Course overview

managing
yourself

achieving
task

access
all areas

relating
to people

tuning
performance

Course overview

managing
yourself

managing
yourself

managing
yourself

achieving
task

access
all areas

relating
to people

managing
yourself

tuning
performance

managing
yourself

Managing Yourself

Most people on the planet are not good at managing themselves.

Managing yourself, day in, day out, is one of the hardest things in the world.

These courses will enable you to improve your day-to-day individual behavioural awareness, effectiveness and performance.

Click on a particular course to read more about it…

Authenticity & Personal Attributes

Outline

How we present ourselves to the world makes an immediate, and often lasting, impression on others. Authenticity is your best bet in doing this. However, for many people, being themselves is difficult in situations where they do not feel completely safe.

The way we appear, the ways we dress and act, our manners, our attitudes, the way our experience and values inform our behaviour: all combine to give other people an impression of who we are. These impressions may be accurate, or not, but once made it is difficult to change them. People read us through our behaviour: the person who is always complaining, the one who never laughs, the one who always gets people to think, the person who offers support; people are noticed and assessed on their personal attributes and the ways they express them in their behaviour.

Personal attributes underpin everything else: all our skills, learning and experience has as its foundation our presentation of ourselves to the world. For people in positions of authority this is crucial and is one of the reasons why so much emphasis these days is put on spin and PR: some of it a valid attempt to place the subject in the best possible light, some of it a blatant attempt to deceive. You have a great degree of control over your personal attributes and approach. Manners, tact, grace under pressure, courage, cheerfulness, directness, honesty, humour, thoughtfulness, risk-taking and so on are all completely within your control.

It is important that people in authority over others have self-knowledge and understand what their presentation of themselves says. Their credibility, and ability to work effectively with others, rests in large part on this.

Aim

To understand how you present yourself to the world

Objectives

  • To be more aware of the personal attributes you possess
  • To be able to present yourself in the best possible light
  • To understand what attributes are seen as important by others
  • To be able to modify your approach if and when it is not effective
  • To be able to be authentic i.e. yourself

Outcomes

  • Awareness of your personal attributes and becoming better at expressing them in your behaviour
  • Understand the practical relevance of this to your performance
  • You will stop wasting energy trying to fake it
ego

Outline

Ego is defined, in the Oxford English Dictionary, as:

1 •n. a person’s sense of self-esteem or self-importance. 2 psychoanalysis the part of the mind that mediates between the conscious and the unconscious and is responsible for reality testing and a sense of personal identity. Compare with ID and SUPER-EGO. 3 philosophy (in metaphysics) a conscious thinking subject.

How your ego drives you to behave and express yourself can impact well or not on others. Many people are unaware of how their ego affects, informs and drives their minute-to-minute behaviour. An increased understanding of this can help in how effective you are in your career, in your personal life and in your life as a whole.

People are social animals, they notice and comment on behaviour. Your behaviour stems directly from, and is affected by, your ego. You service your car, you know when something is wrong with the engine, you sense and hear it. Similarly with ego, service it occasionally, pay attention to the effect your behaviour is having on yourself and others.

Having a better understanding of your ego and how it drives particular aspects of your behaviour can have a profound beneficial effect on your relationships, your effectiveness and on the quality of your whole life.

Aim

To reach a better understanding of your ego and the behaviour it is driving.

Objectives

  • To understand what ego is and how it works.
  • To understand the intimate link between your ego and your behaviour.
  • To identify ways in which you could better manage your ego.
  • To understand how to strengthen specific behaviours and edit others, for better personal performance.
  • To examine how your ego might drive, hinder or block your  performance and career progression.

 

Outcomes

  • A better understanding of your ego.
  • Clarity on when it works for you, when it works against you.
  • An understanding of how your ego drives effective behaviour.
  • An understanding of how your ego drives ineffective behaviour.
  • A personal development plan to change your behaviour.
Pressure, Conflict & stress

Outline

The ability to manage pressure, stress and conflict is becoming more important by the day as we face increasing pressures in the working environment and results become ever more important. Inner conflict and inappropriate external demands cause stress, eroding our ability to deal effectively with other people and with difficult situations.

The management of pressure, stress and conflict is something that can, and should, be done minute-to-minute through our lives. It does not require specialist knowledge, simply self-awareness, some training, a strategy, some tactics for emergencies and the willingness to invest a little time on an on-going basis. The results yielded can be out of all proportion to the time invested.

Much pressure, stress and conflict at work is hidden but the results are visible and appear on the balance sheet.

Aim

To develop your ability to manage pressure and stress and understand and manage conflict productively

Objectives

  • To understand how conflict leads to stress and how stress leads to conflict

  • To understand how unresolved inner conflict causes external conflict and other problems

  • To analyse what your optimum levels of stress are

  • To explore what your personal style is with regard to conflict and its resolution

  • To identify tactics to use when you are under stress

  • To understand the links to assertiveness and influencing

Outcomes

  • Understand the equation for stress and be able to use it appropriately

  • Recognise and break the vicious cycle of stress – conflict – stress – conflict . . .

  • Understand what causes you inner conflict

  • Be able to resolve inner conflict and express confusion, difficulties or concerns appropriately

  • Develop tactics to release your stress and stop it building up to the point where you become ineffective

  • Identify those people and situations which cause you stress and be better able to anticipate them

  • Plan rationally what to do when experiencing stress before you become emotionally ineffective or helpless

dealing with change

Outline

Change surrounds us and permeates our lives. We choose whether it just happens to us or we manage it when it does. Many fear or dislike change, rather than managing it they expend energy in, usually futile, resistance. Some change is imposed, some we choose. Just because we choose it does not mean that accepting it and dealing with it is easy. Much change is unstoppable, that does not mean that it cannot be slowed, understood and harnessed.

An interesting facet of change is that it never, ever, has the results predicted. The gurus of the future are always proved wrong in significant ways. This is because people, complex and unpredictable as they are, change change itself.

It is also because: MTBD > MTBS – The Mean Time Between Decisions is greater than the Mean Time Between Surprises. In most organisations it takes longer to make a decision than it does for the assumption on which the decision is based to change in some unforeseen way. All change brings opportunity as well as threat. What makes the difference is how you look at it, how you think about it and what you decide to do. Ask yourself: is this an opportunity or a predicament. If it’s an opportunity, what can I do to benefit from it. If it’s a predicament, what can I do to change it, or not be harmed by it.

Change often has people reacting emotionally, becoming trapped in their feelings. Your feelings about change are a signal that you could use your thinking skills to plan a route through the change.

Aim

To be able to anticipate and plan for change

Objectives

  • To understand the mental processes which occur when change is imminent

  • To analyse what causes anxiety, worry or fear and what can be done about it

  • To develop the ability to look ahead and anticipate change

  • To be better able to use the thinking, rational part of the brain when dealing with change

  • To improve in making practical plans to manage effects of change in a constructive way

  • To work on how to be an initiator rather than a victim when change occurs

Outcomes

  • Improvement in your thinking processes, and your confidence to act, in situations of change

  • Better ability to gather and analyse information and plan and deploy resources when change is present

  • Understanding how to analyse risk in a realistic way

  • Be able to do all

time management

Outline

Being able to manage your time is a more crucial skill than it has ever been. Demands and pressures on individuals, teams and organisations are heavy and increasing. This causes increasewing pressure, strain, sickness, stress and dysfunction. As a direct consequence the amount of time wasted is staggering. If this time lost, wasted, stolen and frittered could be computed and entered on organisations’ balance sheets it would quickly become apparent how huge amounts of money are being thrown away. But, as everyone is exhorted to work faster, smarter and with fewer resources, the problem will increase.

Individuals fail to manage their time effectively for a number of reasons: they lack the skills, they think they do not have the time, they are not set good examples by their peers and superiors, they are not motivated to do it, there are no sanctions or discipline when they fail to do it, we live in cultures where lack of punctuality and mismanagement of time is expected and accepted, they don’t notice how bad they are at it, they don’t care.

Effective individuals manage their time. Full stop.

Aim

To enable you to manage your time efficiently

Objectives

  • To understand how important time management is

  • To acknowledge how poor time management erodes your personal and your professional credibility

  • To identify where you are losing and wasting time and where you can save it

  • To outline practical steps you can take to improve your time management

Outcomes

  • Make realistic and achievable agreements with regard to time

  • Be noticeably and consistently punctual

  • You will refuse to be coerced, encouraged or pushed into agreeing to do things you are not 100% committed to doing

  • You will plan ahead how to use your time and allow enough time for achievement

  • You will actively support and challenge your colleagues in their time management

lateral thinking & creativity

Outline

Many of the world’s success stories, both in business and elsewhere, are the products of minds which their owners allowed to think and imagine beyond the usual boundaries. Unfortunately, the perception of the many is that what organisations reward above all else is conformity in all its forms. Lateral thinking and creativity are usually recognised, rewarded, envied and held up as good examples in hindsight.

In a business world which is increasingly-competitive and increasingly-controlled it is difficult to find the time or encouragement to use lateral thinking and creativity as part of a day-to-day approach. These skills can thrive under pressure but often do not. Lateral thinking and creativity require time. Time is what most people at work are short of. So they don’t do it.

Allowing your mind to use these natural abilities will enable you to deal with other people in a more relaxed and informed way and to approach difficulties, issues and problems in fresh, imaginative ways. Using your natural creativity will energise you and relax you at the same time. It will help you to find answers and possibilities where others see only blocks and problems. You will deal with difficulties, solve problems and operate at a level of achievement that will baffle others.

Aim

To be able to use natural creativity and lateral thinking in everyday behaviour

Objectives

  • To understand why and how we stifle our creative abilities

  • To learn, or re-learn, how to think laterally

  • To be able to use both sides of the brain effectively

  • To understand how slowing down can contribute to moving faster

  • To tap some of the unused potential in your brain

Outcomes

  • Able to accept that you have the potential and ability to be creative

  • Understand how lateral thinking works and be able to deploy it as a skill

  • Able to use your logic/thinking and intuition/feeling together to inform your decision-making

  • Clearly understand that constant speed and pressure does not make for good practice or best decisions

  • Be able to use more of the potential that you have in practical and useful ways

core communication skills

Outline

Whether it’s a face-to-face meeting, a telephone call, social media or any other medium, communication is a complex process which requires constant attention so that meaning is sent and received as intended.

Inadequate communication is often a source of misunderstanding and conflict. It interferes with productivity and profitability. We have all experienced the frustration of not being able to get through to someone, or of being misunderstood. We all have the ability to be good communicators, we just need to develop the skills and practice them.

Communication is difficult, sometimes because of the situation, sometimes because of the people involved. It is relatively easy to implement a few basic skills to be able to improve noticeably.

Aim

To enable effective communication

Objectives

  • To understand the principles of effective communication

  • To know how to listen and when it is important

  • To improve questioning and listening skills so that messages received are clearly understood and, where appropriate, passed on

  • To become aware of various communication styles and to learn how to adapt your style when necessary

  • To learn how to build rapport and empathy between you and others

  • To learn how to communicate with clarity and gain commitment

Outcomes

  • Ability to use principles of effective communication in daily work

  • Confidence in ability to prioritise issues

  • You will actively seek clarity in information you receive and pass on to others

  • Be able to make different communication styles work for you

  • Knowledge of how to build rapport and empathy with others and ability to do it

intentional communicating - big ears, noddy & the goblins of communication

Aim

To experience communicating at a high level

Objectives

  • Understanding the basic principles of Intentional Communicating
  • Being still and receptive
  • Learning Active Listening
  • Turning on and tuning in
  • Practising switching in and out

Communicating

This Ignition Event provides an intense practical experience of deep-level communication and how to achieve it.

It demonstrates, in an experiential way, how to be able to switch in and out of the Intentional Communication state.

It allows you to experience intense focus and deep concentration and you will learn how to be able to access these at will.

