How does your leadership cocktail taste?

We’ve all met leaders who are driven. They have a particular mindset; one of constant improvement, of never wanting to stand still. They are relentless in their quest to deliver. They blend key ingredients to unlock that perfect flavour of performance.

When was the last time you tasted the ideal blend of leadership? How did it taste?

When it comes to inspiring team to perform, there are some key ingredients and some leaders are driven to find the perfect balance of flavours to inspire their team to achieve their goals.

So when you think back to the last time you saw strong leadership, ask yourself what key drivers informed that cocktail. Was it driven by the need to be more productive, maybe increase efficiency, be more innovative and creative? As leaders, we have to find the ideal mix of ingredients to get our teams to perform. What is your ideal ‘taste’? What is the blend you need to achieve your objectives?

The test of leadership is to get the ingredients right. To blend those ingredients in perfect measure and most importantly to maintain the right mix to ensure sustainable performance.

It is my view that leaders are responsible for blending three (not so secret) ingredients; to provide clarity and purpose for their organisation, to create an environment where their people can and (more importantly), want to perform, and finally, to equip their people with the capability to deliver. This seems to be a complex cocktail. Getting it right will have huge benefits. Get the right blend, and you instantly recognise it and the taste is amazing.

What happens when the flavours don’t work?

If the mix is slightly off, the imbalance leads to a plethora of issues. Amongst other things; disengagement, missed opportunities and worst of all a dissatisfied end customer. All of which have a cost and, like a dripping tap, will have dripped away before you even realise.

People are your greatest asset; they are key to your business achieving its strategic aims. Business invests heavily in kit, inventory and machinery, they protect it, service and maintain it. They look after it to best optimise it. Do you approach your people in the same way? Do you invest in them the way you do your systems and machinery? After all, they are the ones who can make or break a process, optimise a machine and delight your customers.

A major bank I worked with embarked on a development programme to get their ‘mix’ right. They involved the people and outlined the aims of the programme. They created an environment where their people could own a challenge of their choosing. They could approach it in any way they chose. Before they started, they equipped their people with tools to help them. The impact was huge.

The bank found that their people picked things that bothered them the most, they challenged assumptions and broke down cross-functional barriers. They reduced call wait times by two-thirds. They saw 30% reduction in calls into their contact centre by increasing the quality of customer communication and through challenging their processes they reduced operating costs by 25%. Their single biggest win was to challenge the perception that the IT team were too busy and together they fixed a long-standing technical issue that released capacity they valued at nearly £4m.

They achieved a perfect blend for them. People had clarity and were invited to take the challenge. They understood how they could make an impact and received development with the tools and an environment in which they could perform. And, perform they did, beyond the expectations of anyone!

My challenge to you as a leader is to ask yourself and your teams:

How clear are you about what you want and what is compelling about it that your people should come with you on your journey?
What environment do you have, is it conducive to delivering your strategy?
How effective are you at optimising the capability of your people, with tools, systems and process?
What impact would the perfect cocktail have on your business or team?

We believe that individuals, teams and business units underperform. Not because they want to, not because they intend to, but because they can’t get out of their own way.

This may not be down to them; it could be the culture or work environment. Our experiences shape our mindset and work habits, often causing people to get stuck.

We create mindsets that unlock productivity and realise potential.

Posted On May 25, 2017 By Ricky Muddimer In Leadership /

How can you motivate yourself?

Everyone has to get involved in things that they would rather not be doing. To get these things done we need to master the art of motivating ourselves.

Ricky and Rob explore, how can you motivate yourself?

We all know there are times at work when we need to get involved in projects or tasks that we would prefer not be have to do. In our podcast, Rob and Ricky discuss just how to make a connection and get motivated.

On a personal level, it’s likely most people will be more enthusiastic and therefore more likely to do a better job if they make a connection on some level. In the podcast, Ricky and Rob explore how sometimes the only motivation is that we have to do the task because it’s part of the job. How can we learn to attach importance and value to our work if this is the case so it becomes a personal and greater goal?

To be motivated, we need to see the bigger picture. Rob explains if we see things as having to do them, the motivational goal is only ever going to reach a certain level. To attach more importance, we need to see the job as a personal or community goal which will in turn increase motivation levels.

Ricky goes onto explore how if we can make a connection at a personal level, it will make a positive impact on productivity and the quality of our work. We will be able to put in more energy and vigour for the greater good of the organisation.

A useful checklist when getting motivated is asking the questions What, Why and Can I? This will give us focus to move forward with the job in hand. What is it we need to focus on? Why is important personally, to the team and organisation? Rob and Ricky wrap up their discussion on a positive note examining how we all need to believe that ‘we can’. This will instil a level of confidence in turn boosting our motivation.

The Thinking Focus: The Question Is podcast series is available to download on ITunes.

Posted On April 19, 2017 By webadmin In Culture, Leadership, Podcasts, Productivity, The question is /

Managers, how to get out of the way and improve your performance

Sshh! Mastering the art of getting out of your people’s way seems to be one of the best-kept secrets in business. I mean as managers it takes a leap of faith to allow your people the freedom to get on with it.

The truth is that treating your people with respect and trusting them to do the right thing will reap real rewards. Your performance will increase, significantly. Your engagement scores will rise, your attrition will fall, compliance will improve.

The way we are managed and led continually fails us, the need to report, to know what is going on, the fear of being caught out and exposed by colleagues drives manager behaviours to be more over bearing.

Dan Pink in his book, Drive, talks about the science behind motivation; where a role requires a more cognitive approach than traditional carrot and stick approach, the latter fails consistently.

Exploiting these three fundamental principles will reap tremendous benefits.

Autonomy

It is highly likely your people understand the direction of travel; it is even more likely that they know what the key issues are along the way, what they want is for you to get our of their way and let them get on with it.

Allow them to decide how they will get there and you will see a level of engagement, creativity and problem solving that will amaze you. We see this all the time in our workshops; our clients are continually blown away by their people, they willingly take on business challenges over and above their day job and come back with remarkable results.

Mastery

We like to get better at stuff, we enjoy taking on challenges and making a contribution, and we don’t always want rewarding for it! Counter-intuitive right? Not if you look at examples like Wikipedia, built on free contributions, developers give their time for free to improve open source software for the betterment of the user base. What if, your people could choose the skills they want to develop and focus that time on improving your business. Win-win? I think so.

Purpose

Your best people are attracted to more than just the money; they want to feel that their work has meaning. Your purpose, provided it is meaningful is fundamental to engaging your people, this is the north star, this is the guide for both autonomy and mastery. If I connect with the purpose and I am allowed to apply myself I will give more than just what you expect; I will excite you with my passion and energy. Why; because you treat me like I am a person and not a machine, just designed to shift a widget!

Getting out your people’s way makes sense commercially and scientifically, so why not give it a go.

Don’t take my word for it; Dan Pink says it far more eloquently than me in his book Drive and this short YouTube clip https://youtu.be/u6XAPnuFjJc

Posted On April 15, 2017 By Ricky Muddimer In Leadership, Productivity /