Before I started work at NNC I tried my hand at a couple of leadership roles. One of the most challenging was as Contact Centre Manager, responsible for up to about 100 staff. When I look back at my leadership approach, I wish that I had known then what I know now - being operationally efficient and technically proficient is not enough to make you a great leader. I spent so much time trying to take care of everything myself that I didn’t spend enough time empowering my staff to do it for themselves, or give them the tools to become the next leaders within our organisation.
Within our Courageous Leadership program we discuss the concept of being a People Developer. That is, truly empowering your people to take ownership and be accountable for their own performance and development. As managers we often discuss the importance of investing time in our staff, but when things get busy it is training, coaching, staff meetings and team building activities that always get pushed aside first. Of course, as we spend more time chasing our tails on operational functions and less on developing and motivating our people, we end up becoming less operationally efficient anyway. It’s a vicious cycle - the fires continue to crop up, faster and stronger then before….and we continue to run around trying to put them out. So the more I increased the number of hours I worked, the more ‘stuff’ just seemed to pile up on my desk; the more work there was to do, the more tired and stressed I became; the more tired and stressed I was, the less productive I was able to be…..and so on.
This is why we believe that creating a high performing team really equates to three main things:
High Performance = Accuracy of Role Perception + Motivation + Skill
Accuracy of Role Perception – ensure your staff are absolutely clear on what the organisation and you expect of them, both in terms of performance results and behaviours. Hold them accountable to this or they’ll end up writing their own job descriptions!
Motivation – find out what drives each person individually and acquire a way to align their job role to this.
Skill – provide them with training to teach them the skills to be a high performer, and then support this through ongoing coaching. Transform your coaching from a style of ‘telling’ to one that promotes self-evaluation and ownership of their development plans.
So put down that report, get yourself out of your office and go spend some time with your staff! Being a leader is not just about being good at your job….its about helping others fulfill their potential and be great at theirs!
For more about NNC’s Courageous Leadership program or Transformational Coaching framework, contact me on T: (03) 9555 7955 E: gina@neuralnetworks.com.au
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Monday, July 28, 2008
Good Sales Experience - Good Sales Training?
I was sold to the other day, and it was good!
When I go shopping for anything, I go with the mentality of “I don’t pay retail”. I find that going into a purchasing situation with this mind set is great for negotiating because I find that I become really hard nosed about price.
Knowing what I know about sales, if someone can build enough value in a product during a sale, price is rarely the deciding factor. But it’s rare that someone has the skills to build the kind of value that convinces me to buy without a discount.
Some weeks ago, I remember getting home from work, sitting on the side of my bed and taking my shoes off. As I took them off I realised that they had been worn to pieces almost. The heel was worn down, the toes were turned up and creased, the tongue was falling out. Apart from being embarrassed with myself I made my mind up that it was time for a new pair.
The next day was a Saturday and I set off in the morning to look for a new pair. The first shop I went into was the shoe emporium on Pitt Street mall in Sydney CBD. The great thing about this store is that they have a whole floor designated for men and they have a great range.
When I walked downstairs to the men’s floor I noticed a very pretty girl serving customers, another mind set I like to go in with is “never buy off a pretty girl” because sometimes I can be easily influenced by pretty girls and end up buying something I didn’t want.
I saw a pair of shoes that looked identical to my damaged shoes but were significantly less expensive than the shoes I had previously purchased. I asked the girl to get my size, and she did. They fit really well and looked great on the foot, probably better than my old shoes. I had already decided that I was going to buy them so I turned on my “I don’t pay retail” mindset and started negotiating.
The conversation went like this:
Me: Hmmmmm, I do like them but I’m not 100% sure.
Seller: Really, what aren’t you sure about?
Me: They’re a little outside my price range. (now I’m throwing a line out for the standard 10% off that retailers usually offer, which I would have taken because these shoes were already cheaper than my last pair)
Seller: Right, Can I ask what you’ll be using them for?
