Engaging Staff

It can be difficult to keep staff informed of the key drivers within your organisation and good communication is basis of making sure people understand their contribution to a shared goal. Here are some tips to help you improve the way you communicate with your people:
1. Communication needs to be a two way process so make sure you have a method that allows people to comment, ask questions and make suggestions on a regular basis
2. Measure how successful you are at communicating - you probably measure other aspects of your business and communication is vital to success so measuring how well you are doing is important so that you can improve
3. Use lots of different ways to communicate - verbal, team briefs, newletters, electronic messages, internal blogs, social networks (where appropriate) notice boards, posters and so on ...
4. Give leaders and managers a platform for communication - I've always found that a team briefing process works well, it shows a commitment to inform people, gives managers an opportunity to use a structured process to communicate and there is a regularity to team briefing that establishes an expectation among staff that they will be informed about the organisational goals
5. Encourage everyone to be part of the communication process - rotate the chair in meetings, get people involved by asking someone to keep time or take notes, try to sandwich good and bad news and always try to end on a positive, even if that is only to thank people for participating.
Good Luck!

Review your Company's Communications

We all know that attending meetings can take up a lot of our time and that often we don't seem to have enough time during the day to prepare properly for all of these meetings. If you are increasingly finding that you are taking paperwork home to read or comment on because day time activites are overloaded then it is probably time to review your internal communications. Most organisations have a pattern to them that we often ignore or just don't recognise. This pattern detemines many of the meetings that need to take place. Think about it; near the year end, budgets need to be prepared and analysed. Planning strategic objectives is normally an annual event and is closely linked to budget setting. Other activities such as performance reviews tend to pop up on a regular six month cycle and project and team meetings will be more frequent.
So now we begin to see a pattern of communication emerge. Look further and consider e-mail, telephone and other regular contact such as visual displays (notice boards, white boards etc) and a multi layer approach to communication starts to emerge. Mapping out these communications and prioritising those you need to participate in will help control your time and your diary. Once you have mapped out and prioritised your overall communications you can then begin to rationalise and focus your approach.
Make sure you think about why the meeting/communication is needed, how frequent this needs to be, the style (formal/informal)of communication and the audience - who should be involved. Once you have mapped this out your diary will only be filled with the things you really need to do and you can take back some time to yourself!

The Elephant in the Room

Or, beating about the bush as my mother would have said. It is often difficult to address an issue directly because we fear the reaction that others may have to the subject being raised. This fear can lead us to ignore problems or live in hope that these problems will go away. A 'do nothing' strategy can of course, be useful if there is a chance that the problem will resolve itself, however, for other issues we really do need to confront and contain. This does not need to cause distress to yourself or to other people. In fact if worked through well, confronting problems can make the team and team working more productive. Stating your case and giving other people the opportunity to state theirs is a good stating point. From here a discussion can begin around why an issue is a 'problem' for some and how it might be resolved. In real life we often forget to ask others how we impact on them or take time to observe the affect we have on others. We are all busy with complex lives and so don't see that how we work or what we say can have a negative affect on those around us. Being self aware is an important attribute and we should all try to develop this while working to support colleagues to do the same. Getting into the habit at team meetings of asking if there are any 'Elephants in the Room' that need to be addressed can be one way of tackling niggling issues. Remember if you do adopt this approach don't let it become an opportunity for people to cause distress but make it a positive opportunity for discussion and progress. Remeber to keep personal issues for private discussion and don't use team meetings to expose individuals to the criticism of others.

What Motivates You?

Motivation is concerned with why people behave the way they do. In the workplace motivation is normally focused on performance and controlling or directing people to work more effectively. Why people do what they do is a question that dates back centuries and has challenged managers everywhere to find ways to help people engage in their work to produce better results. There are a number of key thinkers that have produced theories of motivation: Maslow created the hierarchy of need, Macgregor gave us X Y theory and more recently there have been a whole range on personality 'tests' like Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) developed to help in the understanding of what makes people do what they do.
All of these theories and tools have a place in detemining what makes people tick and how this key determinant will affect how they act and interact with others, perform a particular role or conduct a task. Making use of such tools is one way in which managers can seek the best ways to motivate their teams - knowing what makes each person energised to pursue a goal or objective should make it easier to find incentives to move that individual forward and keep moving them towards new goals.
The difficultly many people encounter is that the systems used by organisations to set goals and objectives does not allow for highly individualised goals or objectives. When goals become too broad or too narrow they either become too general to have meaning or are so focused that only a few people will engage with them. To motivate people we need to find solutions that are flexible while supporting the broader organisational goals. A combination of very personalised goals with broader over-arching objectives for the team will help. So too will each manager's ability to listen to each individual in his/her team and help create challenges that the person really will want to achieve. It takes time to Understand and to Value each person's motivations but to do so will bring about excellent team communication, more collegiate working and a better appreciation that we are all different in our needs and wants.

