Archive for the ‘Relationship Management’ Category

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Impact of workplace romances

Thursday, November 4th, 2010
impact-of-workplace-romances

The interesting topic of  workplace romances came up in the Training  Journal Digest late last week.  Stephen Engelhard talked about some informal research his UK  firm, Angel Productions, had conducted on the topic.   His firm were looking at the possibility of providing a training package on the management issues.  No, not on how to manage your workplace romance, but on how to manage  the situation.

Admittedly the research only covered 27 HR managers and 27 people in other work roles, but there seemed to be four HR main issues:

  1. Favouritism – real or perceived
  2. Risk of fraud
  3. Inconvenience of the  happy couple wanting to take holidays together
  4. Distracting emotional fallout if the couple split.  (I would have thought there is distracting emotional fallout while the couple are madly in lurve, as well!)

 Very few respondents had policies on the issue and fewer still enforced their policies. I presume there is a similar pattern here. One UK university researcher on the topic suggested that the recession is leading to an increase in workplace romances…..people turning to sex to deal with pressure?!

The comments are wide open for double entendre – A cognitive behavioural coach suggested the training DVD should include ‘managing hot thoughts’. I think that one at least was accidental.

Interesting working out which categories to allocate for this post.  Possibly I should have included community involvement?

Posted in Leadership, Personal Presence, Relationship Management | No Comments »

Caring is not just for customers

Wednesday, October 20th, 2010
caring-is-not-just-for-customers

The recent earthquake in Christchurch Christchurchcity.govt.nz  showed us that fundamental core value of caring is alive and well.  Neighbours rallied around to help each other setting up BBQs, sharing with each other and making the most of a very difficult  situation.  Organisations donated generously in both cash and goods

And yet we so often read ,or experience, situations when caring seems to have been forgotten.

Caring translates into all our dealings with people not just those closest to us.

  • When we deliver a presentation we should ‘care’ about our audience
  • When we work with clients and customers we should ‘care’ about them
  • As managers and leaders we should care about our staff.

 Yet unfortunatelyoften we get too busy ,or just plain forget to use that core value in almost all of us.

Roger Steare rogersteare.com recently spoke at a meeting  and he talked passionately about the need to get back to using our core values at work. We care about the things that matter close to us -our families (and/or animals!)  and yet so often at work the culture dulls what we know is intrinsically right -the universals that make us civilised.  The too tight job description so we don’t ‘go the extra mile’.  The rules that stifle common sense

Perhaps it’s time to take stock and not wait for a disaster to bring out the best in us .We all do care  it’s now time to show it

Posted in Communication Tips, Community involvement, Conflict Resolution, Customer Service, Leadership, Presentation skills, Relationship Management, Speeches | No Comments »

The key to presence is being present

Friday, September 10th, 2010
the-key-to-presence-is-being-present

A common issue for our coaching clients in the past year has been the challenge of increasing the impact of their personal presence. Their  questions are often: ‘What is this ‘presence’  thing and how do I get more of it?’

While everyone needs to be aware of their personal presence, as we take on more influential leadership roles, we  need to be even  more conscious of establishing our presence.

 The key to it is simple…..or is it?

Seek first to understand

The message isn’t new:  Great personal presence requires us first to simply be present to others – by listening to them very carefully. Steven Covey sums it up well with his quote: ‘Seek first to understand before being understood.’

This seems very straightforward, but most of us tend to go into conversations focused much more on our own point of view – what we find interesting, what we want to talk about and so on.  This approach certainly establishes presence, but of the wrong sort!  To develop a strong positive presence, we need to focus first on understanding where the other person is coming from in the conversation.  

 Active listening is the key communication tool for keeping ourselves present.  There’s a challenge though, because while listening appears to be simple, it isn’t often easy.  The process requires commitment and real discipline of our conscious thought. Sometimes we have to keep repeating to ourselves: ‘I really want to listen to this person.’  When we manage to focus in this way, we are truly present. There is a very powerful story that captures the magic of this combination in The Power of Presence and Listening: A Fellow’s Narrative by Musharraf Navaid MD, in the Journal of Palliative Medicine.

