Ten questions to ask yourself if you want high quality leadership

Ten questions you need to ask if you want to develop high quality leadership

by Graham Field

Ensuring high quality leadership within any organisation, large or small, has always been a challenge, and much has been written on this subject. Pick up any leadership book or read any leadership material and it must seem like the Holy Grail is waiting to be found!

From our own extensive research and experience, we at Thinking Focus believe that there are three key areas to focus on to become a quality leader, which in turn will bring about organisational success.

Below, we discuss these three areas, as well as giving tips for leaders to focus on in order to improve performance. When reading the following, consider yourself now against the areas mentioned: where do you see your strengths and where are your development areas? What do you, or others in your organisation, need to concentrate on to become high quality leaders?

Ask yourself our 10 questions – and answer them as honestly as you can. Then act on the information you have to make the improvements needed to achieve your aims.

Shaping The Business: This is about getting any organisation ready for success, and as a leader the key areas for you to work on are:

Creating, and continually encouraging, a supportive, inclusive environment: Environments don’t just happen; they need to be created. The most basic question any leader should be asking themselves is “what type of environment do I want to create?” The most successful organisations worldwide ensure that the environment they create supports everybody – through effective HR policies, great inductions, mentoring and coaching schemes, and other forms of employee engagement. High quality leaders recognise the value of having these in place as a motivating factor and ensure their people are really included in decision making processes.

Shaping your organisational structure and processes for great success: Once quality leaders understand the ‘what’ (environment) they focus on the ‘how’ (structure and process). As a great starting question, and one that should be constantly revisited, these leaders know the answers to “what structure, systems and processes would be the most helpful to support our overall vision/aims?” This question allows leaders to focus on the ‘nuts and bolts’ of their business considering, for instance, whether the structure actually supports people, really is customer focused or can demonstrate attention to quality. High quality leaders know structure and process must help, not hinder, organisational success and implement them rigourously.

Master the fundamentals of your business: Any great leader works at mastering what makes organisations tick – particularly their own – whether this be through self-learning, through mentoring or through development programmes. High quality leaders make understanding “what key business principles do I need to learn and master?” a daily task.

Strengthening The Team: Focus on the people side of leadership, and the importance of developing and motivating the best team a leader can have working with them.

Ensure the team you have has the right people doing the right things: Any leadership text will highlight that leaders need followers – and in the world of the organisation, this is about having the right team. High quality leaders not only recruit the right people, they place them where their skills will be used to maximum effect, ensuring both business success and individual motivation. As a leader, knowing the answer to the three-part question “what does each of my team bring to the party, how effectively are their skills being used and how might their skills add even greater value?” is essential. And this is not a one-time question, but an ongoing one. High quality leaders are constantly aware of the skills mix of their people and move their teams around for maximum success.

Make sure everyone fully understands their role – and how this fits with your vision: There’s a great analogy often used to demonstrate this point about two stone cutters working in a quarry and they are both asked what they are doing. Stonecutter one replies “I am cutting stone” – clearly demonstrating they understand what they are doing. Stonecutter two responds “I am part of a team building a cathedral” – clearly demonstrating they know not only what they are doing, but how it fits with a bigger picture. High quality leaders understand this point and make sure that the people they work with know not only what they are doing, but also why. These leaders ask the question “what can I do to bring my vision to life for everyone?” and then engage everyone in answering it.

Understand that relationships matter: Everyone in an organisation, or indeed who interacts with it, is important – and high quality leaders understand this and work at it. Knowing how to interact with people, how to effectively delegate to motivate and develop people, how to develop a relationship of trust and how to communicate effectively are all important factors that great leaders understand. Answering the questions “which of my people skills need the most work?” or “which relationships do I need to focus on the most?” gives great insight – and helps to forge a development path to gaining new skills, or brushing up on existing ones!

Seizing The Opportunities: Focus on building on all of the above, then allow high quality leaders to be the most proactive they can be and either make the most of opportunities as they arise or, ideally, create new opportunities for success.

Dig around in your organisation – find the opportunities: When everything is running smoothly, as it will be if the organisation has been shaped and the team strengthened, reflecting on how everything is working is a key trait of high quality leaders. Unwilling to rest on their laurels, effective leaders will be constantly exploring how things are working, highlighting areas for improvement and seizing these opportunities. Ignoring the rule of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” they probe what’s going on with a view to continuous improvement. Make answering the question “where is there an opportunity for improvement in this?” one of your daily habits.

