact it makes you look more confident and thoughtful.
Visualisation – have a clear sense and picture of what you are like when you are relaxed and confident and imagine yourself being interviewed in this way. Don’t allow bad experiences in the past or imaginary fears to intrude. Put those to one side and focus on the successful outcome.
Does anyone have any other relaxation techniques they use to overcome nerves?
Giving feedback
Recently I was talking to a group of managers who expressed difficulty with giving feedback. The crux of good feedback, of course, is not to be judgmental and to ask questions so that the other person reveals the problem and the potential solutions. In other words you lead through questions rather than statements.
There are numerous questions you could ask, but here are just a few to consider:
• The coaching approach – “What did you learn by doing it that way?”
• The inquiring approach – “Why did you do it that way?”
• The exploring approach – “Can you tell me what brought you to come to this conclusion?”
• The challenging approach – “Are there any other ways you could do this?”
• The tying down approach – “Give me some examples of what you mean?”
• The summary approach – “Can we agree that . . .?”
A few years ago, I had a very talented graphic designer within my team. Part of her work was to take commissions from other department within the building. That was fine; except that I noticed that many of the secretaries were sitting in her office and chatting for quite long periods of time.
Clearly this was disruptive to her work and to me it looked as though she was encouraging the time wasters.
Since she was coming up to her appraisal I decided to broach this issue with her. It would have been easy for me to be judgemental and to tell her that it had to stop. Instead I asked her if she was enjoying the variety of work that was coming in from other departments and then talked about the type of work coming in.
It was at this point that she announced that she was enjoying the work but was frustrated that people would linger in her office. Immediately I was able to explore solutions with her through the questioning approach discussed above and we found a workable solution to the problem.
Think creatively to get that job
Think creatively to get that job
Yesterday I was working with a client who has been made redundant and is seeking work within his particular speciality. His type of work is unique and he is very senior. That means that the pond of potential jobs/companies he can approach is very small; equally the number of jobs of his type is also very limited.
Apart from reviewing the most obvious companies to approach, we tried to look at other ways in which he could enlarge the pond to bring in more potential jobs.
Naturally the first thing he had to do was ensure that the few companies that were likely to employ him knew that he was available for work. That meant getting in contact with head-hunters, talking to his network and perhaps contacting the companies directly.
Our second solution was to look at all those companies who did business with his specialist group of companies. In some cases these may be suppliers, but in this case they were companies and law firms that worked directly as part of the ‘supply chain’ for that particular service industry product.
By the time we had considered all these other companies we had come up with a list of consultancies, law firms, accountants and financial services specialists. In each case the role was likely to be advisory or in the case of the consultancies, acting as a hire out back to the small pond of original companies.
We finished with a list that was double the original pond of companies. That in turn meant that his chances of getting a new job quickly were greatly enhanced.
Clash of cliques
Clash of cliques
Have you ever attended a meeting where two cliques start hammering away at each other in a mutually destructive way?
As a bystander who had been asked to attend this meeting to give my thoughts I was horrified. At first all seemed to go well. There were notes to absorb, the Chairman introduced the purpose of the meeting and minutes of the previous meeting were reviewed and agreed.
From there on, whenever one person said something, another person would disagree. Soon it became clear that there were two schools of thought (my polite language for two cliques) and there was to be no compromise. The meeting ended in disarray with the Chairman having lost complete control.
Afterwards the Chairman asked me for my thoughts; what could he do to stop this from happening? I suggested the following actions:
• First he needed to talk to the chief protagonists and tell them that enough was enough. It needed to be done as soon after the meeting as possible and it had to be done in an even handed way without being judgemental
• If that saw a change in the next meeting then the Chairman should ensure that future meetings were very strongly chaired by him
• If there was no change then the Chairman would have no choice but to review who should and should not be on the project group; some people would have to be removed and a smaller group which is more easily Chaired should be put in place
• Meanwhile, project notes should go out earlier (they had been going out last minute) so that more informal discussion could take place before the meeting
• Also the Chairman would have to take a much more strident line, starting the meeting on time, making it clear that all contributions would be time limited and that anyone getting involved in personal attacks would be asked to leave the meeting
• This was a mixed discipline project group, so ultimately the Chairman would have to make it clear that any person asked to leave the meeting would be reported to their line manager.
As a starting point this was going to be a handful for the Chairman to take on, but hopefully it would lead to some short term improvements. Ultimately, of course, he might have to abandon the meetings and seek another way of moving the agenda forward, but that is for the future.