…because they fail. In fact by the time this read this, you’re probably on the downward slide with some of your best intentions.
Instead, an article about new beginnings. January is a great month for a do-over. You get a chance to do better at things that didn’t go quite to plan the previous year and to make a start on things you know will propel you to success this year. If you’re looking for small changes to invest some energy in and see a quick return – here are some ideas we see successful people taking on and flying with, time and time again.
So this January consider these and other ideas and what they might do for you in the year ahead. Anything that makes you wiser, swifter and yes – happier – has got to show up in your results. It’s all about staying current – New Year’s resolutions are so last year.
Many years ago, I applied for the HR Director job at the charity I worked for. In the lead up to it I would pass other Directors in the corridor and panic – they were proper grown-ups and I was a mere child who couldn’t possibly sit at the same table as them because I had no idea what I was doing. I was 34 years old, so not a child, and I got the job. The first Directors’ meeting I attended was like being in a playground, lots of bickering, posturing and disagreement– ironically, I felt like the only grown-up.
It is estimated that 70% of us have some level of impostor syndrome. Most of us doubt ourselves from time to time but when it is extreme it can be really debilitating. A feeling of inadequacy and that you will be found out soon is felt across the population, the workplace and income levels. Outwardly successful people suffer from it – Tina Fey, the comedienne, feels like a fraud, poet Maya Angelou feared being exposed as inadequate, Tom Hanks the actor wonders how he got to where he got and even David Bowie thought he was “utterly inadequate”.
The main symptoms of impostor syndrome are doubting our accomplishments, attributing our success to luck or deception (interestingly when we fail, we blame it on ourselves being useless, when we succeed, we put it down to luck), and having a deep down fear that we will be exposed as being a fraud.
Now, no one likes a boaster, colleagues whose perception of their ability is way above reality are difficult to work with and can be very irritating. However, having a low perception of your actual ability can hold you back and, interestingly, become a bit of an irritant too. In her book “The Imposter Cure”, Dr Jessamy Hibberd notes that many of her clients think impostor syndrome has advantages, it prevents them becoming arrogant. Her take on this is that if someone else treated you the way you treat yourself, constantly doubting your ability and implying you’re a fraud, it would be an abusive relationship that you would want to escape from. So, the syndrome probably does us more harm than good.
Not allowing these negative thoughts to invade our brain is tough if we have been doing it for a long time. It can become comforting, familiar and a habit. If we try to concentrate on appreciating our accomplishments, recognising our impact at work in a realistic way we can go some way to breaking the habit and the sky won’t fall in if we are good to ourselves. What will happen is our inner dialogue becomes more balanced and affirming.
It is a sobering thought that 40% of our happiness is linked to our everyday activities and the choices we make, 50% is linked to our genes and the final 10% is affected by external forces. The good news is we can affect our happiness for ourselves by internalising our success and recognising it as part of who we are and not seeking approval from others which is usually transitory and doesn’t last so we go out trawling for it again.
We often unpack impostor syndrome through our executive coaching so contact us if that would benefit you. We are also presenting at the Institute of Fundraising Convention, on 2nd July at The Barbican in London, on the subject so come along and learn more because you deserve to realise how fab you are.
If you are a leader in a smallish organisation you know you need to be a master of many trades. You are expected to handle high level strategic and
So how do you balance the big and the small in role and still come out on top with a top team? By knowing where and how to invest your energy, that’s how. To be a high performance leader when the pressure is on (and when is it not on nowadays?), knowing when to lead and when to manage is a key skill. In a job where everything is urgent, it is easy to lose sight of what is really important -what will make the difference to your work and move you closer to your goals. Being brave enough to do what is important is where leading comes in.
Urgent tasks (often where management features) still need to get done, but sometimes not in the order you have been doing them. Stand back for a minute/go hide in the loo/do whatever you do to get five minutes peace and ask yourself if it is worth risking missing a deadline in favour of a doing something that will really take you forward in the long run.
Relationships are also key. It is said that 85% of all problems at work are to do with relationships. The number may be debatable, but you can’t disagree with the sentiment. Relationships matter in these big roles so define the ones that matter most – both internal and external – and throw yourself into developing them.