Reduce reaction times on vital knowledge – and create sources of information: Opportunities are always presenting themselves through the information that surrounds us – high quality leaders not only make the most of this, but also find ways of ‘being in the know’. Regularly reading trade journals, attending seminars and networking events, following the news, and really listening to what’s being said in meetings are all seen as opportunities to take in something vital before turning it into meaningful action. Knowing something and filing it for future reference may be helpful, but turning that knowledge into an opportunity for creative thinking and speedy action is the way of the high quality leader. Make sure when vital knowledge comes your way you can immediately answer the question,“what’s the most creative way of using this information for organisational success?”.

Make innovative leaps in everything you do: High quality leaders know that unleashing their own creativity, and that of their people, holds the key to so many problems, challenges and opportunities. Creativity is no longer the gift of the select few in organisations: a function of leadership is to harness the creativity in everyone. Most managers and leaders are able to look at where incremental improvements can be made; the most effective leaders look to move things up a gear; consider how to develop creativity and innovation to ensure that they are prepared to make giant leaps, not small steps. Answer “what’s the most creative and innovative thing I can do with this?” regularly – and make sure your creativity skills are topped up at all times!

From working with our clients, we believe that by following the nine tips above, and putting in the time to answer the ten questions within them, anyone can start to increase their leadership capability. You may already be doing some of the above, and only need to work on just a few of the areas. Whichever approach you need, and decide, to take, as a high quality leader make a commitment to do something with the information above!

Posted On July 26, 2018 By Paul Hutchinson In Leadership, Productivity /

How to motivate your employees and increase performance

by Graham Field

One of the greatest challenges that leaders face in the workplace is how to motivate their employees. How best do we inspire and support them to increase their performance?

There are many theories around employee motivation, but in the this blog we’ll be giving practical suggestions that all leaders can put in place immediately.

To start with, we’d recommend that leaders assess how much they understand their team members’ motivations. This can be done simply by drawing up a table like this:

Team Member:

What Motivates Them?

What Demotivates Them?

B:
C:
D:

The challenge is for leaders to see how many individuals in their team they could honestly complete this table for. Our guess is that many would find it a struggle! High quality leaders know these basics and use this knowledge to actively motivate their people, avoiding doing the things that they know cause demotivation.

Let’s now turn our attention to three sources of thought which we think are important in employee motivation, engagement and performance.

Gallup Q12

It makes sense for us to use this commonly-cited source as our starting point. Created by pollsters Gallup, it measures employee engagement and its impact on business outcomes by asking employees to complete a survey. The survey questions cover 12 areas of consideration, which we cannot directly quote because they are under copyright.

However, the questions look at areas such as expectations at work; rewards and recognition; opportunities and progression; relationships between colleagues; materials and resources; leadership and support; communication; belonging, purpose and mission; and quality of work.

Asking questions around these areas are really important and give us a great insight in to some of the motivating factors of all employees (ourselves included). But leaders then need to do something with the information they get from asking such questions.

In fact, they need to then answer some questions themselves! Examples of what they could think about are:

What could I do to ensure that all my people clearly understand what is expected of them?
How could I make praise & recognition a daily habit for my team?
What could I do to ensure everyone is constantly involved with driving the business forward?
What opportunities might I create for growth for my people?

And then, of course, they need to be proactive in committing to actions based on their answers to increase employee engagement and guarantee performance.

Ohio University Research

In 2000, Ohio State University carried out research into Human Motivational Factors (the things that drive our behaviour). Their research highlighted 16 different basic desires that affect behaviour. We think five of these have the biggest impact in the workplace, so let’s look at each in turn:

Curiosity

This is described in the research as “our desire to learn”. For us, this is an important factor in employee motivation. Leaders need to think about their people and the opportunities for learning that are available to them. From our work with organisations, we recognise that many people are given (or forced in to) ‘opportunities’ through training programmes. But, how focused is this development in terms of both what they really need to be a high performer and what they really want for their own development?

As a leader, ask yourself: How could you ensure that the desire to learn is (appropriately) fulfilled in your people?

Independence

This is highlighted as “our desire to make our own decisions” and, in our experience, it’s something that many employees may feel divorced from. Leaders need to consider what opportunities exist for their team members to make decisions. It’s not necessarily always about what they do (these will, after all, reflect your team or company goals), but certainly about how they can achieve them. Many managers will highlight what they need people to achieve, which does give focus. But they will also insist on the way in which things must be achieved, and this can stifle creativity, limit continuous improvement and ultimately demotivate. High quality leaders understand that the ‘What’ may need to be told, but the ‘How’ should be within the gift of the employee to decide.