Me: I’d use them for business.
Seller: Do you have any other business shoes?
Me: I do have some others, I’m just looking for a spare pair. (which wasn’t true, they would be my only pair)
Seller: Do you have any others in this particular style?
Me: I used to but not any more.
Seller: Did you wear those shoes often?
Me: I wore them all the time actually.
Seller: So if you bought these shoes, is it likely that you would wear them as often. (Now she’s got me, I’m cornered)
Me: I guess I probably would.
Seller: So, do you think you would get value for your money?
Me: Yeah, I probably would.
Seller: Well, that works out well for you, how did you want to pay? Cash or Credit?
Me: Cash please.
Hook line and sinker. I threw out a line to see if I was going to catch a fish and as it turns out the fish caught me. I payed retail and I bought from a pretty girl.
The girl who sold me the shoes was very skilled at getting me to self evaluate the value of buying those shoes. She didn’t try to convince me why they would suit me, or tell me that I looked great in them, that I could dress them up or dress them down, that they were of great quality. The sales person got me to think about scenarios in my head, I begun thinking in pictures of what did I previously have and how often I would have worn them and where I would wear the shoes in the future (if I bought them).
Her tactic was well worked and sharply executed, I walked away happy for two reasons; 1) I got a pair of shoes to replace my old ones in tatters. 2) I was sold to in a silky smooth style that I can only applaud.
When I go shopping for anything, I go with the mentality of “I don’t pay retail”. I find that going into a purchasing situation with this mind set is great for negotiating because I find that I become really hard nosed about price.
Knowing what I know about sales, if someone can build enough value in a product during a sale, price is rarely the deciding factor. But it’s rare that someone has the skills to build the kind of value that convinces me to buy without a discount.
Some weeks ago, I remember getting home from work, sitting on the side of my bed and taking my shoes off. As I took them off I realised that they had been worn to pieces almost. The heel was worn down, the toes were turned up and creased, the tongue was falling out. Apart from being embarrassed with myself I made my mind up that it was time for a new pair.
The next day was a Saturday and I set off in the morning to look for a new pair. The first shop I went into was the shoe emporium on Pitt Street mall in Sydney CBD. The great thing about this store is that they have a whole floor designated for men and they have a great range.
When I walked downstairs to the men’s floor I noticed a very pretty girl serving customers, another mind set I like to go in with is “never buy off a pretty girl” because sometimes I can be easily influenced by pretty girls and end up buying something I didn’t want.
I saw a pair of shoes that looked identical to my damaged shoes but were significantly less expensive than the shoes I had previously purchased. I asked the girl to get my size, and she did. They fit really well and looked great on the foot, probably better than my old shoes. I had already decided that I was going to buy them so I turned on my “I don’t pay retail” mindset and started negotiating.
The conversation went like this:
Me: Hmmmmm, I do like them but I’m not 100% sure.
Seller: Really, what aren’t you sure about?
Me: They’re a little outside my price range. (now I’m throwing a line out for the standard 10% off that retailers usually offer, which I would have taken because these shoes were already cheaper than my last pair)
Seller: Right, Can I ask what you’ll be using them for?
Me: I’d use them for business.
Seller: Do you have any other business shoes?
Me: I do have some others, I’m just looking for a spare pair. (which wasn’t true, they would be my only pair)
Seller: Do you have any others in this particular style?
Me: I used to but not any more.
Seller: Did you wear those shoes often?
Me: I wore them all the time actually.
Seller: So if you bought these shoes, is it likely that you would wear them as often. (Now she’s got me, I’m cornered)
Me: I guess I probably would.
Seller: So, do you think you would get value for your money?
Me: Yeah, I probably would.
Seller: Well, that works out well for you, how did you want to pay? Cash or Credit?
Me: Cash please.
Hook line and sinker. I threw out a line to see if I was going to catch a fish and as it turns out the fish caught me. I payed retail and I bought from a pretty girl.
