See the Person not the Label

How would you label yourself? Are you a Yuppie, Dinky, a punk or a hippy? Have you ever tested your IQ, emotional intelligence or fundamental interpersonal relations orientation? Is it a fair reflection of who are? Do you identify with the label? Does it still fit when you go home?

I've worked with a number of well known brands of psychometric test and even some of the originators - I've been identified as an ENTP in Myers-Briggs and a Plant in Belbin - do you know me better now?

Let me state it simply - I don't buy into the labelling thing; I don't find it helpful and you won't find it incorporated into my coaching courses. I realise this view will exclude me from some work opportunities, particularly with HR Departments who have their own industry in testing.

That's why I'm interested in speed coaching; no labelling, no judging, no forming intricate theories about personality that need to be assessed, analysed, fedback, reviewed, implemented then reviewed again - wow, how much time you save when you don't do all that stuff!

No, simply deal with people straight, be honest, consistent, fair and work on situational issues - don't try to be an amateur psychologist and attach pseudo-intellectual labels to people.

Probably the only people who think there's any sense in my approach are Managers - but what do they know?

Of course, if there are any HR and development people who share my view, I'd love to hear from you!

Human touch

It seems strange to me that the words Human Resources and humanist are not always viewed as synonymous. As a consultant, inexperienced managers often approached me on training courses to seek advice on managing staff. Of course, I tried to oblige but I also asked,

‘Have you spoken to anyone from HR about it?’

‘You must be joking,’ came the incredulous reply, ‘they’re the last people I’d talk to!’

The reason for this, it transpired was about a lack of trust but furthermore many added that HR were only interested in adherence to systems and did not want to get involved in ‘personal matters.’

When I started teaching English in Poland, a school phoned me to ask how a lesson with a new student had gone.

‘Oh, very well,’ I said, ‘we got on really well; he’s a little self-conscious and over critical but open minded and enthusiastic.’

‘I don’t want to know what he’s like,’ was the indignant reply, ‘just tell me his level!’

Having worked for a few schools, it came as something of a shock to see what a production line business it can be. In some cases, it’s just a matter of processing people along a conveyor belt which runs from B1 to B2 and so on. This is perhaps reinforced by the HR’s department to establish measurable outcomes and return on investment for their training budget.

It seems that in the desire to quantify and measure it is easy to confuse people with materials on a building site. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to measure progress but whether it’s HR or teaching, management or coaching, we need to remember that people are holistic, complex animals and never lose contact with the human touch.

Managing conflict scary guy style

As the season of goodwill comes towards us, it's a good time to think about being kind to other people and managing and reducing conflict whether it's in the playground or the workplace.

After all, the world is a dangerous place and there are a lot of scary people out there; people like The Scary Guy, my new buddy on Linkedin.

Just remember, don't judge the book by the cover; what's on the outside, doesn't always represent what's on the inside.

And the scariest challenge of all?

To love one's fellow man - like this:

The power of division

Starting with ten pounds, you only need to multiply you money ten times to arrive at a million. Well, I’m still working on that one but recently, my associate Tadek gave me an insightful variation on a theme.

As a scientifically minded person, he loves solving problems; particularly, technical ones. As a creative, impractical person, he possesses a mystical, genius quality but in fact, he’s quite modest. He explains that it’s just a case a dividing a problem to the point where you are able to solve it. What a useful idea!

Even if our skill levels are different, we can keep slowing down the ride until we’re able to get on. Furthermore, as a goal achievement tool, it makes even ambitious targets realistic. Ok, so it’s maybe like chunking elephants but it produces much more digestible pieces.

I believe there’s a guy in Hungary or somewhere who’s eaten a whole double-decker bus this way, so choose your goals carefully. Maybe start on a small bicycle and work your way up.

Bon appetite and happy division!

Speed coaching 2 - video reply and preview

Here’s a variation on the classic Kolb learning cycle. What speed coaching does differently is to speed up the process and present it in a more visual form.

Let’s take the Kolb cycle of experience, reflection, theorising and planning the next step; in speed coaching we present it this way.

Your prompt as a manager is to ask an employee about the previous day and to think about one event or communication exchange that didn’t go as well as hoped. The employee recalls and describes the situation.

Now, the new idea is that you present this as a video and ask - OK, if you had seen a video of the exchange beforehand and had the power to rewrite the script, what would you have done?

The next question is what can you do with that particular rewrite that you can apply to other situations? (learning transfer)

However, we’re not done yet, there’s one more stage. We can encourage the use of video previewing for further transactions so that the employee gets into the habit of predicting and rehearsing situations - process tool.