As a leader, ask yourself: What freedom could you give your people to enable them to decide how to achieve your team goals?

Honour (morality)

This is described as “our desire to behave in accordance with our code of conduct”. More simply put, it’s about ensuring that our values are met in whatever we do. Many people are demotivated by what they see as a lack of congruence between their personal values and how the company they work in is operating. One a leader’s roles is to understand the values of their people and help them to align these values with where their organisation is headed. As a leader, ask yourself: What could you do to ensure there is ‘values alignment’ for your people?

Power

Quite simply, this is “our desire to influence people”. It’s one of the more curious Human Motivational Factors, but it’s something that can be seen every day in the workplace as people strive to gain the buy-in of others for mutual success.

As a leader, ask yourself: How can you use influencing techniques with your team? (this is a whole different blog altogether!)

Order

Something that many of us desire is order – in other words, we crave the certainty and organisation that daily routine and habits give us. We all have things that we do in a certain order, and most of us strive to be much more organised and structured. The number of people we’ve helped with their time and personal management demonstrates how important order is to us. We’re big fans of giving supporting structures and certainties to people, as long as they work, bring about success and allow for individual involvement.

As a leader, ask yourself: What structures or order might your people need, and how could you ensure these are put in place to support your team?

Ron Clark, former ‘Outstanding Teacher of the Year’ at Disney’s American Teacher Awards

We believe strongly that inspiration can come from many areas, and the story of Ron Clark shows us that, no matter what your walk of life, when you’re looking to develop the motivation to perform, there are some simple things you can do.

Ron was a teacher in in a tough New York school when he won his award in 2000. He went on to become a New York Times bestselling author and a motivational speaker on the subject of inspiring educators.

We’ve picked out three of the areas he highlights when talking about motivation in the classroom, which we think continue to be very relevant in the workplace.

Raising expectations

Setting stretching, yet achievable, targets works! People will generally perform to the level that’s expected of them. If we expect little of people, they will match our expectations. The flipside that we, as leaders, can embrace is expecting great things from our employees – and giving them the skills, tools and resources to enable them to meet our raised expectations.

As a leader, ask yourself: What expectations could you set that might challenge and stimulate your team?

Celebration and praise

It seems really easy – and really commonplace – for the negative stuff such as lack of achievements to be brought to the fore. But building in celebration and praise are essential tools in developing employee performance and maintaining motivation.

As a leader, ask yourself: What might you find today that you could praise and celebrate?

Have a genuine interest

We recognise that there is value in having an interest in your people – and, as Ron suggests, this should be a genuine interest. At the simplest level, this is being interested in the response to questions; really wanting to know the answer to “How are you today?”.

As a leader, ask yourself: How could you develop a genuine interest in your team, and how could you show that you really are interested in your people?

As leaders, there is no magic wand we can wave to increase employee engagement and performance. However, one thing we can do is to invest quality time in understanding what makes our people tick. This forms the very basis of any aspect of managing people, and is the building blocks of high performing teams.

We recommend taking time to invest in your people and find out what really motivates them. After all, they really are the best asset your organisation has.

Posted On July 11, 2018 By Graham Field In Article, Blog, Coaching, Continuous Improvement, Culture, Leadership, Mindset, Productivity /

How gamification can help your business

A range of organisations are turning to gamified learning as a way of motivating employees, boosting engagement and driving business success.

The technique allows companies to deliver effective learning content and training strategies combined with an element of fun. Applied successfully, it can help businesses achieve goals and outcomes by using game dynamics to connect with employees, gain feedback and measure performance.

What is gamified learning?

‘Gamification’ is the use of game thinking and game mechanics in a non-game context to engage users and/or solve problems. It uses achievement, reward, creativity and self-expression and then uses points, badges, levels, leader boards and various challenges to motivate employees.

But these mechanisms don’t always make a difference on their own. The focus of the approach needs to centre on individual development – the ‘human aspect’ – to help employees feel valued and enhance their problem-solving skills.

Board games

Many companies apply gamification within their apps, websites or e-learning tools but the good ‘old fashioned’ board game can have equally positive benefits, as well as some extra ones. A key difference is that they bring people together to play and discuss the game face-to-face. This leads to a greater sense of engagement and a more productive session.