You will learn about the Alpha and Beta states of brain activity and how each state affects the quality of your concentration and, therefore, of your communication.

Outcomes

  • This Ignition Event will enable you to: 
  • Translate the principles of Intentional Communicating into action
  • Use Intentional Communicating to develop relationships and performance
  • Listen actively and understand the deep impact it has
  • Tune in to the overt and subliminal messages others send
  • Being able to switch in and out of Intentional Communicating at will
basics of asseriveness - a journey from woe to yes!
Aim
Become more assertive

Objectives

  • Pinning down where you are on the Assertiveness Triangle
  • Knowing your tendencies under pressure
  • Determining a strategy for those situations
  • Practising assertiveness techniques
  • Making a practical plan for people and situations where you currently have difficulty

Assertiveness

Humans are creatures of habit who repeat their problems, often throughout their lives. This Ignition Event shows you how to break the patterns of a lifetime. Through analysis, guidance and creativity you select alternative ways of operating: choosing different behaviours will give you different results. Assertiveness comprises a set of behaviours which amount to nothing less than the ability to conduct your life well. Assertiveness will bring peace of mind and relaxation. Assertiveness gives you the tools to be able to reduce to a minimum the problems, difficulties, arguments, friction, frustration, pressure and angst which are so much a part of many people’s daily lives.You will learn simple, practical ways to respond in situations which usually cause you difficulty. You identify the trigger points in yourself and decide whether to avoid certain situations and people or formulate strategies and tactics to be assertive.People who are able to behave assertively, especially when they are under pressure, are people who are calm, in control and thinking. Assertive people are, in the end, effective people and happy people.

Outcomes

  • This Ignition Event will enable you to:
  • Deal with difficult relationships and uncomfortable situations
  • Develop strategies for times of conflict and creating win-win outcomes
  • Manage your anxieties, fear, panic and inner conflict
  • Deal with anger – your own and others
  • Consciously disengage from the games you and others play and deal with them in a straight way
asseriveness & influencing

Outline

A large part of individual effectiveness is the extent to which an individual believes, and has confidence, in him/herself and how this shows in their behaviour.

Assertiveness is getting what you want without affecting other people, or yourself, in a harmful way. Influencing is working effectively with others, using your personal style to best advantage with their personal style.

Being assertive with others, influencing them in constructive ways, you will be able to achieve results beyond anything you could achieve individually. Many people are unable to do this, ignorant to a very large degree of the impact they are having on others, and unwilling to spend the time and energy learning how to be assertive and influence others to better effect.

Aim

To understand assertiveness and influencing and how to reflect this in behaviour

Objectives

  • To understand assertion, passivity and aggression

  • To analyse how these are reflected in behaviour

  • To examine how this behaviour affects others

  • To become highly-aware of personal style

  • To develop the ability to better influence others by tuning and changing behaviour

Outcomes

  • The ability to stop some unconscious, ineffective aspects of your behaviour immediately

  • Decisions about how to behave more effectively, acting on these decisions

  • Understanding the effect of your behaviour on others and how to alter this for better results

  • Ability to moderate your style with different people in different situations to be more effective

decision-making

Outline

Many people make decisions too early, too late or not at all. They make decisions with too little information, too much or none at all. Effective performance can be severely affected by the ability or inability to make the right decisions quickly and accurately.

How decisions are made, or not made, in organisations leads to poor results but often is not identified as a culprit.

Both logic and emotion have a part to play in decision-making to ensure that more of the right decisions are made with the right information at the right time with the right results.

Aim

To make you more able to make the right decision with the right information at the right time at the right speed

Objectives

  • To become aware of how you currently make decisions

  • To understand what causes you to delay making a decision, to make a decision too quickly or to make the wrong decision

  • To properly understand how to assess risk

  • To build your confidence in your natural decision-making ability

  • To have a blueprint for improved decision-making in different situations

Outcomes

  • Understand why and how you make/fail to make decisions

  • You will stop delaying, you will stop making decisions too quickly

  • You will have an improved ability to avoid making wrong decisions

  • Ability to categorise the risk relating to your decisions

  • The necessary skills to make decisions naturally and without too much effort and difficulty

  • A blueprint to assist you in making difficult, and other, decisions

taking effective action

Outline

In today’s high-pressure, fast-moving, competitive world there are huge pressures on us to take decisions more and more quickly. Individuals find themselves agreeing to do all sorts of things which they then either fail to do, fail to do by the agreed deadline or do in a less than adequate way. The corresponding drop in credibility affects their self-confidence, their professional performance and how others regard them.

To be able to be decisive, taking appropriate action with the right amount of information, analysis, risk-analysis, input from others and required urgency, is rare.

Those who consistently take effective action under pressure are unusual. Sometimes it means acting immediately, sometimes it means waiting. Knowing the difference, and using personal judgement to decide, is a valuable skill.

Aim

To understand how and when to take effective action

Objectives

  • To understand the mental processes you go through prior to taking action

  • To identify situations when you take ineffective, or no, action and what drives this

  • To clearly understand the difference between thinking, feeling and doing

  • To identify situations which require you to take effective action and understand what to do in these situations

  • To improve your thinking processes and your confidence to act

Outcomes

  • Better ability to gather and analyse information and plan and deploy resources

  • Understanding how to analyse risk in a realistic way

  • Able to do all of the above in a conscious, rational manner

  • Understand when taking effective action means doing something, when it means not doing anything and when it is a mixture

  • You will have greater understanding of the importance of timing

management styles

Outline

Individual management style does not usually develop according to what works best. Managers are not sufficiently flexible, objective and pragmatic to be able to analyse individuals and situations dispassionately enough to make best decisions at the time. Management style is frequently driven by pressure and stress. When these are at high levels managers habitually revert to their usual style, whether it is effective or not.

Many managers are largely unaware of their personal management style, unclear about its strengths and weaknesses, ignorant of its impact on others and unable to vary it much according to the requirements of different situations and individuals. A small improvement in any of these areas will have an exponential effect on your ability and results as a manager.

Constant awareness of your management style, the ability to tune it to the situation you are in and to the differing motivation, commitment, skills, attitude, needs, moods, strengths and weaknesses of the individuals you are managing, results in individuals who strive to do their best, teams which are effective and successful performance.

Aim

To understand your own Management Style and how to alter this as and when necessary

Objectives

  • To understand your own Management Style, when it works well for you and when it doesn’t

  • To understand alternative Management Styles

  • To identify what kind of different situations require different management styles

  • To understand how different individuals respond differently at different times to different treatment

  • To be able to deliberately choose an appropriate management style at times of stress and pressure

Outcomes

  • A clear understanding of your own management style

  • The ability to use your natural management style, with other styles as appropriate, to achieve results

  • An understanding of the practical relevance of this to your required performance as a manager

  • Ability to use a blend of management styles to get the best possible results in different situations with different individuals

  • Ability to do all of the above in a conscious, rational manner

essentials of leadership - the rubbish & the reality

Aim

A practical insight in to the essentials of leadership

Objectives

  • Understanding what leaders do
  • Identifying key behaviours involved in leadership
  • Understanding which of these behaviours you already have and which you can develop
  • Practice in accessing these behaviours
  • Clarifying your next steps

Leadership

Leadership is much misunderstood. In all the debate about whether leaders are born or made the key point, usually missed, is that it is contextual: leadership is what a specific person does at a specific moment in a specific situation. Often it boils down to someone who seizes the moment. The person who seizes the moment may or may not be a formally-designated leader.

‘If you can keep your head . . . ‘ Kipling’s line encapsulates what the person who claims leadership does: they align their energy (feelings) with their rationality (thinking) and they ACT. They may not know exactly what they have to do but they know they have to do something . . . so they do.

Whether leadership is formalised in a title, or not, we can all access leadership within and we can all express this as Leadership Behaviour. When you take ACTION your behaviour will be recognised as such.

This exciting day will enthuse you, invigorate you and make you stimulated and aware of the leader within you and how to let it out to play.

Outcomes

  • This Ignition Event will enable you to:

  • Choose when and how you can seize the moment

  • Understand what practical steps you can take to be a leader

  • Realise which of your behaviours are Leadership behaviours

  • Understand the importance of attracting people’s attention

  • Understand what leaders do which makes them charismatic

leadership style

Outline

Leadership style develops in an idiosyncratic manner. Individuals are often unaware of the many natural leadership abilities they possess and do not clearly understand what constitutes the main, and visible, features of their own style. Experience of your own, and other, leadership styles, their advantages and disadvantages, knowing when to deploy them, coupled with confidence in your ability, is key to being an effective leader.

Different leadership styles yield different results with different individuals: they require, and will respond positively to, the kind of leadership that suits them. The ability to successfully adapt to individuals and situations does not come naturally or easily to most people.

Awareness of your leadership style, the ability to tune it to the situation you are in and to the differing motivation, commitment, skills, attitude, needs, moods, strengths and weaknesses of the individuals you are leading, such that you get the best possible results, results in success, confidence, sureness and charisma.

Aim

To be confident in your own leadership style and be able to tune it and use it to best effect

Objectives

  • To understand your own Leadership Style, what works for you and for those you are leading

  • To identify alternative Leadership Styles

  • To analyse what kind of different situations require different Leadership Styles

  • To understand how different individuals will respond differently at different times to different treatment

  • To be able to deliberately choose an appropriate Leadership Style

Outcomes

  • A clear understanding of your own Leadership Style and how to use it to best effect

  • The ability to use other Leadership Styles, when necessary, in an effective way

  • The willingness to use the practical relevance of this to improve your performance as a leader

  • Ability and willingness to use your increased understanding to help dvelop others to lead effectively

Achieving Task 

Getting things done well, and on time, is satisfying. The need to get things done is never-ending.

Scoping and measuring tasks, and what constitutes achievement, isn’t easy. Goals and deadlines aren’t always realistic, or achieved, many of us experience feeling driven by the imperatives of too many tasks, onerous deadlines and the pressure of too much to achieve in too little time.

These courses will enable you to improve your approach to the achievement of tasks in your personal and working life.

Click on a particular course to read more about it…

dealing with change

Outline

Change surrounds us and permeates our lives. We choose whether it just happens to us or we manage it when it does. Many fear or dislike change, rather than managing it they expend energy in, usually futile, resistance. Some change is imposed, some we choose. Just because we choose it does not mean that accepting it and dealing with it is easy. Much change is unstoppable, that does not mean that it cannot be slowed, understood and harnessed.

An interesting facet of change is that it never, ever, has the results predicted. The gurus of the future are always proved wrong in significant ways. This is because people, complex and unpredictable as they are, change change itself.

It is also because: MTBD > MTBS – The Mean Time Between Decisions is greater than the Mean Time Between Surprises. In most organisations it takes longer to make a decision than it does for the assumption on which the decision is based to change in some unforeseen way. All change brings opportunity as well as threat. What makes the difference is how you look at it, how you think about it and what you decide to do. Ask yourself: is this an opportunity or a predicament. If it’s an opportunity, what can I do to benefit from it. If it’s a predicament, what can I do to change it, or not be harmed by it.

Change often has people reacting emotionally, becoming trapped in their feelings. Your feelings about change are a signal that you could use your thinking skills to plan a route through the change.

Aim

To be able to anticipate and plan for change

Objectives

  • To understand the mental processes which occur when change is imminent

  • To analyse what causes anxiety, worry or fear and what can be done about it

  • To develop the ability to look ahead and anticipate change

  • To be better able to use the thinking, rational part of the brain when dealing with change

  • To improve in making practical plans to manage effects of change in a constructive way

  • To work on how to be an initiator rather than a victim when change occurs

Outcomes

  • Improvement in your thinking processes, and your confidence to act, in situations of change

  • Better ability to gather and analyse information and plan and deploy resources when change is present

  • Understanding how to analyse risk in a realistic way

  • Be able to do all

decision-making

Outline

Many people make decisions too early, too late or not at all. They make decisions with too little information, too much or none at all. Effective performance can be severely affected by the ability or inability to make the right decisions quickly and accurately.