That’s how it works; quick, effective and sticky learning.

For details about speed coaching email me on georgesandford2@gmail.com

Speed coaching - right now!

Immediate tips (1)

Here’s the thing; most managers recognise the benefit of coaching but can’t find the time to do it. Furthermore, F2F time with staff may be limited.

Here’s the solution

By combining the best aspects of coaching and time management we can deliver powerful coaching messages in a fraction of the normal time.

Here’s the philosophy

If F2F time is limited every moment needs to be used well and to have a positive impact.

How’s it done?

There are many techniques which are demonstrated on the Speed coaching course but here’s something you can use right now.

Create good habits through questioning

Your coaching input should develop lifelong good practices that last way beyond the moment of delivery. Here are two question sets that can be used as a mini-coaching session.

Set 1

What are your objectives for today?

Get people out of the habit of turning up to work and doing stuff but creating and working to objectives. If you ask this question regularly, people will get used to having a ready answer.

Is that an objective or a ‘to do’ item?

If somebody gives you an answer like, ‘clear my email box’ or ‘contact client X’, that’s not an objective, it’s just stuff and tomorrow there will be more stuff of the same kind and we won’t be any closer to reaching our objectives. Get people to write their ‘to do’ list and then, write their serious, longer term objectives, then ask;

Which of the activities on your ‘to do’ list contribute to your objectives?

The next stage is to move from questioning to reporting. Instead of asking these questions you ask employees to come to you with a set of quick explanations. It’s quick, effective, encourages focus and produces results.

For question Set 2 - look out for the next posting.

For details of Speed coaching right now, email me on georgesandford2@gmail.com

Thanks for reading.

Choices

Life coaching involves a lot helping people to understand and make the right choices. My ability in this field stems from having had a very varied life with many ups and downs.

Sometimes people feel they are stuck through no fault of their own and ‘have no choice.’ I remember working on a particularly depressing project of introducing and employee review system into a local government organisation in the UK. Everybody was so cynical and negative about their employer that I asked, ‘If it’s that bad, why do you stay?’

‘Well, we’ve put up with it for 20 years now, so another twenty won’t make any difference,’ came the fatalistic reply, adding, ‘besides, we would lose many of our pension benefits if we left now.’

‘So you choose to stay.’ I said. It wasn’t a very popular comment.

Some years later, I had the chance to test my own theory first hand. I’d tired of commuting between England and Portugal and training in a different city each night to retire to an empty hotel room. I packed up and moved to Portugal but not with any kind of capital. My wife son and me ended up living in a rundown farm house with no water, bathroom or kitchen for two years. I took what work I could get and ended up at rock bottom when I worked for an old builder called Sr. E as a labourer. It’s not an exaggeration to say he was a cruel man. Each day’s labour brought new tortures. He would often go off for a few hours to come back and curse that I’d done nothing. One Christmas Eve, we worked till seven and then he tried to go home without paying me. In the new year, the next project involved trying to break up a rock floor in a cellar with a pneumatic drill that fell apart every time you hit a hard piece. There was no ear protection and the noise was skull numbing. After two weeks of futile endeavour in the dark pit, I’d reached the end of my tether but what I can I do, I thought, I have a wife and son to support; we’re only one step away from homelessness - no exaggeration; no choice.

All the same, I threw the tool, walked off the job never to return again. I went to a café and bought a beer with my last few escudos. As happens in the Algarve, I got talking to an old guy - English. ‘So what do you do? He asked. ‘Oh, a bit of everything.’ I replied vaguely. ‘Only’, he continued, ‘I’m looking for someone to convert part of my garden into a driveway.’ By chance, within 30 minutes, I’d landed my next job.

Now you can say I was extremely lucky and maybe I was but it taught me one of the most important lessons of my life - there really is always a choice. From that day on, I can say that I’ve never felt trapped and it was the turning point in my history.

Choosing isn’t easy and choices don’t come cost free but very often the cage you’re in is of your own construction and you can walk out the door any time you like.

This video's a little bit cheesy but I have to say I agree with 90% of it. Certainly has some ideas worth thinking about.

Speed coaching

I recently ran a coaching course in which I introduced the process of scaling.

In this, you look at a skill or behaviour and ask the coachee to rate themselves on a scale of 1 -10. If they score themselves four, you then explore what five might look like and what behaviours would be present.

People found this very useful and practised it during the session however, one person was worried that it would just take too long.

OK, so one answer is that development activity always takes up some time but it is time well spent and not doing it condemns everybody to stay in the same place but this still isn't enough for time hungry managers.