When it comes to the way we behave in different scenarios, board games can develop areas such as communication, resolving conflict, team work, creativity negotiation, empathy and decision-making. They can help to increase learning and create a sense of achievement.

As an example of how even ordinary board games can teach us business skills, take Amazon’s best-selling board games in 2017. They include the classic Monopoly, which teaches us how to seal a deal and use negotiating skills as each player looks to build up their position on the board. And the fast-talking description game Articulate is not only a lot of fun but also tests skills of creativity, communication and team-work as players work together to achieve a common goal – with the added, high-pressure element of having just 30 seconds in which to describe as many words as possible.

So think how effective a board game would be that’s specifically created to be played in a business environment, and focuses on work-based scenarios. This was our thought process when one of our clients, world-leading car seat manufacturer Adient, asked us to help find an innovative solution to their management training needs. The result was that we created a gamified learning solution based on a traditional board game, using a simple game play premise to improve leadership skills, engagement, and communication between peers.

What Would You Do? is a scenario-based game which tests decision-making abilities both in an immediately reactive as well as a more considered way. Although points are awarded for preferred answers, enabling participants to move up the board and win, the mechanics of the game are really just a vehicle for generating discussion and debate, and sharing experience and expertise. It allows peers to work through business issues in a fun and engaging way.

What Would You Do? is available to all businesses and is aimed at first line managers, team leaders and supervisors. It also works as a resource to develop graduates and identify management potential.

It was launched in May and received overwhelmingly positive feedback, with the board game approach proving particularly successful in engaging participants and helping to make learning stick.

Posted On June 27, 2018 By Paul Hutchinson In Continuous Improvement, Leadership /

What Would You Do? The launch of our management training resource

Last week’s official launch of What Would You Do? (WWYD) – our innovative new learning and development tool – was a resounding success, with half of the guests instantly arranging company demonstrations or further meetings.

Taking place in London on May 17^th, the launch event welcomed around 50 representatives from major organisations in a variety of sectors, including finance, retail, transport, health, food, law, housing, packaging and public services. It was also great to see representatives of multinational companies, as our vision is to roll the game out not just in the UK but also abroad.

The beauty of the launch event – and a big part of the reason for its success – was that WWYD is best appreciated when it’s played. It takes the form of a board game where participants aim to move up the board by getting points for correctly choosing the most appropriate answer to a variety of work-based dilemmas.

But, as those at last week’s event quickly realised, the game itself is really a subterfuge: it creates a safe environment in which people can reflect on and discuss common issues, sharing experiences and learning from each other, as well as committing to new behaviour. When played between peers, it helps a team to discuss options and best practice, and highlights individuals’ gaps in skills and knowledge, or their management potential. When played cross-functionally, it can highlight incongruities or inconsistencies between different departments and managers across a company.

Playing the game

What Would You Do? gives maximum impact for minimum cost. As outcome-focused behavioural change experts, the team at Thinking Focus created WWYD to enable organisations not only to train their managers effectively but also to drive long-term culture change. Psychological concepts are woven into the game and, when played enough, the scenarios, debate and decisions can turn into learned behaviours which are then applied in the workplace.

The game includes 200 cards, each of which pose a different scenario covering one of eight management topics, to give variety, breadth and depth. The scenarios are split into two types: those which are set against the timer and require quick and test emotional decision-making, and those which are open to debate and result in more logical and rational decisions. The questions are designed to be as ‘grey’ as possible in order to generate the most discussion. Although there are no right or wrong answers, points are awarded for preferred answers.

Teams of up to eight people play the game, overseen by a facilitator. The facilitator role is key to the game, expanding the discussion, offering alternative suggestions, and even pointing out that the best option may not be one of the answers, or it may be a combination of them. Different companies with different cultures will also vary in their choice of the best response. For the launch event, Rob, Rich, Ricky and Graham acted as the facilitators with different teams.

It was fascinating to see how the role and background of each of our launch attendees influenced their answers to the scenarios posed in the WWYD questions. The majority of participants at the launch work in L&D or HR roles, but some are managers within other departments. It led to some interesting and insightful debate – which is exactly one of the main objectives of the game!

It was also great to see people not just talking about what they would do in hypothetical situations, but actually what they have done in similar, real work-based scenarios. There was much nodding of heads and even ironic laughter when some of the dilemmas were read out – showing us that people not only related to the hypothetical situations, but had actually in some cases dealt with something very similar. And, interestingly, some said they would choose one answer, but when the situation arose in real life, they had actually done something different.

