Alternatively, there’s another way of looking at this that requires you to adopt a different paradigm – the belief that ‘best’ is sitting in front of your eyes and in plentiful abundance already within your organisation. All it takes is some discovery, gentle probing and a fascination for what your people see, believe and know. I’ve learned never to underestimate the power of people feeling consulted and listened to, and the crafting of an in house, bespoke framework is a genuine joy to behold!

Once your own framework is completed and presented back, it requires no ‘selling’ to your staff (“this is why we’ve chosen such and such an approach..”) it obtains instant ‘buy in’ (they fashioned it after all) and its written in your language. I’ve only ever seen people positively ask for the ‘how’, having gained insight into the ‘what could be’. Two further critical factors make this approach worth considering: 1) its sustainable (it doesn’t go out of fashion when the director who bought it leaves); and 2) you own it. Unpalatable for most training organisations, but vital for yours…

#1 Get to know the Hero (segment the audience; truly understand their needs; create common ground)

#2 Define the Journey (prepare your presentation from the audience’s perspective, not yours; plan and map their journey; acknowledge the risk and address the resistance; make the reward worth it)

#3 Create meaningful content (more than just facts; where’s the emotion? dont be so cerebral; turn information into stories)

#4 Structure reveals insight (order your messages for impact; contrast your delivery; put your story on the silver screen)

#5 Deliver something they will always remember (create a star moment; repeatable sound bites; evocative visuals)

#6 There’s always room to improve (hop down from your tower; value brevity; wean yourself off the slides; get an honest critic).

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Remember the Importance of Humility

I got this insight when I was asked to teach a class on humility at Harvard College. I asked all the students to describe the most humble person they knew. One characteristic of these humble people stood out: They had a high level of self-esteem. They knew who they were, and they felt good about who they were. We also decided that humility was defined not by self-deprecating behaviour or attitudes but by the esteem with which you regard others. Good behaviour flows naturally from that kind of humility. For example, you would never steal from someone, because you respect that person too much. You’d never lie to someone, either.

It’s crucial to take a sense of humility into the world. By the time you make it to a top graduate school, almost all your learning has come from people who are smarter and more experienced than you: parents, teachers, bosses. But once you’ve finished at Harvard Business School or any other top academic institution, the vast majority of people you’ll interact with on a day-to-day basis may not be smarter than you. And if your attitude is that only smarter people have something to teach you, your learning opportunities will be very limited. But if you have a humble eagerness to learn something from everybody, your learning opportunities will be unlimited. Generally, you can be humble only if you feel really good about yourself—and you want to help those around you feel really good about themselves, too. When we see people acting in an abusive, arrogant, or demeaning manner toward others, their behaviour almost always is a symptom of their lack of self-esteem. They need to put someone else down to feel good about themselves.

Choose the Right Yardstick

This past year I was diagnosed with cancer and faced the possibility that my life would end sooner than I’d planned. Thankfully, it now looks as if I’ll be spared. But the experience has given me important insight into my life.

I have a pretty clear idea of how my ideas have generated enormous revenue for companies that have used my research; I know I’ve had a substantial impact. But as I’ve confronted this disease, it’s been interesting to see how unimportant that impact is to me now. I’ve concluded that the metric by which God will assess my life isn’t dollars but the individual people whose lives I’ve touched.

I think that’s the way it will work for us all. Don’t worry about the level of individual prominence you have achieved; worry about the individuals you have helped become better people. This is my final recommendation: Think about the metric by which your life will be judged, and make a resolution to live every day so that in the end, your life will be judged a success.

Downey writes of the need to bring humanity back to the workplace – and his book is largely directed at those working in business coaching. It’s a very humanistic, compassionate approach – the role of the coach is not to mould automatons who will go to work unquestioningly, but to help people find their creative side, explore their imagination, recognise their intelligence, skills, passions, etc. The workplace benefits because the workers are fulfilled and achieve a balanced lifestyle which brings a fresh vitality to their work.

Putting the ongoing dialogue between a coach and a ‘player’ to one side (I struggle to relate to these fake conversations), here’s a couple of things I found useful to pass on. I like Downey’s ‘spectrum of coaching skills’. Too often, coaches are trained to only use non-directive skills (‘just keep asking questions’) without the experience to recognise that their coachees/clients also want advice, guidance and feedback. This isn’t to diminish the ongoing use of questions, but to encourage a flexible approach and a maturity to recognise what the need of the client is at that moment in time.