How decisions are made, or not made, in organisations leads to poor results but often is not identified as a culprit.

Both logic and emotion have a part to play in decision-making to ensure that more of the right decisions are made with the right information at the right time with the right results.

Aim

To make you more able to make the right decision with the right information at the right time at the right speed

Objectives

  • To become aware of how you currently make decisions

  • To understand what causes you to delay making a decision, to make a decision too quickly or to make the wrong decision

  • To properly understand how to assess risk

  • To build your confidence in your natural decision-making ability

  • To have a blueprint for improved decision-making in different situations

Outcomes

  • Understand why and how you make/fail to make decisions

  • You will stop delaying, you will stop making decisions too quickly

  • You will have an improved ability to avoid making wrong decisions

  • Ability to categorise the risk relating to your decisions

  • The necessary skills to make decisions naturally and without too much effort and difficulty

  • A blueprint to assist you in making difficult, and other, decisions

navigating organisational politics

Outline

Politics is defined, in the Oxford English Dictionary, as:

1 the activities associated with the governance of a country or area. ➤ a particular set of political beliefs or principles. 2 activities aimed at improving someone’s staus within an organisation: office politics. 3 the principles relating to or inherent in a sphere or activity, especially when concerned with power and status: the politics of gender.

Issues of governance, operations, power and status are crucial to how organisations operate and whether, and how, they succeed or fail.

Humans are social animals which implies that many, most, if not all of us, are also to a degree, political animals.

The ways in which organisational culture incorporates politics is key to how that organisation operates.

Aim

To raise your awareness and understanding of how organisational politics affects performance.

Objectives

  • To be able to identify the benign and malign effects of organisational politics.
  • To understand your own style and consider how you can best contribute to organisational politics.
  • To examine how organisational politics drives, hinders or blocks performance.

      Outcomes

      • A better understanding of what organisational politics is.
      • A clearer idea of when it works for the organisation, when it works against it.
      • Ability to read the signs in the culture of an organisation indicating how politics works in that organisation.
      • Heightened awareness of which behaviours will benefit yourself and the organisation and which won’t

         

        setting, managing and achieving goals

        Outline

        In the last decade, in many areas of business life, we have seen the ineffectiveness and failure which results from setting goals which are inappropriate, unrealistic and unreachable. These goals are usually being set without the right amount of, or no, support, lack of adequate knowledge of individual capabilities, training, coaching or resources. Small wonder that failure is often the result.

        The ability to set and achieve realistic goals is one hallmark of an effective person. Much difficulty and unhappiness in life comes from a lack of goals, inappropriate goals or the inability to achieve goals.

        Being able to set goals which stretch and develop the individual, contribute to the performance delivery of the team and to the overall results of the company is key to the sustained success of organisations.

        Aim

        To give you the confidence to be able to set, manage and oversee the achievement of appropriate goals

        Objectives

        • To understand what are appropriate and achievable goals

        • To identify the difference between what is challenging and what is unachievable

        • To analyse what causes failure in the achievement of goals

        • To identify what you, and your team-members, need in order to succeed

        • To understand the process of setting and managing goals

        • To understand that saying it and setting it is not the same as achieving it.

        • To be able to set, manage and achieve goals yourself and to do it for your team

        Outcomes

        • Able to set appropriate goals for yourself and your team-members

        • The discrimination and assertiveness to not accept, or be bullied or coerced into setting unachievable goals

        • The awareness to know when you are starting to fail and do something about it

        • Ability to manage goals for the members of your team and help them achieve these goals

        • The determination to only set and accept goals which you are willing and able to achieve

        team building 3

        Outline

        Team Building 3 requires a preparatory session of four hours on-site at least two weeks before the course, this is included in the price. Alternatively a team could do Team Building 1 as the preparatory session. For a team which has already completed Team Building 1 and/or 2 there is no requirement for a preparatory session unless the composition of the team has changed.

        Strengths and weaknesses in the team are tested using a mixture of inputs, exercises, review, analysis, feedback and incisive discussion. This improves understanding of what individual members must change in their behaviour to ensure success and what the team must do to capitalise on this.

        Aim

        To forge a strong, cohesive, motivated, achieving team

        Objectives

        • To enable different individuals to work together as a single, cohesive unit

        • To improve understanding, tolerance, communication, support, challenge and success

        • To improve effective working when pressure and conflict is present

        • To get all team members working at a higher level of awareness, motivation, commitment and performance

        Outcomes

        • More enjoyment working in this team

        • Willingly contribute more of yourself to the team

        • Team will work in a more high-powered way

        • Honesty, directness and clarity will improve

        • Team will reach higher levels of performance

        • Being in this team will enable individuals to grow and develop

        running effective meetings

        Outline

        Meetings often take longer than they should and achieve less than they could. In meetings individuals often do not participate or, if they do, they do not do so in the most effective way for all present.

        Meetings are necessary, they can be sources of information, direction and energy rather than a dreary and irrelevant waste of time that changes nothing.

        To be useful meetings should have structure, focus and participation with agreements to action that are implemented. You will develop the confidence and techniques to do this with any group of people in virtually any situation.

        Aim

        To enable you to run a meeting that is of practical use to all attending

        Objectives

        • To understand the mechanics and dynamics of meetings

        • To develop the skills to ensure that you and other attendees are involved and contributing

        • To be able to stop unproductive diversions, wandering off, people being there but absent and to use time effectively

        • To practise how to agree and reach consensus, assign and ensure practical, relevant actions

        Outcomes

        • Able to set realistic and relevant agendas for your meetings

        • The necessary skills to keep your meeting focussed and on track

        • The skills to involve everyone and ensure that everyone’s contribution is heard

        • Be able to overcome barriers to consensus, gain commitment on an action plan and ensure follow- up

        • Know how to write accurate, professional minutes

        time & attendance

        Outline

        The inability by individuals, teams and organisations to manage time, attendance and their work costs millions. Every manager should pay attention to this, especially when it becomes a problem. If you don’t, it does.

        Setting and managing custom and practice is important: if a lax culture is allowed to develop, managing time and attendance will grow into a major problem which becomes increasingly difficult to resolve.

        It is far easier to set clear boundaries at the outset and relax them when necessary or appropriate than to set no boundaries and then try to impose them on unwilling people when it becomes necessary and unavoidable. This applies particularly in teams.

        Self-discipline usually develops as a result of external discipline imposed. Some people have a greater capacity for self-discipline than others. It is an unhappy fact of life that some will try and get away with whatever they can. Clear rules and boundaries will help to keep everyone operating to an accepted norm and standards. If time and attendance is managed by clear, well-understood rules and guidelines, and efficient processes, then time is freed to deal with more important things.

        Aim

        To enable you to confidently manage time and attendance

        Objectives

        • To understand what is required of you in managing time and attendance

        • To understand company requirements regarding time and attendance

        • To be able to formulate a time and attendance plan

        • To identify possible, or actual, problems and their solutions

        Outcomes

        • Ability to make an appropriate plan for yourself and your team

        • Understanding and ability to clearly explain company and organisation requirements

        • You will develop strategies, tactics and contingencies for dealing with difficulty, unwillingness and resistance

        resource investigation

        Outline

        Resources are all around us although we often act as though there is a shortage. Resource investigation starts with an attitude. The central difference between someone with an optimistic, can-do attitude and someone with a pessimistic, can’t-do attitude is that the former will be constantly seeking resources to help achieve while the latter will be constantly collecting problems to justify non-achievement. Poverty-thinking is infectious: in the dveloped world we are living with far more resources than anyone in recorded history and complaining more about shortage.

        Individuals who are able to use creativity, curiosity, assertiveness and energy can find resource where none was apparent. These people usually go on to achieve greater things than others who are more easily discouraged.

        Resource investigation encompasses more than just money and inanimate objects. Unexpected resources are to be found within oneself as well as in others. Luck, coincidence  and serendipity are resources which turn up frequently when individuals are open to them. Abundance of resource does not guarantee success but success often attends those who are able to find resources not apparent to others.

        Aim

        To use resource investigation as a way to create a competitive edge

        Objectives

        • To understand how thinking often determines results

        • To see how many people stop themselves doing anything with negative, poverty-thinking

        • To understand that, in our world, there is not really a shortage of anything

        • To identify situations which require you to use resource investigation and understand what to do in these situations

        • To be able to use lateral thinking to improve your resource investigation

        Outcomes

        • Better able to gather and analyse information and plan and deploy resources

        • Understand how to identify and gather resources

        • Able to use lateral thinking to find resources and alternatives

        • Constantly conscious of the possibility of different ways of achieving what you are aiming for

        recruitment & selection

        Outline

        If managers at all levels in companies had better skills in selecting and recruiting appropriate people to work for them their organisations would be more successful. Managers who are skilled and confident in their ability to get recruitment and selection right more of the time than they get it wrong understand that this is where motivation starts.

        The ability to interview candidates for a job helps with many of the other situations where it is necessary to manage, question and listen to others. It is very good practice for focus, paying attention, asking detailed questions, listening and exercising judgement.

        If you are responsible for recruiting you should have a clear understanding of your company’s recruitment and selection process, be able to take part in this as and when necessary and be able to train others in how to operate it.

        Aim

        To be able to run an effective recruitment and selection process

        Objectives

        • To understand what your company’s recruitment and selection process involves and how it works

        • To be able to talk to a candidate’s experience and understand the importance of this

        • To be aware of the different types of question required and how to frame these

        • To be able to probe for an adequate answer

        • To understand the importance of intuition in the recruitment and selection process

        • To be able to close the interview and keep any agreements made

        Outcomes

        • A clear understanding of your company’s recruitment and selection process

        • Able to set up and run/help with recruitment and selection sessions

        • The skill of questioning candidates in such a way that they answer your questions from their practical experience

        • Trust in your questioning, analysis, judgement and linking it with intuition to make the right decision

        • Keeping the agreements you make at the end of each interview by agreed deadlines and understanding why this is important for individual and company credibility

        managing reward & bonus schemes

        Outline

        Many individuals will perform better than their basic job description if they are rewarded appropriately for their extra energy. If everyone gets the reward, whatever the performance, then it will come to be seen as a right not as a reward. The expectation of rights leads to complacency and laziness. Reward and bonus schemes exist to recognise performance beyond the norm. If a bonus becomes expected for normal performance then that performance will suffer.

        Reward and bonus schemes are intimately linked with performance management and appraisal and should be approached as a method of developing individual and team performance.

        Properly structured and managed, reward and bonus schemes lead to higher motivation, better team-working and increased commitment.

        Aim

        To be able to rigorously manage reward and bonus schemes

        Objectives

        • To understand what the purpose of a reward and bonus scheme is

        • To understand and be able to quantify the qualification criteria

        • To be able to explain this at the outset to team-members

        • To be able to clearly explain degrees of success, and failure to qualify, to team members

        Outcomes

        • Ability to set appropriate levels of qualification for your team

        • Understand how to explain clearly what the qualification and measurement procedure will be

        • Ability to use reward and bonus schemes to manage success and failure in your team

        Relating to People

        Life is, mostly, a team game. Humans are gregarious and need, and benefit from, the family, social and work groups in which they exist.

        Managing the ways in which we relate to others is critical to our effectiveness, achievement and well-being and to their motivation, support and performance.

        These courses will enable you to improve your ability to get results through your interactions with others.

        Click on a particular course to read more about it…

        core communication skills

        Outline

        Whether it’s a face-to-face meeting, a telephone call, social media or any other medium, communication is a complex process which requires constant attention so that meaning is sent and received as intended.

        Inadequate communication is often a source of misunderstanding and conflict. It interferes with productivity and profitability. We have all experienced the frustration of not being able to get through to someone, or of being misunderstood. We all have the ability to be good communicators, we just need to develop the skills and practice them.

        Communication is difficult, sometimes because of the situation, sometimes because of the people involved. It is relatively easy to implement a few basic skills to be able to improve noticeably.