And finally – okay not finally but before the space runs out – never, ever stop learning. Developing yourself and your team is every bit as important as bringing in the results. In fact it’s largely how you bring in the results in the first place.
To talk to us about how you think big even when you’re leading small, just add it to your Important Things To Do list and get in touch.
There are many myths around motivation and many misuses of the term, which can be very confusing when we feel we’re a bit lacking in that area and would like to give ourselves a boost. One definition we use is that motivation is the drive to do your job willingly and well, over and over again. Using that as our basis let’s examine some of the myths then look at the reality.
Motivation comes from within, it can’t be plugged in. One human being cannot motivate another human being no matter how hard they try or how many carrots and sticks they employ. If someone doesn’t want to be motivated there is nothing anyone can do about it except the person themselves. It’s like someone eating a meal for you when you’re hungry – they may be satiated but you still feel hungry.
Want to know how to be motivated without carrots and sticks? Contact us.
We’re huge fans of good manners in the work place. Greeting everyone with a smile, saying please and thank you, recognising a great piece of work and giving credit where credit is due. The end of year letter to all employees from the CEO spreads a warm feeling and sense that all the hard work you have done has been noticed. There are a few seconds of that nice warm feeling and then….it wears off because it’s not enough to sustain you through the next year’s hard slog. If only motivation were that easy.
We can show you how motivating yourself is more than a nice warm feeling.
Henry IV was fantastic at these, in their time and place they enabled soldiers to gird their loins and go forth into battle. A good old stirring speech never did anyone any harm in times of worry or disappointment and they certainly have their place in the realms of inspiring you to go forth and conquer a problem, a challenge or a difficult client. However, come the morning after when the dust has settled the sparkle will have faded from the rhetoric and the effects will not carry you through the whole year.
We coach people to discover what really motivates them.
We are motivated broadly by three factors – people, achievement and enjoyment. We like interacting with others, working with people who are professional and engaged and who pull their weight. We like a sense of achievement, of making a difference or ticking off the “to do” list. Interesting, stimulating work motivates us too, the kind that stretches us and develops us personally and professionally.
The key to your motivation is to work in an environment where you can pick and choose what will motivate you today. Organisations need to be good caterers, they need to provide you with a really awesome buffet and not be tempted to do you a packed lunch. Your organisation can’t do this by guess work though. You need to communicate with your manager about what really motivates you and ask them to work with you to make sure it’s on the menu most of the time, and then you can get the fix you need. This means you can heal yourself, your manager doesn’t have to spoon feed you and you can be responsible for your own levels of motivation.
So there you have it, the myths have been challenged and the serving dishes have been warmed. Go forth and influence your own motivational environment.
To do more than inspire contact us.
We all know that group work starts with an ice breaker, expectations and ground rules. It is an important section to warm everyone up and get us all agreeing to how we will work together. On the ground rules someone will often mention putting phones and laptops away. For us this is common courtesy yet for some teams we work with this is such a problem that it has to be written down making it a public declaration. Too often it is not adhered to – and nobody says anything. The eyes roll, a few throats are cleared and meaningful looks are exchanged but no one calls out the behaviour.
Does this sound familiar in your team? You love your team mates but sometimes their behaviour drives you nuts, gets in the way of real performance and you wish ‘someone’ would say something. Well you are right; being accountable for your behaviours and those of your team mates is the bedrock of high performing teams. What hurts the team hurts the performance of the team and impacts on how you all work together.
Teams that do not hold each other to account are not as productive. The lack of attention to performance and behaviours creates resentment and different performance standards for different people. This encourages mediocrity as deadlines and deliverables are missed and the burden of discipline is pushed onto the leader.
Get accountability right and you will ensure that poor performers feel pressure to improve. You will identify problems quickly by questioning someone’s approach without hesitation which establishes respect among the team who are held to the same standard. One main advantage is that it avoids excessive bureaucracy around performance management and corrective action – music to your ears?
