Juggling your tasks, team & individuals

Let’s be honest, leading and managing a team can be a tough gig at times.  There’s so much to do.  As the manager, you are conscious of the individuals who sit in your team.  You need to get to know each one and learn what makes each individual tick and learn how to manage each person differently.

Then there’s the whole team.  As the manager you are trying your best to create a positive healthy culture where people bring their best selves to work.  A team that feels safe and trusting.

Once you’ve managed to get everyone in a happy place, you can’t forget the tasks/objectives of the team that need completing every day, week and month.

It’s never ending! Trying to juggle all of this can be overwhelming for some managers.

John Adair created a simple model called Action-Centered Leadership.  This model highlights the balance a manager must maintain between three core responsibilities that are shown as three overlapping circles:

• Task
• Team
• Individual

Here’s a quick overview:

1. Task Needs

• This focuses on achieving the goal or completing the task.
• This might include:
  • Defining clear objectives for the team.
  • Planning and allocating resources.
  • Setting performance standards.
  • Monitoring and reviewing progress.

2. Team Needs

• This focuses on building and maintaining a cohesive and collaborative team.
• This might include:
  • Encouraging teamwork and collaboration.
  • Building trust and morale within the group.
  • Resolving conflicts.
  • Ensuring effective communication.

3. Individual Needs

• This part of the model concentrates on supporting, motivating, and developing individual team members.
• Key activities include:
  • Recognising individual contributions.
  • Providing feedback and coaching.
  • Addressing personal development needs.
  • Offering support during challenges.

The link between the three areas

John Adair stresses that these three areas are interconnected:

For example:

As a manager, you can’t focus on all of your attention on the task.  If you do, the team and individuals will suffer. Basically, you’ll have a performing team, but at the heart of it everyone is unhappy.

Similarly, you can’t focus all of your time creating a positive and cohesive team with happy individuals.  If you do, you’ll take your eye of the task.  You’ll have a happy team, but nothing gets done!

Adair’s model takes the view that task, team and individual needs must be constantly considered.  Never lose sight of either part of the model!

Presentations – It’s all about the 3 Greeks

Mark stood at the front of the room, he looked at his adoring crowd, he wasn’t feeling too nervous as he’d done his homework.  What could possibly go wrong?

He revealed his graphs one by one.  The content was good, plenty of research and evidence to support his opinions, but by slide 15, he knew he was losing the room.  His audience weren’t getting it.  The graphs proved a point, but something was missing.

Later over a Choca Mocha, he reflected, but couldn’t put his finger on what went wrong.  He knew his stuff; he proved his points, and he even smiled a lot.  He sipped the dregs of his coffee and decided it was time for a rather large Gin.

So, what went wrong? Simple really, Mark didn’t tick all of the 3 Greeks of Ethos, Logos, and his mate Pathos.

Ethos – Is all about your credibility.  Are you demonstrating/explaining your experience and expertise as part of your presentation? Failure to do this will lead to your audience thinking “What does he know?”  “What experience has he in this anyway?”  Explain who you are and why you’ve been asked to present.  Explain your sources and where your evidence came from.  Do all of this and your audience will be filled with confidence.

Logos – Is all about logic and reason.  Have you supported your argument via evidence and hard facts to support your idea/message?  Failure to do this will leave your audience thinking “So what?” “It’s a great idea, but there’s no evidence to support it”.

Pathos – Is all about hearts and minds.  Are you making an emotional connection with your audience?  Failure to do this will leave your audience thinking “Great idea, but I don’t like him” “He didn’t seem to care what we, or the team thought”, “He shut down anyone who disagreed with him and got really defensive”.

Mark dove into logic & reason without convincing the audience of his credibility and as a result the audience didn’t warm to him.

Think back to presentations you’ve seen that haven’t gone that well.  Which Greek was missing?  Think about your past presentations?  What Greek was missing?

Ahead of your next presentation, take 10 minutes to reflect on your content and how you’ll deliver it.  Are you ticking the 3 Greeks?

Personal Resilience – Proactive v Reactive

I was stood on the 8th Wonder of the World last week – Platform 2 of Chorley Train Station. I stood in the cold waiting patiently for the 7.35am to Manchester. Initially thinking it was going to be a boring journey, I was chuffed to bits when I was able to listen in to a loud and interesting conversation that two blokes sat nearby were having.

One of the pair explained how his boss was a ‘complete dragon’ (I’ve left the expletive out). He explained how he’d missed his targets that month, but how it really wasn’t his fault. The dragon explained were he’d gone wrong and where he needed to improve next month, but the poor victim was having none of it; she was ‘getting at him’. She had also told him that everyone was going to be trained up to cover other tasks, in other words to multi-skill. He said this was the dragons attempt at ‘managing him out’. Now, I’m no Poirot, but I suspect he had taken all of this feedback to heart.