The girl who sold me the shoes was very skilled at getting me to self evaluate the value of buying those shoes. She didn’t try to convince me why they would suit me, or tell me that I looked great in them, that I could dress them up or dress them down, that they were of great quality. The sales person got me to think about scenarios in my head, I begun thinking in pictures of what did I previously have and how often I would have worn them and where I would wear the shoes in the future (if I bought them).
Her tactic was well worked and sharply executed, I walked away happy for two reasons; 1) I got a pair of shoes to replace my old ones in tatters. 2) I was sold to in a silky smooth style that I can only applaud.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Are you a Courageous Leader?
Where do you lead your people from?
I worked for a large corporate for almost 20 years, and when I became a Manager in my mid twenties, I had a very blinkered view in regards to how to manage people. My basic philosophy was that I simply had to tell people what to do and they would do it. If they did not do what I asked, then all I had to do was get really angry with them and this would basically fix the problems I was experiencing. I really had a problem understanding why this approach would not work, as my instructions were clear and I was being very upfront in relation to what I wanted.
The fact that I could not get my people to perform in a way that I deemed to be satisfactory really perplexed me, especially because my managers had always treated me the same way and I had followed their directions because I was scared of the consequences if I didn’t. Come to think of it, this fear meant I would basically do anything that they said. If they could manage like this, why didn’t it work for me? After all I weighed about 140kg and made a pretty good stand over man. I suppose looking back, people did follow my orders, but because I was always a perfectionist, their efforts would never be good enough.
The other thing that I could not understand was that my people were never really happy. I never saw them joking around and having fun, at least not in my presence. I tried to inspire them to have fun, but they did not seem to react to my efforts. The other management trait that I displayed was to take my people’s lack of performance personally, which made me even angrier and only provided me with the ability to yell even louder.
A few years later as I approached the age of 30, I was told by a colleague that had previously worked with me that they were fascinated by the way that I was able to instill fear in people, even a whole team. This came as a total shock to me, because I was only doing what I had previously experienced. The problem was that I was following the example set by the managers that I never enjoyed working for. About the same time I had a couple of fantastic managers come into my life, who also turned out to be great mentors. They were concerned about my personal development and helping me to plan and achieve my career aspirations. I enjoyed working for these people more than ever was because they were “Leaders” not just managers. I can now clearly identify them as leaders because they paid attention to the development of their people. It’s interesting that they all worked in the same division, which was well known for its outstanding performance.
It was then that I clearly identified that I was a manager concerned with the day to day grind, rather than a Leader who was interested in developing my people. It was also at this time that one of my mentors told me that I should always lead from the middle, which at the time was very confronting for me. At that time, my perception of leadership was that I should walk in front of my team and make them come on the journey with me, skull dragging them if necessary. I also thought that it was necessary to move behind them at times to give them a hurry up, so you can see why the notion of Leading from the middle seemed quite daunting.
Once I worked out that I could lead from the middle and take the journey with my people, I became very successful and well respected for the authentic connections that I developed with my teams.
This small piece of advice was one of the most powerful pieces of information that I have ever received in relation to achieving outperformance, and I get a lot of pleasure out of sharing this with other people today.
So I pose a couple of questions to you:
· Do you see yourself as a Manager managing, or a Leader developing your people?
· What position are you Leading your people from?
As a final point, I must acknowledge that to move from the identity of a Manager to the identity of a Leader takes real courage.
To talk more about Leading from the middle and Courageous Leadership, please call me on P: (03)9555 7955 or E: scott@neuralnetworks.com.au or visit our website at http://www.neuralnetworks.com.au/
I worked for a large corporate for almost 20 years, and when I became a Manager in my mid twenties, I had a very blinkered view in regards to how to manage people. My basic philosophy was that I simply had to tell people what to do and they would do it. If they did not do what I asked, then all I had to do was get really angry with them and this would basically fix the problems I was experiencing. I really had a problem understanding why this approach would not work, as my instructions were clear and I was being very upfront in relation to what I wanted.