So how does a team start to improve its accountability? It starts with the leader, if that is you stepping up and calling out unproductive behaviour is your job, you need to role model holding the team to account then others can follow suit. Discussing capability with your staff is relatively straight forward; you have the evidence on standards and performance and can discuss and hopefully close the gap with training, extra supervision, coaching etc. But what about behaviour? That’s trickier because it feels really personal – “John, we said no laptops in the meeting can you put it away”, feels a bit parental and often stops a leader pulling someone up. Yet how would you feel if we told you avoiding that conversation makes you a Pooh Bear leader?
Pooh Bear leaders smother their staff in cotton wool, their favourite avoidance tactics are:
· Excusing behaviours – “Mary’s had a tough couple of weeks”
· Shrugging their shoulders – “that’s just Nick”
· Sticking their fingers in their ears and humming a tune – “what bad behaviour, I didn’t see it”
They justify their behaviour by describing themselves as a permissive leader, giving people space to be who they are and not micro managing them, in reality they fear holding people to account. Don’t we all? It’s really tough to pick someone up on behaviour that is harming the team, it’s a risk and yet if we don’t do it we risk something worse – a slowly declining performance and a team that becomes really irritating to be part of.
You also hold back the personal development of your individuals. If you have a moaner in your team that you turn a blind eye to, guess what? They get known as a moaner and however hard they try to get that promotion or become part of that interesting project team their reputation goes before them and they never achieve their potential …..all because you did not let them know that behaviour was harming themselves and the team.
Once the leader has begun to encourage better behaviour it gives all team members the signal that it’s ok to do this too and to expect to receive feedback in return. It has to be in the spirit of making the team better and is always easier when the team has a high level of trust. This is not an excuse to pull colleagues apart it’s an excuse to make everyone the best they can be for the good of the team and the organisation.
If you feel able a good exercise is to ask all team members to write down a positive behaviour for each team member, something they value their colleagues for and then one that they would like to see improved or increased for the good of the team. The leader should get the feedback first so they can model the receiving of the good and the improvements. It’s amazing how the affirmation of positive behaviour creates a real bond in a team and the less than productive behaviour becomes something to aim for. We usually find that the less than good behaviour is always something recognised by the recipient and is something they may welcome working on.
All of us can point to someone in our careers that gave us some feedback on our less productive behaviours, and we thank them for it. Hearing it may not have been comfortable but we appreciated the time and energy that person put into helping us round off a sharp edge and the fact that they were on our side.
Wouldn’t you like to be that person for someone else? Isn’t it worth it to make your team really fly?
Part of being a great team is the ability to have a good old argument. Except that arguing is not everyone’s cup of tea, even the word sends shivers down some people’s spines whilst others rub their hands together with glee. Yet teams that don’t have a constructive level of conflict are boring to be in, keep doing the same things and getting the same results and frankly, begin to feel a bit stale and uninspiring to be in.
Teams that avoid constructive conflict:
• Have boring meetings
• Create environments where back-channel politics and personal attacks thrive
• Ignore controversial topics that are critical to team success
• Fail to tap into all the opinions and perspective of team members
• Waste time and energy with posturing and interpersonal risk management
Teams that indulge:
• Have lively, interesting meetings
• Extract and exploit the ideas of all team members
• Solve real problems quickly
• Minimise politics
• Put critical topics on the table for discussion
We work with many different teams from the most senior to service managers, fundraising managers and operational functions and we have learnt along the way what it takes to get a team arguing and raising their performance.
Call it what you want
The term you use can have a huge impact emotionally on individuals in your team. For some of us the word “conflict” conjures up a massive aggressive row with shouting and threats of physical harm so maybe that isn’t the term for you. We have heard many ranging from healthy conflict to chucking ideas around to heated debate. Many teams we work with agree on the term to signal when it is happening so everyone knows it is a healthy constructive part of their relationship that results in better performance. A favourite is a team that announces that they need to “enter the padded cell “– a place where ideas and opinions can be thrown around without risk of injury.