We’re all guilty of taking things to heart, but sometimes we need to see things differently.  What if he had actually listened to the dragon? What if he’d taken on board what she’d said and thought about learning from his mistakes so that he could hit his targets next month? What if he changed his perception of his manager from ‘she’s getting at me’ to ‘she’s genuinely trying to help me’? What if he saw multi-skilling as a brilliant opportunity to learn new skills, skills that undoubtedly would eventually improve his career prospects?

In his brilliant book, SUMO, Paul McGee suggests you ask yourself the following questions to help you put things into perspective:

• Who is to blame? You, them, both parties?
• How long will this situation last?
• On a scale of 1-10 how much does this situation affect my life?
• What’s the worst thing that can happen?
• What’s the best thing that can happen?
• What is the one thing I can do to make the best thing happen?

As for the bloke on the train, well, he got off at Piccadilly Station still oozing the characteristics of someone who is very reactive. I wondered who he was going to blame for his misgivings tomorrow.

Confidence – Are you Charlie Bucket?

I watched Willy Wonka again today for the 50th time. My son loves the Johnny Depp film but personally I fall into the Gene Wilder camp. As we sat there with our cauldron of toffee popcorn we got chatting about the reasons why Mr Wonka chooses Charlie Bucket to take over his chocolate emporium. I must admit to being quite impressed as he analysed each of the golden ticket winners in turn. A future career as a psychologist is on the cards I think.

Our chat got me thinking about a discussion that our delegates had on an Assertiveness course which we delivered recently. We were discussing the skills and qualities of introverts and extroverts. Many of the introverts in the room said that they sometimes felt intimidated by the extrovert characters. Some said that they were even jealous of how extroverts behaved. One person in particular said that she felt her career had become stagnant and she put this down to not being able to shout loud enough. She had a voice but felt it wasn’t being heard. My challenge on this course was to change the mind-sets of the delegates. I wanted them to embrace the skills and qualities that being an introvert can bring.

In my opinion, Charlie Bucket ticks all of the boxes of an introvert. He doesn’t hog the limelight; he comes across as quite passive and maybe even a little shy. He generally only speaks when he is spoken to. In the film he’s surrounded by extroverts and not very nice ones at that. They constantly want to hog the limelight – in fact many are bordering on being rude and aggressive in their quest to be heard by Mr Wonka. Yet in the end it’s mild mannered Charlie who wins. In the film however, Charlie doesn’t change his mannerisms, nor try to match the extroverts; he remains true to his values and his personal characteristics. In the end of course, it’s Charlie who has the loudest voice.

Disclaimer – the extrovert description above refers specifically to the extroverts in the film and not extroverts in general!

Are you an introvert? If so, don’t beat yourself up about it. You have the same skills and qualities of an extrovert, it’s just that you display them in a different way. The most important thing to remember is that you remain you.

Right, I’m off to Google the rather scrumdidilyumptious 3 course meal in a piece of chewing gum. Surely Mr Wonka has managed to get this to market after 43 years?

Do you need a hand raising the confidence levels of any of your team members so you can ensure they have a voice? Why not get in touch with Mike on 07825 301660 or click here for our full contact details.

Break Away from Ready Salted Crisps

There’s no bigger creature of habit than me. I always eat ready salted crisps and I always have crunchy nut cornflakes for breakfast. The current Mrs Ode is no different, she always has lasagne whenever we go out – I’ve even seen her try and order it in an Indian restaurant.

We are all like this in some way, ok maybe not with the freaky lasagne fetish but we all have habits. Sticking with the ‘norm’ is fine. It feels safe and in many ways we are in our comfort zone. However, from time to time we need to put on our hard hats and venture out of our safe, warm and toasty comfort zone so that we can experiment and try new things.

Our habits even find their way into how we deliver presentations, especially in the first few minutes when opening. This, for many people is the worst part of the whole presenting experience. A lot of presenters play safe and stick to the same way of opening that they have done for years. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with the traditional way of opening, for example:-

– Welcome and introduction
– Introduce presentation topic
– Introduce content

…And then bang, you start talking about the content; the meat of the presentation.

It’s safe and easy on the ear for the audience. But does it capture the audience’s imagination from the start? Let’s take a look at a few ways in which you may decide to vary your opening. WARNING – Hard hat on, you are about to leave your comfort zone…

The Big ‘Ask’
Once you have introduced yourself why not ask the audience a question?

For example – “Before I start my presentation this morning I would like to ask you all a question…”

Trust me, their ears will prick up immediately and you’ve got the audience in the palm of your hand right from the start. Use this technique 2 or 3 times throughout your presentation. The audience will be so scared of missing the question that they will keep listening intently. If you have a large group then you may want to ask for a show of hands, as big groups don’t always like to shout out answers.