I also thoroughly enjoyed Downey’s approach to feedback. One of my (many!) bugbears about feedback is the proliferation of the ‘sandwich’ approach (positive-negative-positive), as it sets everyone up for failure, stemming from the belief that a difficult conversation needs to be ‘hidden’. Instead, Downey suggests, “there is no such thing as negative feedback and there is no such thing as positive feedback. There is just feedback – data”.

What happens with feedback is that people attach a judgement to the data to suit their purpose in that moment. That purpose is usually ‘to be right’. And then the receiver responds to the judgement and not to the data. The role of the coach, Downey suggests, is to give the data as cleanly as possible so that the coachee can receive it, assess it and make their own decision as to how to proceed.

That said, in giving feedback is it nigh impossible to communicate only the data and one of the most powerful concepts in coaching is emphasised again in this book.  Like it or not, the receiver will always get some sense of your intent and the emotional charge you carry. If your intent is suspect, even the most well structured of coaching conversations will disintegrate. If your intent is positive, the most difficult of feedback can usually be received well and acted on.

Great book; highly accessible; did what I wanted, provided re-invigoration!

Coming in at number 1 is: ’Drive’ by Daniel Pink – The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us. I’ve been somewhat obsessed about motivation lately, particularly since studying and lecturing about Deci and Ryan’s academic work which Pink elegantly puts into a readable format. Even more acccessible is the 10 minute visual summary here (I promise you it’s worth 10 minutes of your time).

A close second is ‘The Art of Possibility’ by husband and wife team, Benjamin and Rosamund Stone Zander. Benjamin Zander is the conductor of the Boston Philarmonic and talks about leadership, motivation, humanity and creativity (phew, all in one book…). Check out his talks on YouTube. I still laugh at his ‘Rule Number 6′ (“Don’t take yourself so g-damn seriously”).

‘Deep Change’ by Robert Quinn is the book I’ve given to people experiencing significant change, personally and professionally. It’s a beautiful, inspiring and thoughtful read, billed as a survival manual for finding your own inner leadership power. The thrust of the book is how greater self awareness enables you, in a serious period of change, to become a confident agent who feels revitalised rather than victimised. Read it and pass it on.

And now for something free!

I’m a sucker for free and useful psychometrics, particularly when they’re strengths oriented, evidence based and with a good feedback tool. So imagine my excitement (yes, really) with this new leadership questionnaire at www.inspiredleadership.org.uk. Essentially it explores your leadership strengths across 4 different dimensions:

1. Creating the Future
2. Enthusing, Growing and Appreciating Others
3. Clarifying Values, and
4. Ideas to Action

It takes about 30 minutes to fill in and, interestingly, the tool is administered by the DTI. Surprise, surprise, ‘Ideas to Action’ was my highest leadership strength – let me know how you get on with it.

Happy New Year!

A new study shows that absenteeism cost UK employers £15 billion last year.

If, like me, that figure just seems too big to be of significance – and I’ve certainly found that the billions of lost pounds that were talked about in the financial crisis lost their meaning – then think of this:

1 million seconds is equal to 11days, 13 hours, 46 minutes (plus 40 seconds left over)

However, 1 billion seconds is equal to 31 years, 8 months, 8 days, 1 hour, 46 minutes (plus 40 seconds)

That certainly brings it home to me!

The latest research by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development shows that 58% of the days lost were due to stress related illnesses. Furthermore, workloads have increased as the recession hits work-life balance and it is senior managers who are suffering the most and taking an average of 11.4 days off per year.

We work with leaders to increase their energy and resilience so they can role-model behaviours that will boost performance and engagement in their business. For more information see http://www.mindspring.uk.com/training-leadership.htm or contact us by email: steve@mindspring.uk.com

March 1^st: Barclays Investment Bank. Seminar on Resilience.

March 29^th: Resilient Leadership. Conference in York. Keynote Speaker on Emotional Resilience.

May 2nd: Copenhagen: Speaker on Developing Resilience in Children. Open free event.

May 15th: Speaker at the Gloucestershire Coaching Network: Positive Psychology in Action.

May 16th: Speaker at the WACL Conference: A conference dedicated to women working in the communications industry. Fabulous event and very inspiring to attend (let alone be invited back as speaker).

May 18^th: Guildford Coaching Network: “Strengths; Emotions and Motivation”.

November 15^th: EMCC International Conference. Bilbao, Spain. Leading master class on Positive psychology and leadership.