It occurred to me that what was needed was a way of keeping the best of a leisurely approach to coaching but doing it in a fraction of the time.

I then looked to my time management guru, Brian Tracy for inspiration. Although I am a big fan, he's maybe sometimes so ruthless with time that a manager following his suggestions completely could come across as cold or aggressive.

OK, I thought, what we need is a hybrid; something that combines the tough functionality of time management with the soft skills of emotional intelligence.

This led me to think about leaders and managers that I've worked with. Although they are often considered pariahs, I found a lot of good examples among politicians. The more effective ones seem to combine a packed timetable with the ability to appear not to be hurried and to have time for people. Another group of exemplars are some of the CEOs that I've met. Limited in facetime, the best ones have a magic light touch that can inspire and motivate in the space of seconds.

I'm working on putting this stuff together for some Speed Coaching courses. For now, you'll have to make do with this fast moving advert.

Dyslexia - we need a plan

I am dyslexic. This caused me a lot of problems in school and early life. In adulthood, I started to develop coping and learning strategies. I worked out how to redesign the world so that it made more sense to me. Having spent the majority of my working life self-employed and, as a trainer, designing my own materials, I have been able to work to my own agenda and control my environment.

Over the last year, I’ve been writing a book for a well known academic publisher. Thirty year’s of learning strategies went out of the window as I found stuff coming at me in vast quantities from all directions. The brainstorm of editorial feedback was like carpet bombing on my brain; a terrifying, mind-numbing cacophony. It took a long time to switch off all the interference, one way of which was to hide all track changes.

Dyslexia comes in many shapes and sizes for different people and my own particular brand involves difficulties with short term memory, information processing and cross-referencing. Basically, there just seems too much to think about; then of course, there a regular problems relating to fonts and point size. I’d forgotten about this until I received a text in Times New Roman that looked like a dense forest of thorny, rapidly growing rose bushes!

So this is the bad news but what about the gift? Generally, I find things really difficult or really easy. Years ago in a computer class I once completed a critical path analysis flow chart in about two minutes when the rest of the group took half an hour - I couldn’t understand why because I saw the complete path in one snap shot vision and just had to spend the two minutes actually creating it.

I can write an audio script in one simple writing as if I’m just copying a dictation and I learnt to play musical instruments without tuition very easily. I play guitar and keyboards; I don’t look when I’m playing as that would only confuse me; playing in the dark is best of all. Naturally, I don’t read music but can hear a tune and play it more or less straight away.

We, (dyslexics) inhabit a parallel universe; sometimes we can see you, (non-dyslexics) and even hear you but often it’s like someone talking under water. Whether it’s you or us who are under water is not clear.

I’ve never wanted to make a big deal about it or use it as an excuse but the recent writing project made me realise that there are a few things that might be helpful to all.

From the dyslexic point of view - make it clear that you are dyslexic and this may require some adaptations by the people you are working with.

Take control of your learning and express the communication channels and processes that you need - because otherwise, it will be very frustrating for everybody.

From the employer, editor or other party perspective, please use non ornate fonts such as Arial and minimum 12pt. Don’t crowd pages with information. Keep stuff simple - don’t be ambiguous, provide context and reason but briefly and specifically. Sometimes what is obvious to you may take us ages to grasp and things that seem complex, quickly understood.

Basically, we need to talk about it and make a plan.

From an employer’s perspective you will find that the pay-off of employing and getting the best out of a dyslexic employee an be enormous. Very often, we are gifted with original insights, creativity, prolific production and determination - not a bad package.

We just both have to tune into the same frequency.

Here’s a great video.



If you have any experiences or thoughts you’d like to share on this subject, I’d be very interested to hear them.

Brian Tracy - Standing the test of time

Time management is maybe not the sexiest of management skills but it remains one of the most important. Just try to find a really successful person who isn't good at it!

Furthermore, time management isn't just about maintaining a tidy desk but setting and achieving important life goals. In this sense, it encompasses major life issues addressed within life and personal coaching.

As a 'timelord' manager you also become a great role model and exemplar to your staff.

When it comes to management gurus, Brian Tracy was one of the earliest front runners. With his abrasive, hard hitting, fast talking, in your face, hard sell sales pitch, he doesn't pull any punches.

In an age where a lot of development messages are carefully wrapped in cotton wool, it's refreshing to take a neat shot of the hard stuff which is still the original and best.

For me, Brian Tracy stands the test of time and I always find his videos motivating and energising.

Don't waste any more time, watch it now then act immediately!

Empathy through reverse coaching

Reverse coaching is one possible way of developing empathy.