Agree ground rules
Draw a line across a flip chart, label the left hand side “very uncomfortable” and the right hand side “very comfortable” with a mark in the middle. Ask each team member to place themselves on the line according to how comfortable they feel about indulging in conflict. Those to the right are the miners of conflict. They need to be unleashed because they are happy to prod and poke an idea to make it the best it can be. Those on the left are the climate builders, they make sure the debate is held in a mature way and that when it’s over everyone is ok. Some teams we work with draw up a charter for conflict – how we want to behave during debate – which reflects the needs of the left and the right and respects what each bring to the debating table. After a while the charter doesn’t get referred to as the habits become second nature.
Get rid of your hat
This is vital for healthy debate. Everyone must let go of their functional hats, throw them in the air so they can see what the bigger picture is. The moment this happens everyone can take part without feeling defensive or that they are having a personal dig at someone. The issue then becomes ‘ours’ not ‘mine’ or ‘yours’. In one management team a head of finance had to explain that the team would have to bear with him and his department whilst they adjusted a large financial process that had been driven by a strategic decision way above his head. Instead of his colleagues moaning and trying to challenge the decision and shoot the messenger they all rallied around, helped him think through the impact and together they agreed how everyone would behave through that period. They took their hats off and didn’t force the finance manager to sit with his firmly on his head.
Ask don’t posture
Posturing is a very clear sign that all is not well in a team. An issue is raised and the statements reign down on everyone’s heads none of them bearing any relation to what has been said before. It is said that we don’t listen because we are too busy thinking what we want to say next and posturing is clear evidence that this is happening. In one team as a colleague was making his point another colleague raised her hand to speak wriggling in her chair like a small child such was the passion of the point she wanted to make at the expense of listening to her team mate. Questions are your best friend in debate it means everyone can take part whether you understand the technicality of the issue or not and it often opens up a wider discussion.
Practise makes perfect
The more you do it the easier it is and then it doesn’t feel like conflict. Some of the best teams we work with think they are rubbish at conflict and then they have a healthy debate in front of us and when we point out that was conflict at its best they are surprised and delighted. Conflict done well is invigorating and productive and so energises everyone. The adrenalin pumps a little but not so much that the quality of ideas plummets and you are ready to fight or flee.
The advantages of being good at debate are plenty yet the real beauty of it is the way it builds trust. When a team has trust that is wide and deep it can do anything it sets its mind to and overcome any challenge or obstacle. Working in a team that trusts is a great place to be and a good constructive argument can help get you there.
Are you and your team ready to enter the padded cell?
Volatile times are creating an environment where organisations are constantly confronting new business challenges, undergoing profound change, and being asked to pivot to meet new and tougher expectations.
Like many buzzwords before it, ‘pivot’, is gaining traction and likely to be the most overused word in the workplace for 2017. When people use the word pivot what they really mean is change direction, yet pivot implies a technical sense of ease with a short sharp movement. What it doesn’t describe is the reluctance, fear and foot dragging individuals associate and experience with change.
At Sharpstone Skinner we believe that change can only really come about from understanding yourself, others and learning how to work together in a positive way. This is not a luxury but a necessity, and something for individuals, teams, and leaders to work towards.
Maya Angelou said ‘If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude.’ This seems easier said than done and wishing your team would just get on with it when they feel they have no control over a change is a tough ask. Some of the frustration heard at senior levels centres around the drive for people to be agile, disruptive and to pivot. These technical terms sound great as they are crisp and to the point, but they remove concepts of emotional response, resource, and time from the equation.
One of the most critical decisions leaders make is to know when to stay the course versus change direction. On top of this, the modern leader must also factor in time, resource, and people. If you pivot you must take them with you. Change can feel dramatic and this in turn can influence team motivation and performance – we call these Defining Moments and they can be both positive and negative.
Many of our solutions involve an underpinning of self-awareness and the valuing of differences in others, that’s why we are Licensed Practitioners of the Insights model. We believe it is a great framework to begin conversations around differences and how to harness them for higher performance, greater wellbeing, and change management.
We use Insights Discovery for personal effectiveness where individuals can gain a deep understanding of themselves and their colleagues. We also use Insights for leadership and management development, team coaching and feedback.
For more information on Insights or how we can help your team pivot, contact us today.