The response

The feedback from our guests was brilliant! Here are just a few of their comments:

“I like the simple approach that gives the opportunity for quite deep thinking and discussion.”

“It’s a good tool and catalyst to start conversations.”

“I like the flexibility of it, you can use it at all different levels, flex it to your own business. It’s as useful on the shop floor as it is in the boardroom.”

“It creates genuine conversations, not pseudo conversations.”

“I can’t compare it to anything else really. It’s very interactive.”

“It’s the discussion and the result that’s important.”

“An organisation needs to know the way their managers work things out, and ask: Do we want to keep doing it this way or does this show us that we need to change?”

Inspiration

The launch also heard from Sonia Belfield, Adient’s HR director for Northern Europe. She described how she inspired us to create WWYD and how it has been trialled across her organisation to great success.

She said: “Team leaders are the most fundamental people in our business because they manage the vast majority of people that we employ. For me, WWYD is about helping people to be able to have conversations that make them better managers.”

The facilitator is key

The role of the facilitator is critical to the game, enabling rich discussion between the players. In the wrong hands, people could just end up playing the game and not learning from it. That’s why we give guidance on selecting the right people in an organisation to act as facilitators, as well as offering facilitator training as part of the WWYD package.

Facilitator training takes approximately five hours, and offers guidance on how to make the most of setting the game up correctly and the dynamics of managing the gameplay in the best way possible.

There are some real subtleties about the scenarios, so facilitators need to be able to listen to the answers that are coming back and give reinforcement of any good answers. The training aims to give the facilitator the confidence to be able to deal with different conversations, as well as how to manage the players (for example, how do you deal with the person who doesn’t get involved, or the one who always waits until the others have answered?)

The game also includes a facilitator’s handbook, which includes a debrief of each scenario and offers suggestions for discussion.

Interesting questions

Our launch guests had a variety of questions about the thinking behind the game, and its application within the workplace.

But they also asked about various areas of development, some of which we are already working on, and others which gave us new ideas.

How do you keep the game up-to-date and relevant?

All the scenarios we have created are as valid today as they were 10 or 20 years ago, and they will continue to be so for years to come. But we are looking at adding scenarios based on other issues, such as diversity and inclusion.

We’re also keen to investigate the development of a digital version of the game and – directly prompted by a question at the launch event – will be looking at training facilitators online.

We also intend to create a facilitator community, where facilitators of WWYD can share experiences, issues and ideas with other facilitators from other organisations.

Does it fit in hand luggage on the plane?

This was quite possibly the most unexpected question of the day – although it’s very relevant to organisations with international offices!

The answer is that the fully-boxed version will only fit in the hold – and it’s robust enough to do so – but that flexibility over how the game is played means that the key pieces can easily be packed in to hand luggage.

And finally…

Well, what a great start! We’re now busy following up on all those requests for more information and demos, including some from organisations who weren’t able to attend the launch but are nonetheless intrigued by the benefits that WWYD could bring.

Why not contact us to see what all the fuss is about? Or read more about WWYD: how the game was created, the thinking behind it, and how it works in practice.

Posted On May 23, 2018 By Ricky Muddimer In Article, Blog, Change, Coaching, Continuous Improvement, Culture, High Performing Teams, Leadership, Management, Mindset, Productivity, Psychological Safety, Resilience, Trust /

Welcoming a new change and development expert to our team

We’re delighted to welcome Graham Field to our team following recent strong growth at Thinking Focus.

Graham is an experienced consultant, facilitator and coach with more than 20 years’ experience in delivering a range of development and change programmes for organisations across the UK.

An advocate of encouraging people to develop simple, effective action plans, Graham turns learning into results, and will be a great asset to us as we continue our work with clients. He’ll also support the roll-out of our new gamified learning tool for management development, What Would You Do?

Graham’s career in the industry began in a retail bank, before working with organisations in a variety of sectors, including contact centres, the NHS and local government, manufacturing, FMCG, retail, health and leisure, hospitality, property services and charities. He has supported and developed all levels of staff, from front line, through team leaders, managers and project managers, to senior leaders and board members.

Highly skilled in one-to-one coaching, structured development programmes and team facilitation, Graham has developed programmes world-wide and is passionate about achieving measurable outcomes. He’s an expert in removing self-imposed limitations and organisational interference to unlock individual and organisational potential.