        Aim

        To enable effective communication

        Objectives

        • To understand the principles of effective communication

        • To know how to listen and when it is important

        • To improve questioning and listening skills so that messages received are clearly understood and, where appropriate, passed on

        • To become aware of various communication styles and to learn how to adapt your style when necessary

        • To learn how to build rapport and empathy between you and others

        • To learn how to communicate with clarity and gain commitment

        Outcomes

        • Ability to use principles of effective communication in daily work

        • Confidence in ability to prioritise issues

        • You will actively seek clarity in information you receive and pass on to others

        • Be able to make different communication styles work for you

        • Knowledge of how to build rapport and empathy with others and ability to do it

        intentional communicating - big ears, noddy & the goblins of communication

        Aim

        To experience communicating at a high level

        Objectives

        • Understanding the basic principles of Intentional Communicating
        • Being still and receptive
        • Learning Active Listening
        • Turning on and tuning in
        • Practising switching in and out

        Communicating

        This Ignition Event provides an intense practical experience of deep-level communication and how to achieve it.

        It demonstrates, in an experiential way, how to be able to switch in and out of the Intentional Communication state.

        It allows you to experience intense focus and deep concentration and you will learn how to be able to access these at will.

        You will learn about the Alpha and Beta states of brain activity and how each state affects the quality of your concentration and, therefore, of your communication.

        Outcomes

        • This Ignition Event will enable you to: 
        • Translate the principles of Intentional Communicating into action
        • Use Intentional Communicating to develop relationships and performance
        • Listen actively and understand the deep impact it has
        • Tune in to the overt and subliminal messages others send
        • Being able to switch in and out of Intentional Communicating at will
        dealing with change

        Outline

        Change surrounds us and permeates our lives. We choose whether it just happens to us or we manage it when it does. Many fear or dislike change, rather than managing it they expend energy in, usually futile, resistance. Some change is imposed, some we choose. Just because we choose it does not mean that accepting it and dealing with it is easy. Much change is unstoppable, that does not mean that it cannot be slowed, understood and harnessed.

        An interesting facet of change is that it never, ever, has the results predicted. The gurus of the future are always proved wrong in significant ways. This is because people, complex and unpredictable as they are, change change itself.

        It is also because: MTBD > MTBS – The Mean Time Between Decisions is greater than the Mean Time Between Surprises. In most organisations it takes longer to make a decision than it does for the assumption on which the decision is based to change in some unforeseen way. All change brings opportunity as well as threat. What makes the difference is how you look at it, how you think about it and what you decide to do. Ask yourself: is this an opportunity or a predicament. If it’s an opportunity, what can I do to benefit from it. If it’s a predicament, what can I do to change it, or not be harmed by it.

        Change often has people reacting emotionally, becoming trapped in their feelings. Your feelings about change are a signal that you could use your thinking skills to plan a route through the change.

        Aim

        To be able to anticipate and plan for change

        Objectives

        • To understand the mental processes which occur when change is imminent

        • To analyse what causes anxiety, worry or fear and what can be done about it

        • To develop the ability to look ahead and anticipate change

        • To be better able to use the thinking, rational part of the brain when dealing with change

        • To improve in making practical plans to manage effects of change in a constructive way

        • To work on how to be an initiator rather than a victim when change occurs

        Outcomes

        • Improvement in your thinking processes, and your confidence to act, in situations of change

        • Better ability to gather and analyse information and plan and deploy resources when change is present

        • Understanding how to analyse risk in a realistic way

        • Be able to do all

        Pressure, Conflict & stress

        Outline

        The ability to manage pressure, stress and conflict is becoming more important by the day as we face increasing pressures in the working environment and results become ever more important. Inner conflict and inappropriate external demands cause stress, eroding our ability to deal effectively with other people and with difficult situations.

        The management of pressure, stress and conflict is something that can, and should, be done minute-to-minute through our lives. It does not require specialist knowledge, simply self-awareness, some training, a strategy, some tactics for emergencies and the willingness to invest a little time on an on-going basis. The results yielded can be out of all proportion to the time invested.

        Much pressure, stress and conflict at work is hidden but the results are visible and appear on the balance sheet.

        Aim

        To develop your ability to manage pressure and stress and understand and manage conflict productively

        Objectives

        • To understand how conflict leads to stress and how stress leads to conflict

        • To understand how unresolved inner conflict causes external conflict and other problems

        • To analyse what your optimum levels of stress are

        • To explore what your personal style is with regard to conflict and its resolution

        • To identify tactics to use when you are under stress

        • To understand the links to assertiveness and influencing

        Outcomes

        • Understand the equation for stress and be able to use it appropriately

        • Recognise and break the vicious cycle of stress – conflict – stress – conflict . . .

        • Understand what causes you inner conflict

        • Be able to resolve inner conflict and express confusion, difficulties or concerns appropriately

        • Develop tactics to release your stress and stop it building up to the point where you become ineffective

        • Identify those people and situations which cause you stress and be better able to anticipate them

        • Plan rationally what to do when experiencing stress before you become emotionally ineffective or helpless

        asseriveness & influencing

        Outline

        A large part of individual effectiveness is the extent to which an individual believes, and has confidence, in him/herself and how this shows in their behaviour.

        Assertiveness is getting what you want without affecting other people, or yourself, in a harmful way. Influencing is working effectively with others, using your personal style to best advantage with their personal style.

        Being assertive with others, influencing them in constructive ways, you will be able to achieve results beyond anything you could achieve individually. Many people are unable to do this, ignorant to a very large degree of the impact they are having on others, and unwilling to spend the time and energy learning how to be assertive and influence others to better effect.

        Aim

        To understand assertiveness and influencing and how to reflect this in behaviour

        Objectives

        • To understand assertion, passivity and aggression

        • To analyse how these are reflected in behaviour

        • To examine how this behaviour affects others

        • To become highly-aware of personal style

        • To develop the ability to better influence others by tuning and changing behaviour

        Outcomes

        • The ability to stop some unconscious, ineffective aspects of your behaviour immediately

        • Decisions about how to behave more effectively, acting on these decisions

        • Understanding the effect of your behaviour on others and how to alter this for better results

        • Ability to moderate your style with different people in different situations to be more effective

        understanding organisational politics

        Outline

        Politics is defined, in the Oxford English Dictionary, as:

        1 the activities associated with the governance of a country or area. ➤ a particular set of political beliefs or principles. 2 activities aimed at improving someone’s staus within an organisation: office politics. 3 the principles relating to or inherent in a sphere or activity, especially when concerned with power and status: the politics of gender.

        Issues of governance, operations, power and status are crucial to how organisations operate and whether, and how, they succeed or fail.

        Humans are social animals which implies that many, most, if not all of us, are also to a degree, political animals.

        The ways in which organisational culture incorporates politics is key to how that organisation operates.

        Aim

        To raise your awareness and understanding of how organisational politics affects performance.

        Objectives

        • To be able to identify the benign and malign effects of organisational politics.
        • To understand your own style and consider how you can best contribute to organisational politics.
        • To examine how organisational politics drives, hinders or blocks performance.

            Outcomes

            • A better understanding of what organisational politics is.
            • A clearer idea of when it works for the organisation, when it works against it.
            • Ability to read the signs in the culture of an organisation indicating how politics works in that organisation.
            • Heightened awareness of which behaviours will benefit yourself and the organisation and which won’t

               

              assessing

              Outline

              Core to leadership is the ability to read other people: their strengths, weaknesses, tendencies, potential. Good leaders take the time to get to know the people they are leading. This is best done by observation of behaviour, by listening and by testing. Much assessment by leaders is either too fleeting or too formal. To really understand someone’s behaviour, performance, potential and quirks is not something that can be done either quickly or easily.

              The people who work for you are the ones who guarantee your results. If you know and understand the raw material you are working with you will be better able to direct them to better outcomes. Assessment should be both formal and informal. The leader who does not do it properly is short-sighted and, almost certainly, ineffective.

              Your people support you by delivering results, support them by using accurate assessment to ensure you are utilising them to their best.

              Aim

              To enable you to accurately assess anyone you are responsible for leading

              Objectives

              • To understand what constitutes a realistic and accurate assessment

              • To be able to use assessment to build self-awareness and self-discipline

              • To understand the balance to be achieved between formal and informal assessment

              • To be able to use feedback to give assessments which are motivational and developmental

              • To be able to keep your finger on the pulse

              Outcomes

              • The ability to use formal and informal assessment to build motivation and discipline

              • The discrimination to judge when to use formal and when to use informal assessment

              • The capacity to deliver both in effective and appropriate ways

              • The ability to give honest, accurate assessments with examples

              feedback as a development tool

              Outline

              Feedback is the single most important and effective tool for managing and developing people. Most of us are expert at observing, reading, analysing, assessing and commenting on other peoples’ behaviour. Unfortunately we usually keep this to ourselves or talk to a third party about it, not the person who should be the subject of feedback. We are far less skilled at doing this in a structured way where the feedback could be of practical developmental use to the person receiving it.

              Constructive feedback delivered in the right way at the right time can be staggeringly-useful in an individual’s development. For feedback to be effective it should be based on observation of an individual’s behaviour and be supported by examples of behaviour as illustration, not as evidence for the prosecution.

              Good feedback is likely to result in higher motivation, more confidence, professional and personal development, increased commitment and consistently-improving performance. All people at work should, at the very least, be experts at feedback. The vast majority are not.

              Aim

              To enable you to give feedback effectively

              Objectives

              • To understand the ground rules for giving feedback

              • To understand the part it plays in individual development and performance appraisal

              • To understand the behavioural aspects of feedback

              • To be able to plan an effective feedback session

              • To understand how to follow this up

              Outcomes

              • Clear understanding of the ground rules for giving feedback and why they are so important

              • Be able to give feedback, positive or negative, so it is constructive and of practical use

              • Ability to tune feedback to the improvement of individual performance

              • Anticipate and deal with resistance and defensiveness

              • Use feedback as part of effective performance appraisal

              • Check whether, and how, the feedback has been received and understood

              coaching, mentoring, delegating

              Outline

              Many managers do not have, or make, the time to fully develop the individuals who work for them. Not doing this is a waste of time and money. Almost all individuals have more capability and potential than is usually identified. Managers who ignore this are, at best, short-sighted and, at worst, stupid.

              Coaching, mentoring and delegating are the simplest, easiest, most effective and, most importantly to cost-conscious organisations, the cheapest ways of developing individuals. When an individual starts to develop they become more confident in their abilities generally and in their ability to learn new skills in particular. They become motivated and willing and can deal with more complex tasks with more uncertain outcomes. They become more and more able to take responsibility.

              Developed individuals are also the most likely source for providing new managers or for promotion into new jobs and, because they are home-grown, they will have valuable experience of the company and the loyalty which goes with that.

              Aim

              To enable you to better develop the individuals you are responsible for managing

              Objectives

              • To understand how to assess an individual’s current skills, performance and potential

              • To be able to recognise potential

              • To know how to write and implement a coaching plan

              • To be able to delegate effectively and understand the part management control plays in this

              • To understand where this fits with performance appraisal

              Outcomes

              • Understanding of the fundamentals of individual development

              • Better able to identify those with development potential

              • The skill of using performance management to coach and mentor

              • Ability to use delegation effectively and appropriately as a development tool

              • Ability to conduct informal and formal appraisals to manage this process

              client-centred coaching - feeding the five thousand

              Aim

              Making a start on client-centred coaching

              Objectives

              • Understanding basic principles of client-centred approaches in coaching
              • Practising the vital components
              • Learning Active Listening
              • Using a range of exploratory questions to focus
              • Experiencing total concentration: extreme mindfulness

              Coaching

              Coaching is the simplest, most time-effective, cost-effective and reliable way of developing other people.

              People who receive good coaching will learn, become more responsible and actively seek to do better work.