This month we spoke at a conference on one of our favourite subjects – getting relationships right. Better than right – getting them excellent. Whether you’re aware of it or not, when you show up in a communication, whether it is at a meeting, within a group, in a one to one conversation, even on an email – you bring a vibe to that communication. Think of it as an energy. Being conscious of that energy and where you may need to adapt it, is key to developing effective relationships. We use the Insights Discovery behavioural model to help people understand themselves better. The four “energies” within the model are in all of us. They are just there in different amounts.
When your energy is in Fiery Red, you bring assertion, boldness and speed to the table. You like to speak your mind, get things done and be in charge. Overuse of the energy can make you seem controlling, overbearing and intolerant – even if you don’t mean to be like that, so they are ones to watch. When your energy is in Sunshine Yellow, you bring positivity, ideas and sociability to situations. You have great communication skills and you like to influence. You need to watch that it doesn’t spill over in to an over-the-top, distracting, hard to pin down style or people won’t see you at your best.
With the Earth Green energy comes wisdom about people, a desire to collaborate and a “roll the sleeves up”, practical approach. You want to invest in activities that with make things better in the team, for your organisation and for the benefit of others. Used at the wrong time or with the wrong people it can seem a bit stubborn, plodding and change resistant. Finally when your energy is in Cool Blue, you bring an analytical and detailed approach, one that leaves no stone unturned and strives for high standards. You ask searching questions, don’t take things at face value and believe if a job is worth doing, it’s worth doing well. Too much Cool Blue and you might be seen as pedantic, indecisive and socially remote.
The key to success is to be aware of your colour mix and then be conscious of others and what they respond to. Just because you respond to an emotional argument, doesn’t mean they will and you may need to adapt to a more objective, factual style if you want to win them over. Just because you don’t do small talk and believe there is a time and a place for social interactions, won’t necessarily work with people who want to connect with you on a personal level before they knuckle down to work. So you may need to invest in some social time first if you want to work well with them later.
So - good relationships are formed when we can be both authentic and adaptable. Nobody wants to experience a “false” you. They just want to know you’ve made room for them and what they need. And if you do that for them, there’s a very strong chance they’ll make room for you and that’s where excellent relationships happen.
We should be so good at doing feedback nowadays. Most companies hope to create an environment where two-way, constructive feedback can sit comfortably. It doesn’t always happen. We start with the best intentions – to give regular feedback and be open to receiving it too – yet when the pressure is on, we forget to make it a priority and fall back on a familiar work culture of speedily pointing out the flaws and staying quiet when people do a good job. We also worry that we have don’t have the right to give feedback – to team members, colleagues and bosses. Not only is it our right to give it, it is their right to expect it and to give us feedback in return. It just needs to be done with a modicum of skill, compassion and common sense.
The first thing to get you started on the right road is to examine your motive. What is compelling you to want to give the feedback in the first place? A genuine desire to help someone grow and develop, the need to stop someone who is behaving in a way that is holding them back and a wish to tell someone something you feel they do really well and the positive impact it has - these are all honourable motives and are likely to result in constructively delivered feedback. A compulsion to get something off your chest or to take someone down a peg or two are less honourable (though understandably tempting at times) and are more likely to lead to destructive feedback - and in the short term certainly, will do more harm than good.
Some motives could go either way for example, the need to pass on the benefit of your experience through some feedback. If that is your motive then find a way to do it so it doesn't sound patronising: "Let me the great sage of many years’ experience, pass down to you the fledgling, the great honour of a particle of my considerable brain." We have all had that done to us at one time or other and rather than listen to the content of the feedback, it makes you want to deck the person. The benefit of your experience should be offered not imposed, and put into context - this worked for you once but it may not work for them - for it to be a constructive experience. Finally, beware the motive of cheering someone up where they're having a bad time, by giving praise. If you tell them things or they are better than they really are, and they are savvy enough to know they're not, they may distrust your feedback in the future. Better to talk to them about what is going wrong and give them some perspective on the situation, than try to stick a smiley plaster on a gaping wound.
A lot has been written about techniques and structures for feedback. Take them with a pinch of salt. In some places of work, it would be a start just to get people doing feedback at all, let alone trying to weave it around a fancy process. Keep your feedback open, honest and respectful. Open and honest is not enough. One person’s idea of open and honest could be another person’s idea of brutality. The third part, respectful keeps any major offloading in check.