Shock tactic
Once you have introduced yourself why not throw in a provocative statistic, statement or fact. If you are using this technique just make sure that your information will surprise or shock them.

For example – “Before I start my presentation this morning I would like to share this fact with you…”

As with the Question Technique, you will have the audience listening intently right from the start.

Wrap up your presentation by using this fact again as part of your summary. This is called the ‘bookend technique’ and is a cracking way of bringing it all together. Be brave and give one or both of these a go.

If you would like a chat to see how I can help improve your presentation skills then don’t hesitate to give me a call personally on 07825 301660 or click here for our full contact details to get in touch.

Right, I’m feeling a touch peckish – I’m off for a bag of ready salted crisps and a bowl of crunchy nutters.

Trainers – Get to Know your audience

Essentially, all courses could be referred to as ‘off the shelf’. For example, you can Google ‘Negotiation Skills’ and you will find that most of the course outlines you read are pretty much generic, with the same general feel, aims and objectives.

It’s down to you as the trainer to bring that course to life and more importantly, to make it relevant to your audience so that they actually learn from it. If it isn’t relevant, then the audience will almost always switch off. Get the pitch and the content right however and they will love it and learn from it.

To gain credibility, it’s vitally important that you bespoke your content to suit your audience’s personal learning needs. In most cases that doesn’t mean completely re-writing an entire course, but what it does involve is tweaking the course content, your case studies/stories and the language you use so that your audience knows that the session has been designed with them in mind. Of course there may be odd times when you have to re-write the whole course to meet their bespoke needs, but you will find this out well before you deliver it, during the design phase.

Here are some useful tips from us on getting to know you audience:

• Meet with the organiser regularly in the months/weeks leading up to the session, so that you can discuss the design/content you intend to use in detail
• Use their case studies and examples to ensure they are completely relevant and so that they are guaranteed to hit the mark
• Spend time working in the business e.g. spend time on the phones or meet the delegates and work in their environment, to get a feel for what it’s really like
• Get to know their roles and the issues & challenges they face

These tips still apply even if you work as part of an in-house training team. Speak with the Department Head, arrange visits and make time to really get to know them. You may have the same in-house course which you need to deliver across the business, but our advice would be that these rules still apply – The content should still be tweaked for each department, to make sure it’s tailored specifically to them. Different exercises, language/terminology and case studies should be used – don’t keep your course generic across the board (-unless you want to bomb).

These little touches go a long way in helping you to gain credibility and to build rapport with your audience, not to mention making the learning relevant for your lovely delegates. Something we always stress here at PU is that it’s our delegates’ course, not ours, so we always build ours with them in mind, not just based on what we think will work.

Oh, and the real secret in building rapport….chocolate! Whatever you do, don’t forget the chocolate!

Delivering Training – Get onto their level

When I think of training courses, which is quite a lot (I need to get out more), it always takes me back to a course I attended a number of years ago. Bubbling with excitement, I dashed off to Manchester to attend ‘The Strategic Manager’. Not the sexiest title in the world I agree, but the outline of the course looked brilliant. I was fresh to the world of Management and this course seemed to tick all the boxes. There was even the added bonus of a free lunch and to top it all off, cakes at 3pm. I was like an over-excited kid on Christmas morning!

However, my hopes and dreams quickly turned to mush when the trainer entered the room. He came in at 9am, just as the course was about to start and mumbled “Morning everyone”, vaguely even cracking a smile. He then dove straight into the session. He had no interest in finding out who we were or what we wanted to get out of the course. He didn’t know us, we didn’t know him and more importantly we didn’t know what we were going to learn or how, or indeed anything at all about the structure of the day. It was up to him to paint the picture of what we were about to do, it was up to him to get me excited and mentally ready to learn, it was up to him to switch me on…but sadly he switched me off at 9.05am precisely – roll on 3pm and the cakes.

Sadly, things didn’t get any better as the day wore on. It felt like school all over again (-not the best experience for me I’m afraid).

Looking back, he was everything I don’t like in a trainer, or in a training course…

• No engagement
• No rapport
• No fun
• Stuck rigidly to the script
• Didn’t talk to us on our level

It was a real shame as the content was actually quite good and the supporting material was surprisingly useful. But my memories are of Mr Grumpy and not the learning at all. It appeared that the course was all about him, his glorified stories (about himself) and his never-ending font of knowledge. I got the feeling that he just wanted to get in, get out and of course get paid (-probably quite handsomely) for doing the job.

In my opinion, he was way off the mark. When we deliver our courses we never lose sight of the fact that the most important people in the room are our delegates. It’s their course not ours.

If you are out and about training this week, try to look beyond the content of the session. Think about:

• How you can build rapport immediately
• How you can engage the delegates and get them involved early doors
• How you can inject some life and fun into your topic and your story-telling
• How you can talk to your audience on their level
• How your delegates can learn for themselves and from each other – not just from you

I firmly believe that you can have the best material in the world but it’s the trainer who makes or breaks the course. It’s down to the trainer to make the course memorable and create the right conditions so that the learning sticks. And just in case you were wondering, if I remember rightly, the cakes were lovely!