Some may feel that empathy can't be taught but maybe with the right type of facilitation it can be learnt.

Based on the problem explored in the last blog of a manager having to inform an employee about redundancy and responding ineffectively to scripting because of a lack of empathy, here's an alternative strategy.

First, we create a simulation in which the manager is the one being told he will be made redundant. You, as the facilitator, do this badly and ask the manager to explore his feelings in the situation and then to coach you to do it better. This may take a few attempts before you get it right.

Finally, you reverse roles and get the manager to demonstrate giving you the redundancy news.

By placing him in the recipient role, you encourage him to connect with his feelings in order to empathise with others; by changing his role to that of coach, you get him to coach himself through you.

Neat idea? I call it reverse coaching; you might want to try it out.

Here's a short video explaining the importance of connection in empathy.

Empathy

Can empathy be taught? The ability to empathise is an essential life skill from childhood to adult life and through to the workplace. Being able to see the other person's point of view and feel their emotions is necessary in coaching, customer service, counselling and negotiation. It can be particularly important when giving bad news such as redundancy notice.

An HR Manager once described a situation to me where her company had made a corporate decision to close part of a country operation. Through the use of rehearsal, scripting and practice, she coached managers on giving the bad news. At first, many waffled and dragged out their explanation keeping the 'employee,' (the role playing HR Manager) in painful suspense. When prompted to be more concise, they switched to the other extreme of being too short and direct. Well, maybe it takes a little practice to find the right tone and range but my initial thought was that this was not so much a skills issue as one relating to empathy. The Managers were focussing on sending a message without thinking about the receiver.

Scripting provides useful prompts and process skills but to deliver a message empathetically, people need to develop sensing and feeling skills also. Possibly, a role play where the Manager receives the bad news first would have been helpful - although it's easy for me to be wise after the event.

I believe empathy can be taught by focussing firstly on understanding and then on practising. That requires patience, consideration and the imagination to think how would I feel in this situation?

I hope you understand how I feel about it! The next post will include some suggestions for empathy coaching.Here's a short video involving some empathy training - let me know what you think. Thanks for reading. If you enjoy the blog, pass it on.

The Lark Ascending

What role can music play in a training course? Just about any you want would be my answer. It certainly adds another dimension and can be used to influence mood and energy levels.

I find it quite hard to imagine running a course without some music and, taking into account the subject and client group, music selection forms part of my pre-course planning.

I always look for something lively as background music for when people arrive as I believe this literally ‘sets the tone’ for the day. I like to use Shotgun by Junior Walker but in general, Ska and Motown are very effective and appeal to most tastes. During early morning sessions where people may be a bit shy, I play music at a very low level which is just sufficient to take the edge of the silence. Heart of Glass by Blondie works well.

During the mid to late afternoon, where energy levels may be low, rather than try to fight this, I turn the lights off and have a five minute chill-out session with something relaxing. The early part of Meddle by Pink Floyd is very effective for this, particularly on a course related to stress management.

However, musical choices are very subjective and it’s possible that your selection may backfire. I went through a stage of playing the Brit Pop group, Kula Shaker; I loved it but it annoyed other people. One dark winter’s afternoon in Manchester where I was running a speed reading course, I thought tired minds and eyes would benefit from a time-out; I lowered the lights put on the music and sat tranquilly for the next ten minutes. When the music ended, one guy asked what the name of the piece of music was.

Flattered by his enquiry, I replied enthusiastically, ‘The Lark Ascending by Vaughan-Williams.’
‘Oh,’ he said, in a flat, dry Mancunian tone, ‘that’s just to remind me never to buy it.’

It got a good laugh from the group and the spell was broken. Playing music on a course adds a great deal but it’s a risk of sorts and you might not always get the effect you’d hoped for!

Well, decide for yourself with this live performance of The Lark Ascending.

Can anybody be a coach?

Can anybody be a coach or do you need special skills or a particular personality?

If it’s just about developing a skill set then surely through quality training, or coaching, these can be developed. On the other hand, if coaches replicate coaching behaviours and perform them automatically without internalising or contextualising their actions isn’t it like being able to produce Chinese characters without knowing what they mean?

The question might be does it matter? You could argue that if a manager acting in a coaching role can learn a coaching skill to improve a performance aspect of an employee and that objective is achieved, it doesn’t matter how deeply s/he feels the experience; the job is done. However, by focussing on set routines and phrases that can be learnt verbatim there is a risk of turning ourselves into automata and not doing the things that humans do much better than machines; namely think contextually, integratively, laterally - even illogically, in order to arrive at some new synergic destination that wasn’t on the planned route.