              It is the best way of ensuring that people you work with have energy and focus in their careers, are in a process of development which challenges them, motivates them and helps them improve their performance.

              It ensures that there are always candidates ready to take on added responsibility, more complicated tasks and more senior roles.

              Outcomes

              • This Ignition Event will enable you to: 

              • Coach people to perform better

              • Coach with confidence

              • Improve your communication skills

              • Practise Active Listening and questionning skills

              • Focus intently and with intention

              team building 1

              Outline

              This course is a useful precursor to Team Building 2 and Team Building 3. All three Team Building courses can be done as a sequence.

              Team Building 1 ensures that all team members get to know each other, understand more about each others’ personalities, skills and ways of working and develop effective ways of working as a team.

              As the team work together in an improved way, motivation and commitment to the success of the team will increase.

              Aim

              To get to know each other and be able to work better together

              Objectives

              • To get to know and understand the other members of the team

              • To work out effective ways of working together

              • To build familiarity, motivation and commitment

              Outcomes

              • All team members will know each other

              • All will understand more about the way they operate

              • Develop structured ways to work more effectively as a team

              • Will be more motivated

              • More committed to the success of the team

              motivation & discipline

              Outline

              Increased competition and pressure at work has seen a mirrored increase in pressure on the internal structure and organisation of companies. This has resulted in re-organisation after re-organisation and either a return to rigid command and control hierarchies or a slide into a lack of management control, indiscipline and anarchy.

              It helps to understand, other than money and adequate working conditions, what gives people a higher motivation. To get the best out of individuals and teams it is necessary to give them love and boundaries. Love is given in the form of greeting, conversation and purposeful discussion, approval, rewards and bonuses, special events, recognition and promotion. Boundaries are given in the form of clarity about rules, processes, operating norms and the disciplinary process. Like children, adults respond best when they know where they are, what they are supposed to be doing, where they are going and have a good reason for wanting to go there. This is done by building a clearly-structured working environment with sensible rules and operating norms. This leads to efficiency and minimal time wasted.

              The best discipline is self-discipline: when individuals can monitor and control themselves the atmosphere of responsibility which ensues results in higher motivation, better performance, consistent delivery and a better atmosphere in which to work.

              Aim

              To enable you to build motivation and discipline in any team you are responsible for leading

              Objectives

              • To understand what motivates different individuals and how to benefit from this

              • To be able to build a high sense of organisation into a team such that self-discipline results

              • To develop the ability to achieve a balance between discipline and motivation

              • To understand that individuals need both in order to give of their best

              • To understand that leaders can do this without it becoming a popularity contest

              Outcomes

              • Ability to motivate different individuals

              • A higher awareness of how your own behaviour affects motivation in your team

              • The ability to build structure, organisation and discipline in any team

              • Insight to apply motivation and/or discipline as necessary

              • Ability to use motivation and discipline in a planned, structured way in your team leading to team-members taking increased responsibility

              performance management & appraisal

              Outline

              Increased competition, busy-ness and pressure at work means that performance is often not managed and assessed effectively and productively.

              To get the best out of individuals and teams it is necessary to plan how best to deploy and develop their skills and abilities, as well as continually managing and reviewing their performance. For teams thisr esults in higher motivation, consistently good results and a better atmosphere in which to work. For individuals it will result in professional and personal development, increased commitment and consistently-improving performance.

              Performance management and appraisal enables the manager to know what the team is capable of, what is going on at any particular time, better awareness and understanding of problems arising and what to do to solve them. It ensures a thorough knowledge of individuals and anything which might be needed to ensure their continued commitment and high-level performance.

              Aim

              To enable you to manage and appraise individual and team performance rigorously

              Objectives

              • To understand what results from good performance management and appraisal

              • To analyse what is required to manage performance and be able to do it

              • To have a blueprint for formal and informal appraisal

              • To enable you to use performance appraisal as a developmental tool

              Outcomes

              • Understanding of what performance management is and how to do it

              • Ability to plan and structure an effective appraisal session

              • The necessary skills to do formal and informal appraisals

              • The skills to use PM&A to build involvement and contribution

              • Understanding how PM&A helps individuals take responsibility for their own performance

              succession planning

              Outline

              One of the biggest benefits in developing those who work for you is that you are almost guaranteed to have one or more people ready, when the time comes, to step into your shoes. This frightens some managers, so they don’t bother to develop their people: they would rather stand out as competent in relation to a bunch of incompetents than shine as a competent, confident developer of people surrounded by achievers.

              Too few organisations these days are able to look to their own employees for the next generation of skilled people. Having to look outside for good, skilled people is an indictment of your ability to recruit, induct, train, coach, mentor and develop individuals and imbue them with the motivation and loyalty to want to work for you. Properly assessing and developing the individuals who work for you, using their capability and potential, is by far the simplest, easiest, most effective and cheapest way of finding your new deputies, team leaders and managers. Why would you even consider not doing it?

              People who already work for you are a known quantity, they understand the culture of the company and they do not have to prove themselves in the same way as someone new to the company.

              Aim

              To enable you to be able to identify, develop and groom individuals in your team for promotion

              Objectives

              • To understand how to identify possible candidates for promotion by recognising potential and capability through competence and performance

              • To be able to develop them through coaching, mentoring, delegating

              • To monitor these individuals behaviourally ie by what they do and say

              • To use feedback and Performance Management and Appraisal to control their development

              Outcomes

              • Clear understanding of the importance of continually observing and assessing individual performance

              • Ability to identify those with competent performance who have development potential

              • Willingness to use succession planning to improve your performance as a manger

              • Skills to use formal and informal appraisals with extensive use of behavioural feedback to manage this process

              matrix management

              Outline

              ‘No man can serve two masters and be a servant to both.’ (Matthew ch.6 v.24). Matrix management seeks to disprove this by attempting to have individuals taking responsibility for different aspects of their job by reporting to different managers and formalising this in the reporting chain.

              At its simplest, matrix management implies that a manager can build good relationships with individuals who do not report directly to him/her and get results from them even though they may have no sanction in the formal reporting chain. This is not always easy, especially since the formal manager may see what you are doing as cutting across their authority.

              In attempting successful matrix management your personal management style is key to success.

              Aim

              To understand and be able to work with matrix management

              Objectives

              • To understand matrix management as a concept

              • To analyse the fundamentals of building good, professional working relationships quickly

              • To examine the difficulties and what can go wrong

              • To understand how your personal management style will work, or not, in matrix management

              • To identify what you might need to tune to get better results

              Outcomes

              • A clear understanding of matrix management

              • Anticipation of problems and making plans to deal with them

              • Planning how and with whom to build relationships

              • Ability to clearly quantify the minimum result required

              • Ability to use contingency planning to negotiate obstacles

              Tuning Performance

              In every sense of the word, performance is not a static destination, it is a dynamic and ever-changing process. Once you have arrived, you have to set off again immediately if you want to stay vital, stay relevant, stay competitive, stay in the game.

              Improving performance on an on-going basis requires rigorous analysis of results, actively looking for ways in which to make change for improved performance, getting good at disrupting the status quo, listening to people.

              These courses will enable you to develop high-level behavioural skills in constant performance improvement.

              Click on a particular course to read more about it…

              building structure in a team

              Outline

              Teams usually evolve in a haphazard way. Structure is often based on the historical culture, skill levels, longevity in the team, familiarity with it, whether or not individuals get on with each other and with the team leader. When conflict arises it is often not well-managed.

              It is possible to structure a team such that the culture, identification of skills, allocation of tasks, development of individuals, consistency of meeting goals and the monitoring of performance is done in a planned, organised and thoughtful way.

              To build this kind of structure in a team requires the investment of time, the application of analysis and a sequential approach. Some team leaders are not willing to invest this time and analysis. They always suffer the consequences.

              Aim

              To enable you to build structure into any team you are responsible for leading

              Objectives

              • To understand the mechanics and dynamics of teams

              • To understand how to analyse and deploy your resources

              • To learn how to use a planned approach to apply internal and external structure

              Outcomes

              • Understanding more about how teams work

              • Ability to identify the difference between internal and external structure

              • The necessary skills to build structure into any team

              • The skills to ensure everyone’s involvement and contribution

              • Ability to build teams which take responsibility for their own performance

              team building 2

              Outline

              This course requires a preparatory session of four hours on-site at least two weeks before the course, this is included in the price. Alternatively, a team could do Team Building 1 as the preparatory session.

              The focus is on making sure that the right understanding, structure and processes are in place for the team to operate both efficiently and effectively.

              The team will spend much of the two days clarifying team structure, processes, ground rules and setting team goals. Understanding of these will be checked and strengthened, as will commitment.

              Aim

              To lay the foundations for a high-performance team

              Objectives

              • To understand all other members of the team and develop productive working relationships with them

              • To develop processes and structure for effective team-working

              • To be able to deal productively with conflict

              • To work effectively under pressure and time constraints

              • To effectively challenge and support the other members of your team

              • To understand more about the complexity of working in a team

              Outcomes

              • Know, and better understand, all other members of your team

              • Team will have a clear, practical, commonly-understood way of working

              • Able to work productively with difference and conflict

              • All team members will clearly understand the contribution they can, and are expected to, make

              team effectiveness analysis

              Outline

              The three Team Effectiveness courses are designed to be completed in a sequence over a period of four – twelve months.

              Team performance is often not planned, managed and assessed in effective ways because of increasing pressure and being busy. Performance management, appraisal and management control enable the team leader/manager to know what the team is capable of, what is going on at any given time, better awareness and understanding of problems arising and what to do to solve them. It ensures knowledge of individuals and anything that might be needed to ensure their continued commitment and high-level performance.

              This course provides detailed analysis of the overall effectiveness of a team: where it has strengths, where it has weaknesses. An Outline Plan for improving performance is constructed. The course consists purely in analysis and does not seek to implement improvement. It is useful as a precursor to other work to improve the performance of the team.

              Aim

              Comprehensive analysis of team effectiveness

              Objectives

              • To analyse where the team is strong and weak in Task achievement
              • To analyse People strengths and weaknesses in the team
              • Produce an Outline Plan for Improvement

              Outcomes

              • Clarity on how the team is currently operating
              • Clarity on Task and People strengths and weaknesses
              • Awareness of individual strengths and contribution
              • Clarity about how to achieve and maintain peak performance
              • Outline Plan for moving forward
              team effectiveness implementation

              Outline

              This course is designed to follow the Team Effectiveness Analysis course using the Outline Plan for improved performance as the starting point. The strengths and weaknesses of the team are examined through exercises, review, feedback and discussion. Specific actions are determined to improve effectiveness and performance.

              To get the best out of individuals and teams it is necessary to plan how best to deploy and develop individual skills and abilities and to continually manage and review performance. For teams this results in higher motivation, consistently good results and a better atmosphere in which to work. For individuals it results in professional and personal development, increased commitment and consistently-improving performance.

              Team Effectiveness Implementation will enable the team to move forward by addressing aspects of behaviour and the ways in which the team gets things done. An Action Plan is developed to ensure structured improvement. It will help the team to plan more effective ways of organising themselves and improving their individual and collective performance.

              Aim

              To use analysis of team effectiveness to tune performance

              Objectives

              • To understand, and build on, the strengths of the team

              • To analyse where, why and how the team is weak

              • To understand the practical impact of this on daily operation of the team

              • To build effective processes

              • To improve understanding, reduce friction and enhance performance

              Outcomes

              • Balance of Task and People effectiveness will be clarified

              • Clarity on where you should focus and what you must do to improve

              • Detailed Action Plan to rectify/improve Task and People weaknesses

              • Specific examples at work to test all this

              presentation skills masterclass

              Outline

              It is designed to follow the Team Effectiveness Implementation course using the Action Plan for improvement as the starting point.

              The course is an intensive, in-depth overhaul of the team and is demanding of all individuals. It confronts all members of the team with the essential question of what can be done both individually and collectively to lift team performance from good to outstanding.