Do you need a hand developing the skills of your trainers? Get in touch for a chat to see how we can help, or speak to Mike direct on 07825 301660.

Under-performance – Mind the Gap

There’s nothing more frustrating than trying to get to the bottom of why someone is under-performing. It can feel as if you are going around in circles trying find out the exact reason(s) why someone isn’t firing on all cylinders. There are times when you think you have cracked it, only to watch on in anger as they slip back into the old routine of missing deadlines, arriving late, or being Mr or Mrs Negative. Sadly most of the time all you are doing is papering over the cracks. The whole process can be quite stressful. You will no doubt have had countless 1:1 meetings and of course the inevitable trips to HR to get their take on things. Then there’s the detrimental effect it can have the team and more importantly the effect it has on you personally as you wander around trying to identify the gap in performance.
Essentially your job is to find the root cause of why someone isn’t performing. Without this you won’t ever get to the bottom of it. There are 5 main performance gaps:

Job Gap – Are you both on the same wavelength when it comes to the job description? Get them to tell you their expectations of the role and what their exact responsibilities are. Match these against your understanding and that way you might identify the gap.

Feedback Gap – The gap may have occurred due to you not giving them regular feedback. Arrange regular 1:1’s and provide them with constructive feedback. Encourage 2 way feedback. You might find something out about yourself!

Competence Gap – Are they up to the job? It may be that you decide to change their role. You may decide to arrange some training, coaching or mentoring to get things back on track. It’s also a good time to review your recruitment methods. How has this person ‘slipped through the net’?

Commitment Gap – Find out why they are de-motivated and disengaged. Ask them what would improve things. Maybe you could potentially change their role, offer a secondment, provide them with more responsibilities e.g. as the team mentor or coach? The reasons may be something personal so be prepared to listen and empathise with them. Offer them support e.g. HR or counselling etc.

Resource Gap – As a Manager your hands are sometimes tied when it comes to resources, however make sure your targets are realistic in light of what’s available. Work with the individual and the team to identify and agree a workaround if there is a lack of resources to hand.

Identifying the reason(s) for under-performance is the key. Without digging deeper you will simply go around in circles. So why not arrange a meeting with your under-performer and speak to them informally at length about their performance? Once you have identified the reason, you can then work proactively together to help close the gap.

Do you need a hand helping your managers to improve how they manage performance? Why not get in touch to see how we can help.

You don’t always have to aim for the stars…

I’ve been thinking for a while now about taking up golf. I have played in the past but not with much success, in fact, I spent more time trying to get out of that sand thingy than I did on the lush fairways. I’m not bothered about being brilliant or fantastic, I just want be able to hit the ball off the tee and get round in a reasonable score. To help improve my skills it would be pointless me going out and buying a Rory Mcllroy advanced golfing skills DVD (not even sure that actually exists). This is too technical and I would be setting myself up for a fall. Instead I may go out and buy a ‘Teach yourself golfing basics’ DVD. That way I could build up my confidence, enjoy my successes (if any), learn by my mistakes, experiment with some new techniques and most of all enjoy it.

Of course there’s nothing wrong with being ambitious, but setting the bar too high and potentially failing would no doubt mean that I would lose confidence – that’s the clubs back in the garage then.

Presenting in public is pretty much the same in many ways. If you are new to presenting, or have dabbled and have been mentally scarred by a past experience then it may be that you are setting the bar of expectation on yourself too high. When the word “presentation” is spoken, most people mentally fast forward to the presentation day itself. They see themselves standing there in total control, a great opening and a brilliant end, the audience in the palm of their hands – and then the panic sets in – “I’m never going to get through this and still be alive at the end” and “there is no way I can stand there and do that”. They heap pressure on themselves by thinking that they must be like the outstanding presenter who they work alongside, the one who they think everyone will compare them to.

If you are a newby to the world of presenting then just remember to start with the basics, you don’t have to be the all singing all dancing presenter. When starting out don’t take any risks, just play safe and get through it, experiment and build up your confidence, learn by your mistakes, hone your own style and identify ways of controlling and managing your nerves. It doesn’t matter how long this takes as long as you reach your goal of becoming the type of presenter that you want to be.

I don’t want to be fantastic like Rory Mcllroy, I just want to be able to play a round of golf and get to the end without my Dad looking at me with that disappointed look he used to give me when I was 12 and most of all I want to enjoy it.

If you are new to presenting and you have got a presentation on the horizon then maybe its time to take a step back, relax and remember to not aim for the stars too soon.

Do you need a hand developing your presenting skills? Why not get in touch to see how our presentation skills courses can help.