While we're on the subject of technique, beware the unsubtle ones like the Praise Sandwich (sometimes referred to with a different, altogether less savoury sandwich filling). The idea behind it is to sandwich some negative feedback between two bits of positive feedback thereby softening the blow. Guess what? We all know when it's being done to us and it gets used mainly when you have only wafer thin positive bread to act as bookends for a massive wedge of negative filling. "Thank you for turning up to work promptly every day - just about everything you do in your job is rubbish - but I really like your earrings." Okay, an exaggeration but you know how it goes. Better to say what needs to be said, check how they feel about it and what their view is and then look ahead. Any feedback that is constructive should be followed by some sort of action plan. If they're good at something, it's a case of discussing how they can be even better and/or spread that success. If the feedback is about something you want them to improve, it's a case of looking at how that might be done. The essence of constructive feedback really, is that life goes on after it. There is a future, a way to improve, a path to move on to.
Finally, there is a big element of getting your own house in order when it comes to feedback. You may be skilled at giving it, but how elegant are you at receiving it? Before you unleash yourself on unsuspecting staff and colleagues, with your own special brand of feedback, do a quick check that you too can receive feedback with grace. And remember – all feedback is a gift, even if it comes in a badly wrapped package.
At Sharpstone Skinner we have spent years coaching teams to attain and maintain high performance. We have developed a process to take teams through so they give of their best and achieve great results.
Some teams get there quickly, some get distracted. There are many reasons why this happens. One of them is a set of bad habits that can turn teams toxic.
Do you recognise any of the following four people in the team you’re in, the team you lead or a team you once worked in?
Ali is one of the best performers in the team. He consistently meets and sometimes exceeds his targets. Having said that, he also regularly comes in late, often disappears early, rarely does the necessary admin and almost never replies to anyone’s emails.
Ali illustrates Nasty Habit number one. He thinks partial high performance gives him the right to underperform in the rest of the job. He’s so used to people saying of him that he “brings in the money” that he feels his failings are legitimate. The rest of the team look on and seethe.
Laura has been one of the team for 3 years. She is a satisfactory performer, not a star but a solid and consistent worker – and there’s a lot to be said for that. At times though she is difficult to deal with. She can be bad tempered, overly negative at meetings and has lots of bad day where other team members tend to give her a wide berth.
Laura has fallen foul to Nasty Habit number two. She demonstrates a capability to do the job. She’s a safe pair of hands. But her conduct falls below par. She gets away with it because it’s so much more awkward to call time on bad behaviour than it is bad performance. So the team have learned to work around her bad days.
Sophia is the longest serving team member. She doesn’t always engage with the Organisation’s vision and often thinks she knows how things could function better. She is quite vocal about this and makes it clear that she does things her own way. She likes to think of herself as a bit of a rebel.
Sophia’s bad habit can hide behind the mask of Maverick but actually she is a bit of a pain and a bit of a drain. Bad Habit number three takes argument and debate to the point of obstruction. It takes all sorts to make a team and that is a good thing. But for teams to work, you have to, at the very least, all sign up to the same vision. If one team member wants to follow their own vision, then that’s fine. They just have to do it somewhere else. But Sophia is still here.
Stefan isn’t your best performer, but he is absolute sweetie. He’s kind, helpful, always offers to take on tasks and support other team members. Everyone likes him - what’s not to like? The trouble is, he doesn’t seem to achieve very much. He always seems so busy though, helping out.
It’s hard to see Stefan as having bad habits because he’s nice, he’s team focussed and he’s helpful. All admirable qualities, but they need to be present in addition to doing your job, not instead of it. So Simon demonstrates Bad Habit Number Four – working hard at everything except your own job.
So did you recognise any in your team? Dare we say it, did you recognise any of those traits in yourself? You may know of more bad habits but these are the ones we see often enough to make them worth a mention.
The good news is, they are habits and habits can be broken. It takes time and a bit of effort but it can be done and the effort gets you a more energetic, more effective team, whether it’s a team you lead or one you are part of.
A new year is nearly upon us. Time for a detox?