              Aim

              To increase effectiveness by identifying and practising the attitudes, skills and behaviours necessary for outstanding performance

              Objectives

              • To make this an outstanding team

              • To become stronger and more competent individually and collectively

              • To ensure high-level communication and understanding in this team by encouraging people to contribute at individual, team, management and organisational level

              • To understand responses to conflict and develop the ability to manage self, feelings, reactions and behaviour in productive ways when pressure and conflict are present

              • To write an Operational Plan which will ensure success

              Outcomes

              • Clear operating rules

              • Authentic communication

              • All team members will understand each other

              • Clarity about how to achieve and maintain peak performance

              • Team will operate high levels of support and challenge

              • Team will be a more enjoyable, rewarding and demanding place to work

              high-performing teams - herding cats: the hands-off paradox

              Aim

              Building, developing  & running High-performing Teams

              Objectives

              • Understanding what makes teams tick
              • Using the basic building blocks
              • Learning how to read a team
              • Directing the focus of a team
              • Finding out what a team needs day-to-day

              High-Performing Teams

              Individual behaviour is complex. The behaviour of two people together is more complex still. The behaviour of a team of people is an exponential progression of ever-increasing behavioural complexity. The more people you add, the more complicated it gets.Building and running an effective team is simultaneously the simplest and the most difficult thing in the world.However, there are some very simple things you can do, and behaviours you can use, which make it easier. These are things which, paradoxically, are quite easy to learn but difficult to do. Rather like learning to herd cats.Why difficult? Because you have to remember to do these things at times when it will be difficult to remember to do them. That is, when things are hectic, when people are exhibiting their feelings in their behaviour, when it’s all going wrong, when you are under pressure and not thinking clearly, when the **** is hitting the fan. *

              Outcomes

              • This Ignition Event will enable you to:
              • Do the simple things to set a team going
              • Balance simplicity and complexity without losing hope
              • Recognise when to step in and when to stay out
              • Know when your cats need feeding and which food to give them
              • Actively manage the relationship between control, reward, discipline and responsibility: making your cats purr

              * crap

              winning
              performance management & appraisal

              Outline

              Increased competition, busy-ness and pressure at work means that performance is often not managed and assessed effectively and productively.

              To get the best out of individuals and teams it is necessary to plan how best to deploy and develop their skills and abilities, as well as continually managing and reviewing their performance. For teams thisr esults in higher motivation, consistently good results and a better atmosphere in which to work. For individuals it will result in professional and personal development, increased commitment and consistently-improving performance.

              Performance management and appraisal enables the manager to know what the team is capable of, what is going on at any particular time, better awareness and understanding of problems arising and what to do to solve them. It ensures a thorough knowledge of individuals and anything which might be needed to ensure their continued commitment and high-level performance.

              Aim

              To enable you to manage and appraise individual and team performance rigorously

              Objectives

              • To understand what results from good performance management and appraisal

              • To analyse what is required to manage performance and be able to do it

              • To have a blueprint for formal and informal appraisal

              • To enable you to use performance appraisal as a developmental tool

              Outcomes

              • Understanding of what performance management is and how to do it

              • Ability to plan and structure an effective appraisal session

              • The necessary skills to do formal and informal appraisals

              • The skills to use PM&A to build involvement and contribution

              • Understanding how PM&A helps individuals take responsibility for their own performance

              the disciplinary process

              Outline

              Increasingly at work managers and all other employees are measured on their output. This does not necessarily mean that they are being effectively measured on their performance.

              People being people, there are occasions when individuals either do not do the right thing, do the right thing in the wrong way, or over-step the mark in some way. Often this can be addressed through performance management, but there are occasions when difficulties must be tackled through the disciplinary process. Many managers shy away from this. They will do virtually anything to avoid the anticipated conflict inherent in initiating the disciplinary process.

              Used in a planned and controlled way, the disciplinary process can be key to maintaining order and responsibility in a team; can help to control those who are pushing the boundaries in unproductive or harmful ways; can help the development of an individual by showing them that a particular kind of behaviour is not going to work and, in extreme cases, can start the process of getting rid of someone who compromises the overall effectiveness of the team.

              Aim

              To ensure that you are able to effectively use a disciplinary process

              Objectives

              • To understand your company’s disciplinary process and how it works

              • To have the confidence and judgement to use it appropriately and effectively

              • To be able to plan, record, manage and terminate what might be a difficult meeting/process

              • To understand the problems that can arise and be able to deal with them

              Outcomes

              • Understanding of your organisation’s disciplinary process

              • Confidence of when and how to use it

              • Ability to plan for, and deal with, any problems which arise.

              • You will not give yourself excuses for not using the disciplinary process when it is necessary

              Access All Areas

              These longer courses cover all the FourSight categories: Managing Yourself, Achieving Task, Relating to People, Tuning Performance.

              They link all elements of the FourSight approach, with a particular emphasis on how each category relates to improved performance.

              Each of these courses provides an intense, confronting experience from which you will gain a profound, practical understanding which will transform your behavioural awareness, effectiveness and performance.

              Click on a particular course to read more about it…

              foursight360 management effectiveness analysis

              In many organisations, for various reasons, review of management performance and planning for development is done inadequately. Managers receive scant information about how well, or badly, they are doing their jobs and, because of time pressures, are not given good-quality feedback about what and where they are doing well, what and where they are not and how they could improve.

              This is short-sighted: managers who receive objective analysis of their performance, supported by behavioural examples of the impact and results of their actions, are in a position to be able to learn about, and experiment with, behaviour which will work better for them, for the people they are managing and for their organisations.

              The analysis is carried out in as objective a manner as possible, utilises available information e.g. job performance reviews, psychometric data and feedback and includes a prescription for action to ensure performance improvement over the short to medium-term. It does not include a complete development plan.

               

              Aim

              Objective analysis of management performance and ability

              Objectives

              • To analyse Task strengths and weaknesses in management performance
              • To analyse People strengths and weaknesses in management performance
              • To identify ways, e.g. mentoring, coaching, training, to build strengths and remedy weaknesses
              • To lay the foundation for a development plan which will ensure management potential is fulfilled
              • To ensure that the development process can be managed and measured

              Outcomes

              • Useful, specific information about an individual manager’s overall performance
              • A realistic appraisal of strengths, weaknesses and paths for development
              • Support in tackling this in immediate, practical ways
              • Identifying where further information and support might by found
              • Understanding the value of analysis, appraisal and feedback as a necessary part of becoming an effective, successful manager
              personal effectiveness & influencing

              Outline

              PEI builds on existing characteristics, skills and effective behaviours: the emphasis is on being constructive and supportive. Participants’ willingness to deal with areas of strength and weakness in self and others increases their confidence, attitude and ability. Fresh awareness and new practical skills enable them to operate more effectively. Successful implementation of learning on PEI requires a commitment to support and challenge others in their performance and development.

              Throughout the first course a Development Plan summarises individual development needs with suggestions for increased effectiveness and performance improvement through specified behavioural change. This three-part programme uses the time between the two courses to practise different behaviours and assess their success. The practicality of the Development Plan is reviewed. Successes and failures are monitored and used for further development on the second course.

              Taking personal responsibility for what is happening around you implies that individuals can affect the way things are going, even in large organisations: if you are one of the ingredients in the pudding then you affect the flavour.

              How it works

              Participants can be from different areas in a company or from the same team/department. They work in Support & Challenge groups of three/four people, in other task groups and in the whole course group.

              In the Support & Challenge Group they:

              • Discuss their development in a supportive and challenging environment.

              • Practise giving and receiving direct, honest and constructive feedback. This is based, as much as possible, on perceptions of and reactions to, behaviour and performance.

              • Develop the ability to assert themselves and support others: i.e. to work effectively.

              • Discuss, make sense of and learn from what happens and translate it to practical action.

              On completion of PEI each person will have learnt the skills necessary to adapt their behaviour with different people in different circumstances to get better results. They will also have the information necessary to make decisions about which aspects of their behaviour they want to, or must, change in order to be more effective.

              Aim

              To enable participants to identify, develop and practise the skills and behaviours necessary for influencing other people to achieve the best possible outcomes professionally and personally

              objectives

              • Increase self-awareness, understand your style, the way you operate and the impact this has

              • Develop self-confidence and confidence in your ability to influence and manage people at any level, internally and externally

              • Get better results when influencing and managing people in different situations: face-to-face, at a distance, in groups and through presentations

              • Present a rational case to, and manage inter-actions with, senior managers, other colleagues and clients; explain the consequences of decisions, particularly where there may be conflicting goals

              • Develop support networks within your company encouraging people to contribute at an individual, team and organisational level

              • Deepen your understanding of stress and improve your ability to deal effectively with it

              • Understand your responses to conflict and develop the ability to manage yourself, your feelings, reactions and behaviour, in more productive ways when conflict is present

              Subjects covered

              Awareness of self and others

              Analysis of strengths and weaknesses

              Setting goals to improve performance

              Managing task and people

              The impact of your behaviour

              Balancing rationality and emotion

              Identifying and choosing effective behaviour

              Anxiety, insecurity, confidence and assertion

              Effective personal presentation

              Prioritising, planning and organising

              Listening with focus and intention

              Influencing clients and senior managers

              Support & Challenge Groups

              Productively managing stress and conflict

              Giving and receiving feedback

               

              This in-company course is available to people from the same or different departments. PEI analyses what underpins productive inter-action, successful working relationships and effective personal development. It examines the complexity of understanding self and others and the importance of Task and People factors when working together. It promotes learning by Doing, Thinking, Feeling and Changing Behaviour using presentations, exercises, discussion, coaching and large and small group work to achieve this. Participative review and feedback sessions heighten awareness of personal style and its effect on others.

              M3M - managing in the 3rd millennium

              The M3M Programme is open to individuals from different companies. It takes place six times a year. It develops managers in four areas: Managing Yourself, Managing Task, Managing People, Managing Performance.

              M3M is a behavioral programme which last 12 – 15 months. There are two M3M Management Cometencies Compass360 Reports, a four-day residential course, a period of structured and supported behavioural practise at work and a final accreditation session.

              No participants on the course know which company other participants work for, what they do or what level they manage at. They are not allowed to reveal or discuss this. Feedback is based exclusively on perceptions of behaviour and performance. A maximum of two delegates from any one company will be accepted on each M3M course.

              THE NUTS

              M3M is the one-year Management Development Programme with the power to SHOCK you into doing things differently

              What it Is

              A one-year behavioural development programme which transforms the way you manage

              1 FourSight Competence

              The FourSight Competence Questionnaire and Report gives you colleagues’ perceptions of your behaviour, and thus your perceived competence, in four areas:

              MANAGING YOURSELF
              MANAGING TASK
              MANAGING PEOPLE
              MANAGING PERFORMANCE

              In conjunction with your manager, and the Dropping the Pilot FourSight Team, you complete the first two parts of your M3M Development Plan: what you would like to change and develop

              2 M3M Intensive

              You attend the M3M Intensive, a four-day Residential Course

              3 M3M Coaching at Work

              You return to work and do nothing while everything sinks in.

              You think about HOW you are going to implement your decisions about behavioural changes in your management

              Thoughtfully, with support from your manager, your M3M colleagues and from Dropping the Pilot, you begin to apply these changes

              You do this for nine to fifteen months . . . to make sure it’s real, it works and you can sustain it

              You complete a second M3M FourSight Competence Questionnaire

              A second Report and a Comparison Report are produced

              The Dropping the Pilot FourSight Team meets with you, and with you and your manager, to discuss progress, development and success

              If successful, you are accredited as an M3M FourSight Manager

               

              Who it’s For

              • Managers
              • Project managers
              • Managers of remote teams
              • Managers who would like to be more effective
              • Those about to become managers
              • Directors

               

              What it Achieves

              Aim

              To manage Yourself, Task, People and Performance in a way which ensures consistently high-level business results

              Objectives

              TO BECOME AN OUTSTANDING MANAGER BY:

              • Understanding your effect on others
              • Improving your performance by giving and seeking feedback
              • Using analysis and planning to make good decisions
              • Being creative in managing your reactions to pressure and conflict
              • Improving your communication: listening, engaging, talking, inspiring
              • Understanding the power of coaching and delegating . . . and doing it
              • Being able to grow and run teams which get results
              • Responding to change thoughtfully, creatively, decisively

               

              THE BOLTS

               

              What it’s About




              The one-year behavioural programme for managers at any level who want to become more effective at managing Self, Task, People and Performance in a constantly-changing and increasingly-pressured business world
              Outline

              M3M provides an intense, practical understanding of how to manage Yourself, Task People and Performance to a high level.

