Blog post: How to create an engaged and engaging workplace | All articles

Engaging and engaged workplaces and their people don’t happen by good luck and good intent. They are nurtured by people who respect good values, diversity and relationships and above all appreciate the people who work for and with them.

And while the sweet spot where people and engagement meet is the foundation for successful and sustainable companies it takes continuing commitment and passion from the lunch room, meeting room right through to the board room to make it happen and last.

Engaging workplaces are formed and shaped by diverse personalities, robust conversations, commitment to a set of values and behaviours that focus on high performance and results, often by- passing ego and the obsolete. They are geared up to be the drivers of change and prepared to challenge the predictable patterns of behavior so people are encouraged to truly engage in thinking and doing opportunities – both analytically and globally.

via Blog post: How to create an engaged and engaging workplace | All articles.

LeaderShift! – Delegate the fun stuff

Delegate the fun stuff!

Many of you will have already read an article of mine called “Loosen Your Grip to Stay in Control!” Well, one of the areas that many of my coaching clients struggle with is effective delegation. So, this LeaderShift!, I’m going to get you to delegate. And to delegate something that you like to do yourself!

“But John, I don’t have anyone that I can delegate to!” Nonsense! You do, they might not be your staff, it could be your friends, colleagues, boss (yes your boss), spouse, kids…

• Are you overburdened?
• Do you have any problems with giving other people control over something?
• Do you ever find that others were expecting something different even after you clearly communicated?
• Is time your friend?

6 Steps to Delegation

Delegate [del-i-geyt]: to send or appoint (a person) as deputy or representative; to commit (powers, functions, etc.) to another as agent or deputy.

There’s a simple six step process to follow to delegate to someone successfully. You need to:

1. Establish exactly what to delegate to whom
2. Clarify the specific outcomes you want
3. Clearly define responsibilities
4. Communicate the scope and authority
5. Establish a time frame
6. Monitor progress

You know this right? Your challenge this LeaderShift! goes beyond this.

John

LeaderShift – Delegate the fun stuff

Delegate the fun stuff!

Many of you will have already read an article of mine called “Loosen Your Grip to Stay in Control!” Well, one of the areas that many of my coaching clients struggle with is effective delegation. So, this LeaderShift!, I’m going to get you to delegate. And to delegate something that you like to do yourself!

“But John, I don’t have anyone that I can delegate to!” Nonsense! You do, they might not be your staff, it could be your friends, colleagues, boss (yes your boss), spouse, kids…

• Are you overburdened?
• Do you have any problems with giving other people control over something?
• Do you ever find that others were expecting something different even after you clearly communicated?
• Is time your friend?

6 Steps to Delegation

Delegate [del-i-geyt]: to send or appoint (a person) as deputy or representative; to commit (powers, functions, etc.) to another as agent or deputy.

There’s a simple six step process to follow to delegate to someone successfully. You need to:

1. Establish exactly what to delegate to whom
2. Clarify the specific outcomes you want
3. Clearly define responsibilities
4. Communicate the scope and authority
5. Establish a time frame
6. Monitor progress

You know this right? Your challenge this LeaderShift! goes beyond this.

John

Motivation direction

Motivation Direction

Many successful golf players (and business leaders) are motivated by their own dissatisfaction with their performance. It can be a very powerful motivator. You would expect someone who is thus motivated to improve their game to be similarly motivated in other aspects of their life.

Do you see a golf course as a series of obstacles to be avoided, or do you see the fairways and greens as the thing to hit. There are a few people who actually aim for the obstacles because they excel at the tricky shots – most, however, find themselves in the obstacles due to misfortune… or were they actually responsible?

For most people, the self-directed anger resulting from dissatisfaction is not a positive state to be in. If you condemn yourself for playing poorly and use self-talk phrase such as “I should have…”, or yelling (at yourself or outwardly) your self-disgust such as “useless idiot” and perhaps more colourful phrasing – you are doomed to repeat it. Not only will you repeat the ‘error’, you are physically hurting yourself – self-condemnation causes self-directed anger causes stress causes physical distress causes physical sickness and, for many, heart failure. It’s a little as if your heart decides that’s it’s had enough of your inward abuse and is desperately trying to communicate your need to stop doing it. If you’ve had a heart attack or stroke you’ve probably completely reassessed how you live your life – and sought more tranquility, less stressful behaviours – in some cases avoiding the major contributors to your previously high stress levels – work and/or golf.

Some people don’t realise that this is what they are like. The way you drive your car is often a good indicator of your style. How angry do you get when someone cuts in to the queue in front of you? When you pull up to the red traffic light, do you swerve over to the other lane to be at the front of the queue? When motoring along are you more concerned about getting somewhere quickly, or more concerned with the traffic around you?

Back to golf. When you stand at the tee, what do you focus your attention on? Your target? Avoiding the trees/bunkers/water/rough? I hope the former by now if you’ve been with me all this time. What you focus on is what you’ll get.