The Critical Friend

Throughout our lives we build and rebuild our own map of reality. This map is made up of stories, experiences and incidents that have made us who we are. Our map is a place of familiarity and in many ways it keeps us safe from the rest of the world. The problem with our maps is that they tend not to have a control or regulatory button to check whether what the map says is true or not. We may develop our map in isolation and if we are not open to some kind of 'reality check' our map could potentially lead us down the wrong route. This process of reality checking is where it can be useful to have Critical Friend; someone your trust and someone who is experienced in giving feedback that is both positive but challenging. A Critical Friend may be your partner, a work colleague, a coach, or even your boss! Whoever you choose to use as your Critical Friend there are a few things you need to consider.
First make sure the person your want to use in this capacity is emotionally strong (or emotionally intelligent) - you do not want someone who cannot address complex and challenging issues without falling apart!
Next, consider why you want this particular person to act as your Critical Friend, what is it you admire about them, what will they bring to you that someone else cannot?
Think about what you want from this relationship and how it will work. Consider your Critical Friend and what their needs might be.
Finally think about how long this relationship will last. A true Critical Friend could be someone that you keep in touch with for many years so choose carefully.
Next blog will be on motivation!

Make me Assertive

Assertive? Aggressive? Quitely confident? Down right abrupt? All of these are comments we are familiar with and likely to hear in our workplace. But what is assertive and how do you become assertive? One defination quoted in Tosey and Gregory's Dictionary of Personal Development (2002) suggests assertiveness is 'a person's ability to act in his or her best interests, understanding what he or she needs or wants, and appropriately seeking the necessary gratification with out undue anxiety.' That's all very well but what does it mean in real life situations where we can often find expressing ourselves difficult.
It is clear that the ability to express our needs in a clear and articulate manner is linked to how we feel about ourselves at that moment and is also directly linked to our self esteem. So assertiveness is person and situation specific. In effect being assertive is about being able to say what you are thinking or feeling with due respect and regard for those around you. Making your point at the expense of others is moving towards aggressive behaviour.
Learning how to be assertive requires many things:
listening skills
the ability to understand and control your own emotions
an ability to articulate what you want to say making use of language that is not threatening
being very aware and taking regard of other people's feelings.
Phew! A lot to do if you are to genuinely be assertive. Thankfully I've a few tips to help.
First - no matter what the situation, clarify before you respond. Take a minute to ask what is expected of you (even if you know what you want to say) that way to 'buy' a little bit of time to form the words you will speak.
Second - speak slowly so that you can also listen to yourself and watch the reactions of others - this will allow you to moderate what you are saying if necessary.
Third - have a stock of key phrases you can use to help you become assertive!
This last part is essential as it will help you not be assertive without worrying too much. This idea is based on the old adage 'practice makes perfect'. If you are able to call on a few positive phrases to help state what you want then you are half way there. Here's an example "I understand that you are not the manager and are not able to make this decision, however, I do expect that you can make a note of my complaint. So if you would be so kind..."
The key words here are 'understand' - which creates empathy with the other person, 'however' - which suggests that you are not satisfied and more is to follow, and 'so' which is where you state what you want to happen next! In the example above it could be to call the manager, pass on your compaint or get him/her on the phone.
So being assertive takes practice, patience and careful consideration.
Next time I'll be blogging about the Critical Friend!

Unblocking the inflexible individual

We have all come across someone who is fixed in their views and is more likely to answer no than yes when asked if something can be done. This type of person can be infuriating to work with and can cause tensions in teams. So what do you do? Ignore them or pander to their behaviour? What you do is important because it will set a pattern for a long time that can be hard to break. People who are inflexible can tend to dismiss new ideas, focus on details (to thwart the discussion of bigger and more important topics)may hold grudges and can have fixed ideas or closed minds. The key to working alongside this type of person is to get them on side and to unblock their negative perceptions.
Sounds great but how do you achieve this? Well, first you need to invest time in listening to them - get them to open up about a particular situation, take notes and paraphrase them if needed to ensure you have a clear picture of what they are thinking. Ask them questions and give them time to show off - this will allow you to see where they are correct in their thinking and where the thinking has become corrupted by prejudice or misunderstanding. Do not challenge them directly at this point. Next you need to rebuild the picture of the situation this time ensuring that they see you as an expert - try to avoid negative words such as but. The idea is to form an alliance to resolve the situation.
You need to get the inflexible person to come up with solutions and possible ways out of the situation, ask lots of 'what if' questions as they do to point out the advantages and disadvantages of each solution. If you have a preferred option it may be possible to introduce this as a hypothetical solution upon which you seek their views!
You need to get commitment to action for the situation to change so ask for details (this is something the inflexible person should like) about how an option would work in practice, how would they contribute to this option and when would this option be put in place.
The inflexible person can be afraid of change, fear failure or prefer to know exactly what is to happen and when. This knowledge is central to you helping to move them on. In summary, you need to listen to their side of the 'story', build up your relationship so that you can work together, get the inflexible person to identify options for the way forward, get them to make commitment to actions and don't forget to follow through and evaluate the results.
Next time I'll be blogging about being assertive.