The fact that I could not get my people to perform in a way that I deemed to be satisfactory really perplexed me, especially because my managers had always treated me the same way and I had followed their directions because I was scared of the consequences if I didn’t. Come to think of it, this fear meant I would basically do anything that they said. If they could manage like this, why didn’t it work for me? After all I weighed about 140kg and made a pretty good stand over man. I suppose looking back, people did follow my orders, but because I was always a perfectionist, their efforts would never be good enough.
The other thing that I could not understand was that my people were never really happy. I never saw them joking around and having fun, at least not in my presence. I tried to inspire them to have fun, but they did not seem to react to my efforts. The other management trait that I displayed was to take my people’s lack of performance personally, which made me even angrier and only provided me with the ability to yell even louder.
A few years later as I approached the age of 30, I was told by a colleague that had previously worked with me that they were fascinated by the way that I was able to instill fear in people, even a whole team. This came as a total shock to me, because I was only doing what I had previously experienced. The problem was that I was following the example set by the managers that I never enjoyed working for. About the same time I had a couple of fantastic managers come into my life, who also turned out to be great mentors. They were concerned about my personal development and helping me to plan and achieve my career aspirations. I enjoyed working for these people more than ever was because they were “Leaders” not just managers. I can now clearly identify them as leaders because they paid attention to the development of their people. It’s interesting that they all worked in the same division, which was well known for its outstanding performance.
It was then that I clearly identified that I was a manager concerned with the day to day grind, rather than a Leader who was interested in developing my people. It was also at this time that one of my mentors told me that I should always lead from the middle, which at the time was very confronting for me. At that time, my perception of leadership was that I should walk in front of my team and make them come on the journey with me, skull dragging them if necessary. I also thought that it was necessary to move behind them at times to give them a hurry up, so you can see why the notion of Leading from the middle seemed quite daunting.
Once I worked out that I could lead from the middle and take the journey with my people, I became very successful and well respected for the authentic connections that I developed with my teams.
This small piece of advice was one of the most powerful pieces of information that I have ever received in relation to achieving outperformance, and I get a lot of pleasure out of sharing this with other people today.
So I pose a couple of questions to you:
· Do you see yourself as a Manager managing, or a Leader developing your people?
· What position are you Leading your people from?
As a final point, I must acknowledge that to move from the identity of a Manager to the identity of a Leader takes real courage.
To talk more about Leading from the middle and Courageous Leadership, please call me on P: (03)9555 7955 or E: scott@neuralnetworks.com.au or visit our website at http://www.neuralnetworks.com.au/
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Emotional Intelligence – just a fad?
As an accredited facilitator of the Baron Emotional Intelligence Inventory, I have often been told at dinner parties and the like that Emotional Intelligence (EQ) or at least the application of it to work life, is just a fad and will be replaced by something else shortly.
I have thought on this as I have been accredited in the use of many different tools and attended a plethora of professional and business development courses during my career. I have come to the conclusion that Emotional Intelligence is just a label for something that we have all seen in action over and over again. We all have worked for organisations where there is a manager that all the staff love, a cricket club president that just seems to be able to keep everyone happy, even those who have missed out on being selected for the “firsts” for the third week in a row. I have come to recognise that these people have natural emotional intelligence and are likely to score particularly high on the interpersonal subscale. The wonderful thing about the recent activity in EQ is that anyone can learn the skills associated with its major components. Now that we have a definition for what it is that is required to manage our own emotional state, help others’ to manage theirs and also to develop fantastic relationships and cope with an ever changing work environment, we can focus on those key actions that are required to develop strategies to manage all these things.
So even though there might be people with natural talents in relation to managing their own and other’s emotional states, we can all implement strategies to help improve our skills in these areas.
Now would you like to hear why that would be worthwhile? For starters, you might well increase the productivity of your staff, enjoy your work-life so much more and be able to foster better relationships in all parts of your life.