              You receive direct, honest, relevant information on your performance, attitude and effect on others.

              Your habitual ways of operating will be challenged.

              You will get stark feedback on what others think you should change, the impetus and willingness to start immediately, guidance and clarity on how to proceed.

You will be given constructive feedback on what you do well in your management.

              You will be confronted, and given practical feedback, on weaknesses in how you manage.

              You will receive significant support in building a development plan to become a better manager.

              With others, you analyse your performance and identify which behaviours are, and aren’t, working.

              You will receive specific feedback about what you have to change to be effective.

You can then choose which behaviours to change to be more effective. Any changes you decide to make, or not make, are yours alone.

Your performance at work will be transformed.

              Outcomes

              In this hectic world it is unusual to have time to reflect in depth on your effectiveness. It is rare to receive structured, specific, direct, honest, constructive, high-quality feedback about your performance
              M3M assesses whether you operate effectively with others.

It requires your willingness to deal with areas of strength and weakness in yourself and others, supporting and challenging them in their development and being big enough to let them do the same with you.

              M3M ensures you understand your managerial behaviour and performance, making sensible, rational decisions about improvement. It builds on strengths, abilities and skills you already have. Your confidence and competence will increase. You will become more effective in general and, in particular, as a manager.

              M3M examines what underpins successful working relationships. It is highly-participative.

              M3M identifies whether your impact on others gets results. This information provides a solid foundation from which to operate differently. You can change behaviours which are not working, identify what works better and increase your productive influence.

              What is Covered



              • Managing self and others
              • Managing task and performance
              • 
Identifying what high-level performance looks like
              • Effective behaviour
              • Goal-setting
              • 
Communication and listening
              • Motivation
              • Group inter-action and dynamics
              • Giving and receiving feedback
              • Personal style and impact
              • Taking the initiative
              • Building and maintaing a team
              • Coaching and delegation
              • Prioritising and effective use of time
              • Planning and organising
              • Managing conflict, anxiety and fear
              • Managing change
              • Blocks to personal effectiveness
              • Development planning

              THE STRUCTURE

              1 FourSight Competence & Development

              Plan


FourSight Competence

              M3M begins with the FourSight Competence Questionnaire. You complete this and invite other Raters to complete it. These Raters can include your manager, peers, direct reports and team members, other colleagues and people whose opinion you value.

This information is processed by Compass360. A detailed report is sent to you before the start of the M3M Intensive.

A member of the Dropping the Pilot FourSight Team will discuss the Report with you. This takes between one and two hours.

It is important you discuss with your manager the specific objectives you intend to work on. These form the first part of your Development Plan.

              The Competencies


              The FourSight Competence Questionnaire describes sixteen Competences vital for an effective manager.

Those Raters who complete the questionnaire for you will give you feedback clarifying your perceived strengths and weaknesses as a manager.

The sixteen competences are grouped in four areas:

              Managing Yourself
              The most difficult area for many people. Being motivated, organised, flexible and resilient are pre-requisites for achievement. And essential for all managers.

Competences measured by the FourSight Questionnaire:

              PERSONAL PRESENTATION
              INITIATING
              FLEXIBILITY
              RESILIENCE

              Managing Task
              What many managers concentrate on and feel most comfortable with. This doesn’t necessarily make them effective or competent. Understanding how to use essential skills to manage tasks to successful completion is vital.

Competencies measured by the FourSight Questionnaire:

              THINKING
              PLANNING
              DECIDING
              ACTION

              Managing People



              A minefield of complexity. Understanding how to manage others to get the best from them is key to superior performance.

Competencies measured by the FourSight Questionnaire:    

COMMUNICATING
              INFLUENCING
              LEADING
              TEAMWORKING

              Managing Performance



              None of it matters unless you deliver. These are the skills needed by managers to achieve a high level of performance from their teams and organisations.

Competencies measured by the FourSight Questionnaire:
              SKILLS
              COMMITMENT
              STRATEGIC PERSPECTIVE
              COMMERCIAL AWARENESS

              Behaviours
 
              Each competence is described by four specific behaviours. You are rated against each of these behaviours by yourself, your manager, peers, direct reports and team members, other colleagues and people whose opinion you value.

The FourSight Competence Questionnaire is completed on-line and a Report, providing information about your management behaviour, is sent to you.

The Dropping the Pilot FourSight Team arranges a one – two hour meeting, or telephone call, to discuss this with you. This helps identify the development areas you will work on during the M3M Intensive. It enables you to complete the first two sections of your Development Plan prior to the start of your M3M Intensive.

               

              2 M3M Intensive

              Structure
              You will work in a management group, in task groups and in a whole course group.

              There are tasks, planning sessions, reviews, discussion, management meetings and structured feedback.

              Like work, it’s busy, there’s a lot going on.

               

              Management Groups
              There are will be three or four people in each management group.

              For the whole of M3M you manage another person.

              It is your responsibility to manage their performance, behaviour, actions, attitude, achievement and development.

              Someone else manages you.

              You get direct, specific feedback on how effective you are being.

              IN THE MANAGEMENT GROUP YOU:

              • Set realistic goals
              • •Develop ability to work with each other
              • 
Gain practical experience of managing another person’s performance and development
              • Understand yourself as a manager and the impact you have on others
              • Get direct, constructive feedback based on your actions
              • Are required to support and confront each others’ behaviour

              ON M3M YOU SHARPEN YOUR SKILLS IN:

              • Managing yourself and others productively
              • Growing and running effective teams
              • 
Managing performance, conflict and problems
              • Achieving consistently

              THE SHOCK IS:

              • Finding out directly from others what they think about how you operate
              • Discovering where you are ineffective
              • Making hard decisions about what you must change
              • Turning defensive reactions into impetus for change

              M3M gives you the information necessary to make decisions about which aspects of your behaviour you must change to be an effective manager

              3 M3M Coaching at Work

              The most important part of M3M is back at work. How you then behave as a manager is the test of your determination and effectiveness.

              During this period of practical application Dropping the Pilot encourages you to stay in contact with the people in your Management Group from your M3M Intensive. This support is helpful.

              On your return to work it is important you discuss your completed Development Plan with your manager and anyone else relevant or significant in your further development.

              Six to eight weeks after the end of your M3M Intensive, Dropping the Pilot will contact you to check initial progress and your clarity about what you are doing.

              There follows a structured period of coaching and support with a member of the Dropping the Pilot FourSight Team.

              Nine to fifteen months after the end of your M3M Intensive you repeat the FourSight Competence Questionnaire with, as far as possible, the same Raters. A new Report is produced, with a Comparison Report which contrasts and compares the first and second reports.

              The Dropping the Pilot FourSight Team arranges a meeting to discuss your second FourSight Competence Report, the Comparison Report, your Development Plan and your progress in your behavioural development. A meeting will also be arranged to discuss this with you and your manager on the same day.

              This forms the basis of your assessment for accreditation as an M3M FourSight Manager. The evidence and reasons used in your assessment will be made available to you.

              Successful accreditation is not a given.

               

              THE FOUNDATIONS

              Behavioural Development

              Essentially, M3M is about how you change your behaviour to become a more effective manager.

              A simple definition of behaviour: ‘What you do and say. What you can see another person doing and hear them saying. It is visible and/or audible’.

              M3M helps you identify ways you are doing things which aren’t working, supports you in changing them and choosing behaviours which get better results.

              Additionally, M3M helps you realise that some of your behaviour is effective, giving you increased confidence and self-belief to continue this in an assertive way.

              To do this successfully is to break the habits of a lifetime.

              Constructive Feedback




              The Value of Feedback

              Authentic, constructive feedback is rare.
              It is one of the best ways of kick-starting an improvement in what you and others do.

              The ability to consciously use it in your management leads to continuous development and improved performance, for yourself and for those you work with.

              FEEDBACK OFTEN DOESN’T HAPPEN BECAUSE PEOPLE:

              • Are scared to engage
              • Are reluctant and/or frightened to tell the truth as they see it
              • Don’t want to rock the boat
              • Haven’t built enough trust
              • Won’t take the time to do it properly
              • Think the other person might be offended
              • 

Are concerned about the reaction or response
              • Can’t find the right words
              • Don’t want to tell you the hard things you might not want to hear
              • Don’t believe that giving feedback will achieve anything
              • Don’t want to risk the relationship
              • Don’t know how to do it
              • Can’t be bothered

              ON M3M FEEDBACK IS

              • Important
              • Given time
              • Constructive, rather than perceived as positive or negative
              • Considered
              • 

Direct
              • Specific
              • Authentic

              ON M3M FEEDBACK IS NEVER

              • Faked
              • Forced
              • Inauthentic
              • Directed by Dropping the Pilot

              In addition, we will always suggest you are direct, tactful, polite and consider carefully WHAT you are going to say and HOW you are going to say it

Dropping the Pilot will never suggest that you give a Feedback Sandwich

              great managers - foursight managing
              Aim
              Nailing the four vital areas an effective manager takes care of

              Objectives

              • Understanding the four key areas vital to being an effective manager
              • Identifying those where you are strong
              • Clarifying those where you need to develop
              • Thinking about how to play to your strengths
              • Planning how to compensate for and/or outsource your management weaknesses

              Management
              Is about getting the best out of yourself and others. Not many are really good at this. This is usually because they are skilled in some of the FourSight management areas and not in the others. A truly effective manager is highly-skilled in all FourSight areas.This Ignition Event will clarify in which of the FourSight areas you are strongest and weakest. This information enables you to choose behaviours which play to your strengths and develop a strategy to minimise your weaknesses.This Ignition Event will set you on fire about the areas of management where you need to pay attention. The heightened awareness this gives you will begin a nerve-tingling climb towards the higher reaches of management effectiveness.

              Outcomes

              • This Ignition Event will enable you to:
              • Be able to remedy how you habitually **** up managing yourself *
              • Manage tasks better
              • Manage people more effectively
              • Deploy these to drive performance
              • Be cooking on gas with a magical blend of all four

               * cock

              coaching

              Outline

              Coaching uses practical steps to improve performance over a defined period with regular progress checks. The individual being coached enjoys learning because they experience tangible improvement. A gain in confidence usually accelerates improvement.

              Unfortunately, with the advent of ‘life coaching’, much coaching has been coated with elements of unrealistic positive thinking coupled with jargon and a New Age approach which often bears little practical relevance to the development needs at hand. Effective coaching is much more than common-sense, encouraging homilies and emulating particular role-models.

              The main features of effective coaching are that it is tailored to the individual and is achievable over a defined period. It should be supportive, realistic, helpful, practical, useful, carefully monitored and done in manageable chunks. It starts with clear definitions of the current state of skill, the desired state of skill and the improvement needed to get from one to the other. All effective coaching starts with a session to establish a starting point, what is to be achieved and over what period of time.

              Individual coaching

              Coaching undertaken 1:1 is extremely effective because of the amount of attention and concentration that can be given to the person being coached and to the skill in which they are being coached. It gives more time for practice, questions and feedback ensuring that fine detail can be concentrated on.

              Coaching in small groups

              Coaching can be undertaken in small groups. The main benefit is that individuals assess their own style and learning by observing others and using those comparisons to correct mistakes, adjust style and find one’s own best approach. The coach needs to be sure that inter-action in groups is encouraging rather than discouraging and act quickly with particular individuals to ensure that they are keeping pace with others. Any competitive element must be carefully managed.