Coaching should be viewed as being much more than a just set of behaviours but as a philosophical approach and way of being. For coaching to focus on growth rather than rectification, this is the only option.

Now comes the problem; changing attitudes and beliefs is more of a challenge than changing behaviours; it takes longer and is harder to measure. Furthermore, it requires much more of a corporate approach which creates a culture of ‘the way we do things here.’ For a coaching culture to prevail it needs strong support at the highest level which not always be forthcoming.

In any organisation there will be those managers with a natural disposition towards and talent for coaching, those who can learn the skills but won’t really understand what they are doing or why and those who just don’t get it.

What do you do next Coach?

Here's one guy with an idea. Now I'm not saying whether I agree or disagree at this stage - you decide what you think.

Self-service HR

Increasingly, it's DIY (do it yourself) world. Automated email responses, menu phone systems are accompanied by self-service everything from a gas station, supermarket, online booking and airport check-in.

Why not HR too? There are many administrative processes ripe for the picking. This could include updating records relating to training, holidays, sickness etc.

In the workplace, the self-server becomes the employee who can perform many tasks traditionally managed by HR. Clearly there needs to be controls and a way of checking the data but this can be managed by authorisation processes.

I feel that I should be excited and enthusiastic about this development but somehow, I'm not. As a customer, I'd sooner interact with a person than a machine and not be fobbed off with the claim that self-service is for my own comfort and convenience.

Give me a break! Oh, I see; I have to give myself a break!

Rebranding HR

HR branding may be considered a relatively new idea but the reality is HR is already branded. Ask anybody in any organisation and they will have an opinion about HR and not one that is always flattering.

Common complaints from HR people are that they are undervalued and not taken seriously; looked at as a cost centre rather than one that adds value. If these are the complaints then these are the perceptions of the workforce and that’s the brand image they see. Your job is to change that perception through brand management.

Like any branding process, you firstly need to clarify your brand characteristics; what do you represent; what is your brand promise?

You then need to consider interfaces and communication channels. What are the points of contact between HR and other parts of the business? All activities, systems and F2F encounters are the contact points and these need to be managed so that they are consistent with the brand image. It’s useless claiming a brand identity of a workforce enabler if your performance review system is so complicated that everybody loathes it. Similarly, it’s no good claiming you care about people if you don’t know anybody’s name and it’s futile to consider yourself a strategic partner if you don’t understand the needs of sales and production.

Therefore, the message is that it’s not enough to create a branding platform based on rhetoric which is not backed up by clear productive outcomes that reinforce the brand message.

Having got those factors aligned, you can explore your communication channels to ensure that you are including all means at your disposal including SMS’s but always remember the importance of real, personal contact. Be proactive and build relations, offer constructive suggestions beyond the core boundaries of HR and then you will not be perceived as a peddler of internal HR products created for the glorification and justification of a bloated HR department. If you have a bad internal press, you have only yourself to blame. The good news is, with the right approach, you really can rebrand HR. Get cracking!

There's a lot of stuff on branding on Youtube and I decided against a 'how to' video in favour of this more thought provoking piece - one you've thought, you can do the 'how to!'

Is using a recruitment agency a cost or a saving?

I was interested to see recently on a Linkedin discussion, strong criticism relating to the cost of using head hunters and recruitment agencies in the R&S process. The contention of the contributor was that if these activities were provided in-house, this would save the company up to 25% of total recruitment costs. It made me wonder. Hm - maybe he’s got a point.

However, on reflection, I think without specific cost examples, it’s not easy to make such a case. The key point here seems to be the assumption that by delivering in-house, the service becomes free. Who will do it; the existing HR people? Will they have the time? If not, we will have to recruit more and pay for their employment costs and house them somewhere. Conversely, perhaps the recruitment needs are not so great as to justify people dedicating their time exclusively to this task.

What about the database of potential candidates. Without a doubt, a dedicated agency will have a better one and access to a much broader candidate pool. This will particularly be the case in high level, international appointments. Then we may need screening interviews and possibly, assessment centres. If a company decides it wants to use such methods and not use external providers, they would need to develop the expertise in house which may require more training and higher wages.

The view of the contributor was that agencies were parasites living of the backs of candidates.
This seems a strange interpretation of the delivery of part of a process. This happens in all other activities from construction to accountancy and law so for me, it’s a very clear and unanimous verdict that outsourcing aspects of recruitment makes financial and practical sense in many cases.

What do you think?

While you're thinking about it, have a look at this at entertaining video about young career aspirations.