Posted in Communication Tips, Community involvement, Effective Meetings, Leadership, Negotiation Skills, Personal Presence, Presentation skills, Public Speaking, Relationship Management, Speeches | No Comments »

Is your audience really listening?

Wednesday, August 11th, 2010
is-your-audience-really-listening

The Executive Speaking Blog came up with an interesting post recently: Can you tell whether people are really listening to the boss?  Sounds like a good game: Keep the score for audience reaction to the boss’ presentations!

We often get asked the broader question: How can you assess audience’s reaction? There are the obvious responses of people falling asleep, looking angry, or walking out. But what about the more subtle responses? Usually if people are fidgeting or looking down most of the time, they are bored.

It can be hard to tell. In smaller centres in NZ, often audiences don’t interact much, but will stay on to discuss things  afterwards. In bigger cities, they may interact so much that you think you have made a whole lot of NBFF; then as soon as you finish, they leave!

Individuals within an audience may have unusual reactions.  Recently a client told me about a presenter who just used slides, each containing a great deal of information.  The presentation involved the audience reading them. Sounded tedious to me, but my informant said the presentation was fascinating, because of the interesting slide content. 

It is very difficult for a presenter to accurately read audience reaction.   You might think the whole thing was a disaster because you missed an important point, yet the audience may have liked it. At other times some of the audience may have looked grumpy and yet come up afterwards to say they thought it was great.

Some tips:

  1. Ask someone before your presentation to give you feedback afterwards on the level of audience engagement.
  2. Know your material very well, so you can stay mentally free enough to focus on audience reaction. 
  3. If what you are doing is boring your audience, change it!

Posted in Effective Meetings, Leadership, Personal Presence, Presentation skills, Public Speaking, Relationship Management, Speeches | No Comments »

Should you trust your intuition?

Wednesday, July 14th, 2010
should-you-trust-your-intuition

Recently a client was in a final interview and planning to make a senior  job offer to a highly suitable candidate.  Everything appeared to be going well, except that my client suddenly  became aware of a growing sense of uneasiness about the preferred candidate.

Follow up on that intuition

 They had conducted extensive interviews with the person; the referees were all glowing; when my client checked back with the rest of the recruitment panel they couldn’t understand his sudden wariness…but unease it was. Should he insist on pulling back, when up till then everything had checked out well; or should he trust their thorough process?

We discussed what had  happened at the two or three points when he got his gut feel. The comments were: ‘Oh, there was some  slightly negative body language in the candidate that didn’t align with what was being said…nothing much really…’  ‘Later on, I guess I just wondered whether the candidate would be as committed as we thought.  I don’t know why’  

We could call that unease ‘intuition’, but was it?  Gut feel or whatever you call it, I have learnt in positive and negative ways the value of trusting it.  Some years ago a searing recruitment experience decided me that if I ever felt a deep unease that didn’t relate to the evidence, I would at least carefully follow up on that unease.  In my coaching of a very wide range of people, I have found awareness of my intuition to be a very reliable indicator of what is really going on.

 I am very suspicious of ethereal versions of ‘intuition’.  I suspect so-called ‘intuition is just a bunch of minute clues that only we pick up subconsciously – then they build until we notice them as intuition. For more explanation of this, check out: Lifehack.  

If we define intuition as ‘perceptive insight’,  there some useful things for a practical person to tune into:

  1. In an intense discussion, we unconsciously pick up very subtle changes in facial expression, skin colouration and nuance of tone.  These are only minute clues until they cluster around a stronger general impression that we then experience as ‘unease’.  Don’t jump to conclusions, but trust the feeling and follow up on your concerns.
  2. When you notice a gap between the message communicated in the body language and the message in the words, look carefully at that gap. There are a lot of unsubstantiated claims about the messaging in body language, but research warns us to be alert around this type of misalignment.
  3. We also bring to the communication our experience in similar situations.  A relevant but past experience might be almost forgotten yet still trigger an alarm bells in the present. When we think about it afterwards, we will usually remember exactly what that experience was…and its lesson!

Obviously you have to observe the other person very carefully. The weird thing is though, that  to develop your perceptive insight, you have to listen very carefully to yourself.  Be  very alert to your own reactions.  Trust them. Don’t jump to conclusions, but do follow up on your instinct, by asking questions.