Motivation is a multi-faceted phenomenon. In large part, motivation is about the satisfaction of values held. It is the result of using particular personal resources towards a specific goal that satisfies a value or value held by that individual. Connecting any of these three in any order, resources, values and outcome creates the feeling of motivation. In smaller part, though often the critical component, is encouragement to achieve a goal.

It is worth spending some time here on what we mean by encouragement. The word has ‘courage’ at it’s root. Thus, to encourage is to develop, enhance or build courage. Courage, you’ll remember, is not the absence of fear but the continuation to do something of which you are fearful. It follows therefore, that if we ‘encourage’ ourselves – we are building the strength to overcome our fears and commit to an action. Encouragement itself, is often mistaken for motivation – or exchanged for it. In order to get someone to accomplish something – they will need to be motivated and/or encouraged to do so. it is possible to get someone – or even yourself – to do something which does not satisfy a value – but such actions are not repeated if no personal value is realised.

For example, many beginner golfers give up playing after being encouraged (usually by a relative or close friend) to take up the game. They continue to ‘try’ to play until they find that they do not realise something of value for themselves. Yes, there are people who don’t like or enjoy golf. Shocking but true. Encouragement is good, but it is not a substitute for genuine motivation.

There are some fundamental needs that we as human beings find motivational. There’s plenty of books and papers on the subject for the interested individual and I don’t intend to argue every combination here. However, there are some generally accepted ‘big’ motivators that the academics agree on – even if they want to put different labels to each term and put them in a different order.

360 Executive Dashboard – Talent Score Card

360 Exec Dashboard CELSIM Profile Sense

Talent Score Card – Example 360 Executive Dashboard

360 Exec Dashboard CELSIM Profile Sense

Nov 22, www.Learn-to-be-a-Leader.com

For those who aspire to be leaders and those who want to be even better. Be recognised and admired by willing followers. A site that offers practical help

Nov 22, Leadership Qualities – what makes a good leader?

Leadership Qualities - what makes a good leader? Are they born or made? How do I develop these qualities?

Nov 22, What is your motivation direction? Are you looking forward or back?

What is your motivation direction? Do you see a golf course as a series of obstacles to be avoided, or do you see the fairways and greens as the thing to hit.

Values LeaderShift 3 – Believe in someone else today!

This is a story of two leaders. We worked with the organisation on team leadership because one of their sales teams was "highly successful" and another was "doing poorly, with a very low morale". The organisation wanted us to "find out what’s working in [the high-performing team],fix the [low-performing team] and run a training program for all the other sales teams to be as good as [the high-performing team]."

· Ann, the leader of the high-performing team had joined the company 5 years previously as a sales representative. She was good at her job and always exceeded her targets. She was promoted to team leader after 3 years and had infused her own enthusiasm, determination and will to her team. Her team members were happy, hard-working and also successful, most exceeding targets.

· Joe, the leader of the low-performing team had similarly joined the company 5 years previously, though as sales team leader. Joe’s team were, by contrast, unhappy and unsuccessful in achieving targets. This had been the case for all 5 years. The team members had changed frequently over this time, only one member remained from the original team that Joe took over.

Ann was enthusiastic when we spoke with her about her success. Saying "It’s great to have such a wonderful team.I enjoy working with them and we’re doing well." She went on, "My boss is great, really believes in me and lets me run things the way I want. I like that, and I try to treat everyone in the team the same way. When they are down about something, maybe their kid is in trouble or sick, I let them take time out if they need to, so long as the work gets done sometime, it doesn’t have to be 9 to 5. I trust them to make up the time, and they do, and more!"

Joe was belligerent when we spoke, "I have tried everything possible to make these people work harder and make target. They’re always moaning that their kid’s sick or they have to visit the doctor. Always skiving off, taking toilet breaks, going for coffee. If I turn my back for one instant, they’re gone." When prompted, Joe continues, "My boss is pretty useless. Only ever comes round at the end of the month to [tell me off] for not making target. To be honest, I’m fed up, I don’t ‘think I’ll ever get this team to perform and the stress is making me sick."

There are of course, several things here we could expand on, but what was clearly apparent was that Ann’s boss believed in her and she in turn believed in her team and their abilities, that she could trust them and that they would deliver. Joe’s boss, didn’t appear to be that concerned for Joe and didn’t help. Joe in turn, trusted staff to ’skive’ and believed that she would never get the team to perform.

When someone else, particularly someone in authority over you (a leader, parent, boss, teacher) believes in you and your abilities it helps you to believe in yourself and your team. What you believe on the inside, becomes manifest on the outside. This is usually the attitude that you portray and the way you communicate.

Leadershift! Tell someone that you believe in them! If, by some chance you are wishing that your parents, teachers, boss etc showed their belief in you… or even vaguely tempted to go "if only…" Go forth right now, find someone that you care about and say the following: "I believe in you. You can achieve anything you want to achieve."