He says: “I’m delighted to be joining Thinking Focus at this exciting time in their development. Like them, I believe that development should be simple and easy to understand, and motivate participants to apply their learning on to their role. It can make a massive difference to the individual and, by default, to the organisation they work for.”

Thinking Focus director Ricky Muddimer says: “Graham’s approach to delivering people productivity solutions fits perfectly with ours, and his depth of experience within the industry means he’ll play a key role in driving Thinking Focus forward, continuing to build our reputation as one of the leading organisational change experts in the UK.”

Posted On April 20, 2018 By Paul Hutchinson In Article, Blog, Change, Coaching, High Performing Teams, Leadership, Management, Mindset, Productivity /

Psychological Safety and Routine Thinking

In Transformation with a Capital T (McKinsey & Co) the article begins with the statement: “Companies must be prepared to tear themselves away from routine thinking and behaviour.”

This is a provocative way to open an article, but it’s an idea I can’t help agreeing with. What we like to ask is how and why. But first let’s focus on what:

What is routine thinking?
Routine thinking is based on regular procedures and is often set within the parameters of expected norms. There is a safety in routine thinking: if something has worked in the past, allow it to work in the future too.

The problem here comes in the question of progression. What can be enhanced when we are confined to our way, or our organisation’s way, of thinking.

How do we tear ourselves away from routine thinking?

Now it’s all too easy to create debate. Poke a few holes in a theory and see if it is robust enough to pad out the gaps. If we want to move away from routine thinking, what would be the exact opposite of the routine; how feasible would that be to do?

To carry out this line of questioning through each procedure you have would be impossibly long-winded and ultimately demotivating for your team. So, instead of interrogating a new way of thinking at a process-level, the mindset has to be adopted at an organizational, or team, level. If you are to unlock new thinking and new behaviours in your people, you need to create an environment in which your people can thrive and truly think and behave differently.

Why should we do this?

Simple answer: for efficiency and effectiveness.

Detailed answer: In their Case Study, Project Aristotle, Google sought the perfect formula for creating effective teams. Routine thinking might suggest that effective teams are the result of effective management and leadership. But the results of Project Aristotle showed something else. In their research, over 180 teams were studied but no patterns emerged. They extended their research to review the traditions, behavioural standards and unwritten rules that govern how the team functions.

As no two teams appeared alike, Project Aristotle uncovered that a team’s norms are unique to that particular team. Something has been established within a team to make it different from themselves. I believe the key to norms is through an emotional connection, and this is echoed in Project Aristotle’s findings that psychological safety is an essential component of an effective team. Teams were found to perform well when certain conditions exist; interpersonal trust, mutual respect and comfortable being themselves.

Key evidence is in the way they allowed others to fail safely, there was respect for divergent opinions, there was freedom to question the choices of others in a supportive way, and they never undermined the trust. This meant that they could do away with routine thinking and rely on the trust of their colleagues.

My primary takeaway from the Google research is the need for psychological safety. Charles Duhigg explores this further in his enlightening book Smart Faster Better.

Can this be more than Silicon-Valley Fantasy?

When I reflect on my own experience, I have only ever felt psychological safety twice in my 30-year career, and they happened simultaneously.

I was part of two teams. I had my own team and was a member of a senior team. We outperformed all expectations this particular year. Morale within my team was immense and that gave us a feeling of safety to encourage our colleagues to continue outperforming expectations.. We were unaware, however, of the merger talks happening at the same time. After the merger was announced, I spoke to a board member about the decision. They spoke ruefully of our success, that “if we knew then how you were going to perform this year, we would never have agreed to merge”.

The psychological safety felt quickly turned illusory, and I wonder now how I would’ve felt if that year we plodded along in our routine thinking; would we have been more accepting of the merger? Was the news devastating in contrast to the high team spirit?

As leaders, there is an interesting choice …

…do you:

Break the mould and create an environment where people can take a chance, fail safely, learn then grow on the back of it?
Accept the safety in routine thinking, play it safe but miss out on potential innovation?

Do you know leaders who sit somewhere between the two? Those who say that they are up for the challenge but revert to type at the first signs of trouble?

It is difficult to embed a different way of thinking to your working life. But to establish an environment of psychological safety offers Googleable advantage.

I accept this is simplistic but business today runs at such a pace. You only have to look at the media to see failure in businesses, large and small. Leaders make commitments to stakeholders on best information available that means results are then demanded. We look to blame others for failures which are then punished and, worse, the opportunity to learn is missed. When you add to this personal agenda and vested interest is it any wonder that performance and people suffer? However well intentioned leaders might be, when it all hits the fan, they revert to type to get stuff done. It is this behaviour that undermines psychological safety and essentially leads to any business running with the handbreak on. People hold back.