 There are some really good tips on listening to your own awareness at a blog with the appealing name of: hellomynameisblog  

So what happened in client’s case?   He decided to insist that the panel take the time to check up on his concerns. Having taken legal advice, they went back to the referees and that turned out to be a very good move.  Put briefly: They re-advertised!

. .

Posted in Communication Tips, Conflict Resolution, Effective Meetings, Leadership, Negotiation Skills, Personal Presence, Relationship Management | 1 Comment »

Change and choice the answer is in your hands

Thursday, July 8th, 2010
change-and-choice-the-answer-is-in-your-hands

Every Year around Christmas we start thinking about the new year and many of us make resolutions far too difficult to keep-especially if it is something that will break a long time habit e.g Not going to the gym ,or not eating sensibly!

Well its Matariki now the Maori New Year and as it is in the middle of our very long wet and cold winter maybe its time to make some resolutions and call them choices.

We all can make choices .Whether it is to take a breath and count to ten before we say things that are best not said. or perhaps its time to make the choice of saying what does need to be said -the courageous conversation. And we can always make the choice to enhance our skills and develop our potential -find out what we ‘can do’ rather than what we can’t.

It is a great time to change just think of it as your new New Year-Matariki.

Posted in Communication Tips, Conflict Resolution, Customer Service, Leadership, Relationship Management | No Comments »

Inspiring leadership what does it mean?

Wednesday, February 10th, 2010
inspiring-leadership-what-does-it-mean

Inspiring leadership what does it mean?

So often we read about transformational leadership and the words that go around it.
One of the most bandied about word is inspirational.
This word translates into a whole lot of different things depending on the listener.

I was recently talking to a very successful leader who is leading a transformation process and was to talk to his leadership team. When I suggested the team would like him to be inspiring he said “I can’t stand that word”.

On asking for more information I found he thought that being inspiring meant he needed to ‘act’ and have a show almost with balloons. He is a very effective quietly spoken leader and it was not how he wanted to be portrayed.

For me the word inspiring and giving an inspiring presentation to your team means being you. Speaking from the heart as well as the head is essential. It means giving real life examples –the stories the team can believe in.

We humans connect with stories it goes back to our cave dwelling days. There is something magic in the ability to tell a story that resonates with truth and connects the listener to the message.
That to me that is inspirational…not ‘putting on a show’

Posted in Communication Tips, Leadership, Relationship Management | No Comments »

Presenting to different types of people

Monday, May 11th, 2009
presenting-to-different-types-of-people

When planning a presentation, make sure you think about the mindset of the main group in your audience. Don’t present as you would be presented to; your audience might not like that!

A simple form of four quadrant behavioural style is a very practical way to look at four key different types of needs in an audience. There is a good summary of a four quadrant framework at: What planet is my audience from? .

1. Work out roughly which of the four types fits you. Whilst you no doubt have a wonderfully subtle personality, this main style is how you instinctively communicate – it is your default option. Unless you stop and think about it, you will use that main style.

So the solution is clear – stop and think about it!
2. Think about the most common type in your audience and prepare your presentation on the basis of their needs, not yours. Sometimes you will know the personalities of the key decision makers and can use the right approach for them. On other occasions, certain types dominate in particular jobs – IT attracts analysis driven people, social work attracts people who are very focused on how people feel and so on.

Some occupational groups attract certain types. If you are presenting to a group of farmers, many in the audience will be very task-focused and interested in the end point, not the journey along the way. Of course, not all of them will be like this, but this type will cover a fair proportion of the group. With such groups, give them the facts, get to the point quickly and give them room to make up their own minds.

Catering for some of the various types may require you to get creative. However, we can all communicate in a way that suits the other types, but for some of the styles we need to really consciously think about it.  The key is to present in the way the audience wants.
Try it out and enjoy the increase in audience engagement.

Posted in Communication Tips, Conflict Resolution, Customer Service, Leadership, Personal Presence, Presentation skills, Public Speaking, Relationship Management, Speeches, Uncategorized | No Comments »

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