If you would like to chat more about your own EQ profile or perhaps a program for your leadership team contact me at roz@neuralnetworks.com.au or call 03 9555 7955. Maybe you will get something out of this “fad” – something remarkable.
Rosalinda Batson
I have thought on this as I have been accredited in the use of many different tools and attended a plethora of professional and business development courses during my career. I have come to the conclusion that Emotional Intelligence is just a label for something that we have all seen in action over and over again. We all have worked for organisations where there is a manager that all the staff love, a cricket club president that just seems to be able to keep everyone happy, even those who have missed out on being selected for the “firsts” for the third week in a row. I have come to recognise that these people have natural emotional intelligence and are likely to score particularly high on the interpersonal subscale. The wonderful thing about the recent activity in EQ is that anyone can learn the skills associated with its major components. Now that we have a definition for what it is that is required to manage our own emotional state, help others’ to manage theirs and also to develop fantastic relationships and cope with an ever changing work environment, we can focus on those key actions that are required to develop strategies to manage all these things.
So even though there might be people with natural talents in relation to managing their own and other’s emotional states, we can all implement strategies to help improve our skills in these areas.
Now would you like to hear why that would be worthwhile? For starters, you might well increase the productivity of your staff, enjoy your work-life so much more and be able to foster better relationships in all parts of your life.
If you would like to chat more about your own EQ profile or perhaps a program for your leadership team contact me at roz@neuralnetworks.com.au or call 03 9555 7955. Maybe you will get something out of this “fad” – something remarkable.
Rosalinda Batson
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Our Limitations
I went to a primary school parent teacher meeting last night for my daughter. I was interested in particularly in the rating my daughter received for her behaviour in class. Every school report until now she received an ‘Excellent’ rating. This term she received a ‘Good’. Curious, I enquired about this ‘drop’ in rating. The teacher responded that she never likes to give out excellent on anything half way through the year. Do you get the logic behind this? If you do would you mind explaining it to me?
I was immediately reminded of an experiment conducted in 1974 by a school district in Chicago Illinois. You know the type of study, the type that couldn’t be replicated these days because of ethical reasons. One school divided a group of twelve year olds into three different classes. The class was full of high performing students and the teacher assigned to that class was told that ‘great things’ can be expected of the students. The second class was full of ‘average’ students and the teacher assigned was told that some of the students may do well, most will probably be average. The third class was full of the ‘lowest’ performers and the teacher assigned was told ‘just do the best you can!’
True to form at the end of the school year the high performer class achieved the highest results. The average class achieved average results and the low performing class achieved the worst results. The only hitch was all three classes were actually filled with a combination of high, average and low performing students. The conclusion; students can blossom or be stifled by expectations and limiting beliefs of their teachers.
It got me wondering about the impact our limiting thoughts and beliefs can have on the people we interact with every day. What is the impact of expecting less of people based on past behaviour? What could the possibilities be if we expect more from them? Interesting food for thought...
I was immediately reminded of an experiment conducted in 1974 by a school district in Chicago Illinois. You know the type of study, the type that couldn’t be replicated these days because of ethical reasons. One school divided a group of twelve year olds into three different classes. The class was full of high performing students and the teacher assigned to that class was told that ‘great things’ can be expected of the students. The second class was full of ‘average’ students and the teacher assigned was told that some of the students may do well, most will probably be average. The third class was full of the ‘lowest’ performers and the teacher assigned was told ‘just do the best you can!’
True to form at the end of the school year the high performer class achieved the highest results. The average class achieved average results and the low performing class achieved the worst results. The only hitch was all three classes were actually filled with a combination of high, average and low performing students. The conclusion; students can blossom or be stifled by expectations and limiting beliefs of their teachers.
It got me wondering about the impact our limiting thoughts and beliefs can have on the people we interact with every day. What is the impact of expecting less of people based on past behaviour? What could the possibilities be if we expect more from them? Interesting food for thought...
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