When faced with the pressures of today, it takes a brave (or clever) leader to tear themselves away from routine thinking and behaviour.

If you’d like to explore psychological safety in your organisation let’s have a conversation. Email me at ricky.muddimer@thinkingfocus.com and we’ll arrange a time to chat.

Posted On January 9, 2018 By Ricky Muddimer In Continuous Improvement, Culture, Leadership, Productivity, Sales Mindset /

The boss who took responsibility

This is a story about a head of operations who had lost control. If you’re wondering how bad it was, I can tell you that she was on the verge of walking. Worse still, so were most of her team.

Gill felt her team was bordering on unmanageable and she was feeling less and less motivated to deal with them. She had lost her mojo.

Her track record was good and she’d always been a high performer who had built and developed teams that performed and delivered consistently.

So what had beaten her this time?

She came to me in search of help. We explored the background and discovered that it wasn’t straightforward. The business was successful, built by an owner-manager. The entrepreneurial spirit had created a culture built on individual strengths rather than standardisation and consistency, however, which is a nightmare for an operations expert.

Her role was to organise a group of lone wolves and somehow operationalise the business. This dynamic was made worse by the owner cutting non-standard deals that were hard to resource and fulfil, let alone deliver cost-effectively.

Gill was at the end of her tether. How was she ever going to change things? Could they even be changed?

Her team was also frustrated with that they perceived as lack of control and direction, with duplication of effort and everyone in it for themselves. Gill, by her own admission, had done little to address this, choosing to deliver hard messages by email and expecting it to land.

We explored the brutal facts but with a growth mindset.

We started by talking about what she wanted, exploring what was important to her and why. She had a genuine passion to deliver and most of her frustration was with herself.

She also had a get out of jail card – there was another job offer on the table.

It was at this point that Gill took the decision to succeed.

Now that she was focused on delivering a successful outcome, we explored what had gone wrong and why she had succeeded in previous roles. It turned out that she had missed some of the lessons she had learnt in the past because she had adopted the cultural norms of the new team. It turned out that she’d known how to fix things all along.

There was a big but. Would the team go on the journey with her? We worked through the scenarios and explored reactions. She decided on a reboot.

By reboot, we mean a fresh start. Gill went back and literally, a couple of days later, sat down with each member of the team individually and apologised for her behaviour. She took responsibility. She also set out what she wanted the future to look like; she agreed with the team what they should expect of her and encouraged them to call her out if she fell below the standard. She took the opportunity to agree on expectations of the team, asking them to define what good should look like before getting them to commit to that standard.

The impact was instant, a fresh start. The team still slip into old habits but the new ‘contract’ enables Gill to take action and tackle the issue with confidence. The team has responded positively and now Gill can address the operational challenges and progress with the system and process improvements that will make the business more consistent, efficient and effective. Most pleasing of all for Gill is the way the team has engaged, taking on sub-projects to improve key operational areas.

I am so proud of Gill. She stood up to the issue, accepting she was the problem and took action that transformed the team and their behaviours. The team now focuses on the collective good for the business and not individual agendas.

What I learnt from Gill

Grit – Gill showed real determination to stand up for what she believed and backed herself.

Growth Mindset – Gill was prepared to listen to feedback, albeit brutal in places and was prepared to ask herself “what could I do differently?”

Ownership – Gill could have walked away but decided to take it on, which was ultimately more satisfying.

What if?

If left unresolved, the impact on the business could have been huge. If Gill had left for that new job there would have a time and cost implication to replacing her with no guarantee that a new person could ‘fix’ the team.

What if the new person adopted the cultural norms and felt like Gill did, following the same vicious circle?

What if the team felt more and more disengaged, become less productive and started leaving, adding to an already high attrition rate?

High cost situations like this can be resolved with support, feedback and coaching.

Do you need a reboot with your team?

You might not need a hard reboot like Gill’s, but a different way of thinking could tackle some unhealthy cultural norms that have developed.

Think about this: What might it be costing you right now? What could it cost if left unresolved?

Posted On November 21, 2017 By Ricky Muddimer In Culture, Leadership, Productivity /

How do you turn thinking to your competitive advantage?

Most companies do the same things, with access to the same resources, making the people, and the way that they think one of the few differentiators left.