              Management coaching

              Appropriate for those starting their first management role or those already working as managers at any level. It is best done when preceded by Management Analysis, this results in a comprehensive report on management ability and performance along with development needs and suggestions for further training. Management coaching works best on-site, in tandem with observation, once a relationship has been established between the coach and the person being coached.

              Executive coaching

              Beneficial for those at the most senior levels in companies. At this level executives should be prepared for a more critical and confronting approach to gain full advantage from the process.

              Leaders and senior people don’t get anywhere like the amount of coaching they need because there is an assumption from them, and others, that somehow they have risen beyond the need for it. It is rare to find an individual who is too senior or too talented to benefit from effective coaching. Executive coaching is often not done because of the difficulty of finding someone who can speak honestly to these people at their level. All the more reason it should be done.

              At its simplest it can be compared to the slave who was instructed to accompany Roman Emperors as they paraded through Rome in their Triumphs regularly whispering ‘Remember, you too are human’.

              Vertical Horizon has many years experience of intensive, high-level coaching and will undertake Executive Coaching which is guaranteed to be honest, confronting and developmental.

              consultancy

              Outline

              Vertical Horizon consultants have in-depth, extensive, practical knowledge and experience of relevant areas of consultancy. They will tailor what they do to your particular circumstances, immediate needs and future requirements. Our consultants work in close communication with you on-site.

              Involvement is for as long as agreed it takes to get the job done. We prefer to work to a timetable with a clear end-point. This helps control cost and keep the focus clear. Analysis and assessment will precede any advice given. Outcomes of recommended action will be presented for consideration.

              A scope of necessary work will be undertaken after initial discussion. Reviews, scheduled at regular intervals, sustain momentum, provide information, provoke analysis and maintain control. Changes to the initial scope are discussed with full involvement of the client. Vertical Horizon endeavours to establish clarity at the outset: we use extremely clear work definitions to achieve the aim, specific objectives, required outcomes and deadlines. Progress, performance and success are measured against these criteria. We maintain a disapproving attitude toward slippage.

              Strategic consultancy

              Vertical Horizon provide expert consultancy in:

              Cost control
              We help individual department heads, managers and companies identify where to take action to control spending. Using a creative and pragmatic approach, we ensure individuals and teams understand why this is important and what they can do to take willing responsibility for achieving cost goals.

              Credit and collection 
              We provide advice, training and/or a full service relating to credit and collection. This work is delivered by accredited and recognised industry professionals.

              Design of comprehensive training programmes 
              Following an assessment of your training requirements/needs Vertical Horizon will design a comprehensive training programme to meet those needs. This will not necessarily include us as the deliverer of the programme.

              Diversity and equality 
              Every business in the U.K. has a legal requirement to walk-the-talk on diversity and equality in their practices and procedures. It is not good enough simply to have a policy. A National Standard Accreditation scheme is available for all businesses that will satisfy even the most rigorous assessor.

              Employment law 
              Ranging from specific advice on U.K. employment law to a full out-sourcing of the HR function in your company. All aspects of employment law are covered, from legally-required documentation to industrial tribunal representation A 24-hour-a-day advice line is available. You can obtain the most suitable package for your company by selecting what you need. Protecting your business is our business.

              Health and safety 
              We offer full out-sourcing of all your health and safety requirements. This includes all legally-required documentation, zero legal fees if a court case occurs and a 24-hour-a-day advice line. We can develop tailor-made training courses for your staff. Protecting your business has never been easier.

              Management/oversight of training programmes 
              We offer management of training programmes to ensure that training takes place at the agreed time and location, that attendance/numbers do not become an issue, that aims, objectives outcomes are being met and that any problems are dealt with. Assessment will be carried out some weeks/months after particular pieces of training to check actual effect once any course glow has worn off.

              Task and people integration
              We will work with you to ensure that your company achieves an appropriate balance in managing task and people issues, enabling you to perform at optimum levels.

              Training needs analysis 
              An in-depth analysis identifies what training you require to bring understanding, skills, motivation, commitment and performance to optimum levels. Typically this will include individual development, identification of skills shortages/inadequacies, technical/specialist training, management and team development.

              change

              Outline

              The human world has always changed . . . and is changing still. The human world of business: trade and exchange, growth and development, exploration and exploitation, wheeling and dealing, profit and loss, globalisation and off-shoring, competition and shareholder value, cost-cutting and quarterly performance, flatter structures and high-performing teams, motivation and disillusioned employees, customer service and call-centres, mergers and acquisitions is changing at a rate much faster than many other areas of human endeavour and inter-action.

              Humans built the structures that operate the business arena but, increasingly, humans seem unable to manage those structuresto operate efficiently for the benefit of all involved. Business has always involved an element of exploitation, in the Age of the Internet inequities are more quickly detected, observed and reported on. This results in motivation and performance problems for organisations, particularly large ones. They don’t seem to be doing much about it. They don’t know how.

              In larger organisations a new cultural model is operating: the Juggernautocracy: ‘We’re so large we can do what we want, bulldoze through difficulty or opposition’. Sometimes they’re right . . . in the short-term.

              Another trick is to use marketing to correct perceived performance problems: if you’re a polluting, dirty, wasteful organisation get a new logo and run a world-wide marketing campaign about your green credentials. It becomes the truth because, increasingly, perception is all . . . until it all unravels.

              Change in organisations

              Most of us find change unnerving and, often, threatening. This is the case even when we actively choose the change. The more so when it is change imposed. In organisations, change is almost always imposed. Employees almost always feel threatened by it. As competition and change increases employees are likely to feel more threatened and, as usual, their feelings will drive their behaviour: their fear and suspicion will increase, their loyalty and commitment will decrease, they will know when, or believe that, they are being lied to or not told the whole truth, they will take steps to protect themselves, they will devote less of their energy to the work they do, they will join in with the politics, they will withhold their willingness and goodwill.

              Because of the way in which organisational culture grows and develops organisations do not realise the scale and the extent of the problem they have on their hands until it is too late. And that’s when they institute a Change Programme. Which is viewed with disinterest, distaste and suspicion by the intended victim. Rightly so, because it is usually just one more thing, one more indignity, being done to them. The implicit threat is ‘Embrace Change . . . or else!’

              If you want to change your organisation, and change the attitudes of the people working in that organisation you must do a number of things: start with the people. Find out what they think and what they want. Identify any synergies with what you think and want. Plan what you are going to do, taking into account what will work and what wont. It is staggering the amount of organisations who have gone through major change programmes, often more than one, whose employees, when you ask them for detail, have only a sketchy recollection of what they participated in.

              Change programmes

              Successful change programmes transform organisations and their employees for the better. They revolutionise the way those organisations do business. They work well in organisations which are agile, daring, creative, lively, innovative and love risk. There aren’t very many of those around.

              Organisations can be changed. Relatively quickly. But you start at the bottom not the top. Canvas opinions, avoid manipulation, veiled threats, blackmail, exhortatory jargon and ‘get-with-it-or-get-out’ phrases. Let the change permeate the organisation from the workers because the workers will see the sense of it, the need for it, will want to do it and, most importantly, will start to lead it. Change is about behaviour, not about everyone learning to use the same language.

              Vertical Horizon will come into your organisation and research, design and run a Change Programme which will motivate and galvanise your people. It will make them want to change, make them want to be part of it not part of a sullen, silent opposition to it. It will be difficult, it will take courage, it will be worth it.

              And remember: if a piece of software could fix it, we’d all be writing software.

              customer service

              Outline

              Most organisations pay lip-service to the importance of customer service. Fewer do it well. Behavioural customer service training emphasises the importance of behaviour as the basis for delivering a service which is noticeably better than that of other organisations. It focuses on active management of the professional relationship with customers and clients.

              Behavioural training of all staff is fundamental in Vertical Horizon customer service training programmes. Employees learn how to deliver superior service in a structured, individual, creative and consistent way. This results in strong relationships with clients and an understanding and interest in how they use your products and services. Your service to customers will not be based on only reacting to events when things go wrong.

              Our programmes are tailored to your specific circumstances and requirements. Understanding and responding to your customers’ needs and concerns will enable you to give them a service which they appreciate and value. Vertical Horizon customer service programmes are about being authentic and instigating real behavioural change, they are not easy. It is difficult for organisations to change culture and behaviour, however, once inertia is overcome, expect amazing things.

              Aim

              To deliver effective and noticeably-superior customer service at all levels

              Objectives

              • To help employees understand why customer service is so important

              • To understand the different components of good customer service

              • To understand what this requires individuals to do

              • To motivate and train individuals to deliver superior customer service

              Outcomes

              • Your employees will understand and deliver superior service in all circumstances

              • Everyone will understand, at a practical level, desirable and undesirable behaviours

              • Your organisation’s atmosphere and culture will become delivery-focused

              • Your customers and clients will notice the difference and love the service

              • They will tell others . . . the best marketing there is

              Imagineeing

              Outline

              Vertical Horizons Events are highly-organised, planned in great detail and carefully analysed for the unexpected with contingencies ready for deployment. They are designed using hindsight, insight, foresight, creativity and freshness. Participants find them interesting, informative, involving, useful, enjoyable and memorable.

              Events can be as short as one hour and as long as a week. Events take place indoors and/or outdoors and can be stand-alone or part of some other company event e.g. a Sales Conference. They can be recorded.

              During the proposal and detailed planning stages there is thorough discussion and agreement with clients with regular reporting. Vertical Horizon keeps all agreements it makes with clients by agreed deadlines. If there is any doubt about whether an agreement can be kept this is discussed prior to the agreement being made. If the doubt persists the agreement is not made.

              Proposals include an outline and an overall budget. A high degree of clarity is required regarding general aims, specific objectives and desired outcomes. All delivery will be done by individuals who are experts in their area of knowledge. Virtually any resources can be included.

              We use the principles of Task and People in the design, planning and delivery of our events: on the Task side we ensure that everything is well-planned, rigorously and robustly designed and that it all works. On the People side we use a high degree of creativity to ensure that events capture the imagination and involvement of those present. We endeavour to ensure that learning and enjoyment takes place.

              Vertical Horizon ensure that any briefing and/or pre-publicity is done in good time and all participants have the information they need at the right time to get the most out of the event.

              Examples of events

              Major Bank: 2 days, 40 people, English Channel, U.K., Outdoors
              Two-day sailing event in the Solent to reward successful sales people and teach them more about the benefits of team work and co-operation. They already knew about the benefits of individual initiative and competition. First day was a problem-solving exercise sailing in flotilla. The second day was a race, with problem-solving elements added, in different legs with some exchange of crew members. Therer were off-shore and on-shore review sessions.

              Computer Company: 4 days, 1,200 people, Outskirts of Paris, France, Indoors
              Sales conference. Vertical Horizon provided creative inputs between each segment of the conference to ensure everyone was awake, involved and working with what they had just seen in presentations. A special lighting rig was designed to enhance mood and change focus at different times. The conference was used to signal a change in direction for the company which would materially affect the sales force. This was well-received and a potentially difficult change of direction and culture was openly welcomed rather than silently resisted.

              Software Company: 10 days, 50 people, Thames Valley, U.K., Indoors & Outdoors
              New, young, eager company. Wanted to set the right culture from inception. Event took place on-site and off, indoors and out, in four separate stages over four consecutive months. The First Stage was an exploratory about what features employees wanted to see in the developing culture. Stage Two was to get to know each other, this took place off-site and consisted in an extended outdoor event with shelter-builds over-night and barbecues for food, some catered, some done by the groups themselves. Stage Three was a series of practical sessions on-site to look at how the desired features of the culture could be built in a practical sense. Stage Four was in the form of a course to test how individual behaviour was promoting or blocking the desired culture. There was a short review three months after the event. This organisation now has an annual event to reinforce the company values.