In this podcast Ricky questions Rob, exploring how we can turn thinking into a competitive advantage?

Harnessing thinking in a team and encouraging collaboration can undoubtedly be advantageous to an organisation. In the podcast, Ricky and Rob explore how critical thinking skills enable people to understand the importance of goals and gain real clarity about what they and the business are trying to achieve. It also enables us to make critical choices based on likelihood, risk and balance.

The pair go onto discuss what happens if people don’t believe in the set business goals or objectives. After all, belief and confidence are two essential elements if goals are going to be achieved. Rob outlines how creating an environment where there is so called ‘helpful’ and ‘unhelpful’ thinking enables us to clarify the goal and create a gateway to success. By being open to ‘unhelpful’ thinking, any issues can be tackled and dealt with effectively. It gives the team the opportunity to share and boosts collaboration which in turn benefits the organisation.

Rob and Ricky examine how ‘unhelpful’ thinking can provide an opportunity to grow, learn and accelerate performance because people are able to participate. By thinking a little bit differently and being open to ‘helpful’ and ‘unhelpful’ thinking, people will gain a level of confidence when it comes to achieving the organisational goals and objectives.

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

Posted On November 15, 2017 By Rob Smith In Continuous Improvement, Leadership, Podcasts, Productivity, The question is /

Are you Getting in the Way of your Own Goal?

Jane is CEO of a retail business based in London and operating nationwide. The operational team is small, close-knit and dedicated to helping Jane achieve her ambitions. They have a few ideas themselves but they rarely share them because they know how she likes things done.

Mastering the art of getting out of your people’s way seems to be one of the best-kept secrets in business. As a manager, it takes a leap of faith to allow your people the freedom to get on with it.

One of the best descriptions I’ve ever heard of how to achieve it came from Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella who summed it up like this:

Tell your people: “Make it happen. You have full authority.”

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.

CEOs who lead without trusting their people create managers who also fail their people in the way they lead. Those managers need to know what is going on so that they can prove themselves too. Their fear of being caught out drives them to be ever more overbearing.

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 and what they want is for you to get out 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, who 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 by developers who 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.

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, the guiding light towards 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 a person and not a machine that has been designed to simply 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 November 14, 2017 By Ricky Muddimer In Continuous Improvement, Leadership, Productivity /

We’re Growing So That’s OK. Isn’t it?

Simon is CEO of a business operating in the Middle East and Africa and when I met him it was enjoying double-digit growth, significantly outperforming similar organisations in mature European markets. The most recent financial year had seen growth of 12%, something his former colleagues in the UK could only dream of.

So why wasn’t I impressed?

“What’s the potential in this region?” I asked.

“Around 40%,” he replied.

“So you’re underperforming by quite a long way,” I said.

He was quiet. For a moment I thought I’d overstepped the mark.

Then he admitted, “I’d never thought of it like that.”

I hadn’t been trying to undermine his achievement, merely open his mind to what was possible and shift his focus to the 28% that was up for grabs.

This led us to get his team together and explore the potential. We brought his country managers together. As is typical with these workshops, there was a lot of ground to cover.

Isolating the interference

We started with a venting session, designed to get out all the issues that hold us back. We label this interference. It could be real, imagined or perceived – anything that gets in our way and occupies thinking time or activity.

The team shared over 80 things that bothered them. These were the 80 things that were preventing them from hitting their €1bn target.

Putting the barriers in boxes

We categorised every item on the issue list – all 80 of them – into three boxes.

Bothered
Not bothered (at all or right now)
Givens (things we can’t change)

At the end of the process we were left with three items in the “bothered” column and we knew that if we addressed those we could unlock €2bn in additional revenues. Solving them required no magic, no investment and no more headcount.

Think differently

We showed the teams how to take ownership and develop a plan to capitalise on the hidden potential. Will they unlock all €2bn? Probably not, but they will go beyond their current comfortable level of thinking and increase their productivity significantly.

So ask yourself:

What is your real potential?
What interference is getting in your way?
What are you prepared to do about It?

Why not try the 3 step process for yourself?

Vent – write down all the things holding you back
Categorise
- Bothered
- Not bothered
- Givens
Prioritise – Go to work on your bothered list

Posted On November 9, 2017 By Ricky Muddimer In Continuous Improvement, Leadership, Productivity, Sales Mindset /

Ohio University Research

Ron Clark, former ‘Outstanding Teacher of the Year’ at Disney’s American Teacher Awards