Archive for the ‘Training’ Category

Record beating performances

Friday, October 29th, 2010

We often look to great achievements to help us understand what motivated and created peak performance. One that I find particularly interesting happened on 6 May 1954 when Roger Bannister, a 25 year old medical student, became the first man to run a mile in less than 4 minutes. He achieved a time of 3 minutes, 59.4 seconds. It was a carefully planned race and he was aided by two pacesetters. This was an achievement that had previously been thought impossible and Roger Bannister’s success was widely recognised by the media. Having achieved his goal he retired from athletics that same year to concentrate on his medical studies.

What makes this remarkable was that once the record was beaten it set a new goal and within a month Australian, John Landy achieved a new record time of 3 minutes, 57.9 seconds.

In an extensive research project conducted by Healthstream Research it was concluded that managers who achieve business results are more likely to demonstrate four basic competencies:

* Goal Setting
* Communication
* Trust
* Accountability

What Roger Bannister’s 4 minute mile clearly demonstrates is that in addition to these competencies recognition accelerates performance and inspires others to fulfill their true potential.

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Self awareness is the route to personal development?

Friday, June 11th, 2010

In the development and coaching work we do we often use diagnostic tools to help individuals and teams understand their style and preferences and identify ways that these natural attributes can be used to improve performance.

We will soon become licensed to add another tool to our portfolio – Insights Discovery Profiling. These tools have been developed based upon the work of Carl Jung. The tools identify which of the four colour energies apply in your daily life to help you understand why you behave the way you do and why others behave differently. This understanding allows you to explore and understand more about yourself and others, value and appreciate difference, identify ways to interact more effectively and impactfully and identify actions that we can take to improve our performance.

Kim

Advance Consultancy – experts in the fields of leadership development, management development & business coaching

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Negotiation – a key management skill

Wednesday, June 9th, 2010

Negotiation is a key skill. Most of us practice negotiation almost every day whether it be in agreeing the time our children should come home, selling or trading in our car or ‘haggling’ in a marketplace on holiday. In the main we use our skills and the processes of negotiation sub-consciously.
Negotiation is an interactive communication process that takes place whenever we want something from someone else or another person wants something from us. By developing negotiation techniques we can enhance our effectiveness, i.e. achieve what we aim to achieve more often. Through negotiation training we can also improve our inter-personal and communication skills.
We are running a two day programme called “negotiation – raising your game’ in Edinburgh in September.
By the end of the workshop participants will;
• understand the basic negotiating concepts underlying all negotiations.
• develop an understanding of total package negotiation using an analytical model, casework and exercises
• analyse, experience and learn to manage the team roles in the negotiating process.
• develop and practice the use of skills required in successful negotiations

Skills and techniques are developed by working through real life case studies. Participants have the benefit of getting feedback on areas of strength and opportunities for improvement from the programme leader, other participants and can self review through watching a video of their negotiation practice.
Please get in touch if you would like more information.

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What would you do if you had more time?

Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010

Thanks very much to those of you who were inspired to share your thoughts on the comments in our last newsletter about the amount of time that can be wasted at meetings.

Having now done further investigation there is a great deal of interesting research on this subject. In terms of your feedback there appears to be three themes as to why many meetings are not as productive as they could be:

  • the meetings culture within the organisation
  • self discipline of participants
  • lack of training

In response to the feedback we have designed and delivered short ‘Meetings that get Results’ Workshops. Please do get in touch if you would like to know more about these.

Kim

Advance Consultancy – Business training for leaders and managers

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Leadership is defining and enabling the culture

Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010

In my view leadership is about creating a vision and inspiring followership. A critical part of which is to create the right environment or culture where people feel inspired to work collaboratively towards a common goal.

In the past 25 years, the concept of organisational culture and the positive impact that it has on business results has gained wide acceptance. Simply put, the culture is the way things are done around here. It is the norms, expectations, symbols and guidelines that enable or inhibit employees to engage and align to the strategy of the business and deliver their best performance.

Over this time there have been many studies which have shown the correlation between managing the culture and business performance. It is possibly the most critical factor determining an organisation’s capacity, effectiveness, and sustainability. It also contributes significantly to how customers and prospective customers perceive  the organisation’s brand image and brand promise.

I am often asked what leaders can do do manage the organisational culture more effectively.

It is a simple process but one that needs leadership and management input and should be reviewed each time there is a review of the strategy or business plan.

  • As part of the strategy review process – define the culture that will enable success.
  • Conduct a quasi gap analysis – where are we now against where we want to be
  • Create a route map of those interventions that will move the culture closer to the desired state
  • Evaluate results – over time, it is possible to both assess impact of investment in for example development and/ or correlate the investment in culture on bottom line results

In the recently published 10th annual survey of  ”UK’s Best Workplaces’  compiled by The Great Place to Work Institute found that:

  • Europe’s Best Workplaces grew their revenues by 15% on average, in the midst of the recession;
  • Sickness absence in the UK’s Best Workplaces was 30% lower than the national average saving those organisations £20,760 per 100 employees per year;
  • Almost 90% of employees in the UK’s Best Workplaces believe that management is open and honest in their organisation, against the national average of 55%

Solid justification for managing organisational culture. Please do get in touch to share your experience or if you would like more information.

Posted in Business Coaching, Leadership Development, Management Development, Training, Uncategorized, organisational culture | No Comments »

What do you think of employee engagement surveys?

Friday, April 23rd, 2010

I have quite a simplistic view of how to drive high performance and business results; that is to create optimal alignment and engagement.

By alignment, I mean building confidence in the strategic plans, direction of the business and the capability of the leaders to deliver it. Engagement means, to me, how much a part people feel they have, that is, can they see that what they do contributes and is a valuable part of the business success.

I regularly recommend conducting employee engagement surveys to understand the base line and to assess the impact of investment in focus areas. I have recently come up against a lot of negativity about the merits of these surveys. I’d really like your views and also any thoughts on what could be used as an alternative to measure employee engagement.

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Top tips in selecting a coach

Monday, April 19th, 2010

Business coaching is one of the most effective ways to develop. It’s 100% focussed on you, your goals and your performance. When you search for business coaches in your geographical area, the result will be literally thousands of coaches, how do you select the right one?
The following are some top tips to ensure that you select the right coach for your purpose.
• Be clear about your goals and what you want to achieve.
• There is often confusion about business coaching and mentoring, do some research to ensure it is business coaching you want.
• Use your network, can anyone recommend a great business coach.
• Check out experience, qualifications are important, however, in my view relevant experience is paramount.
• Successful business coaching relationship is based on trust. It is a reality that we human beings often base trust on gut instinct. Meet a few to establish who has the right chemistry with you.
• Coaching is not a quick fix. Discuss your requirements with a business coach to ensure that both agree a programme that delivers sustainable change.
• The role of the coach is facilitator. They provide a good measure of challenge, balanced with support. Success is therefore down to you. Do follow up on actions.

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When is a team not a team?

Monday, March 22nd, 2010

We all work as part of a team or do we? Team working is very much part of what is considered to be the most effective way of working. That said we often use the word team without really thinking what it means.
Over the last couple of years we have worked extensively with teams to help them identify ways to improve their individual and collective performance. There is often surprise and sometimes a sense of unease when we start to question whether the team is and should be a team or a group of people who work together. So what is the difference:
A team is a group with a shared purpose and every member is committed and accountable for delivering the purpose. The team understand that each member is interdependent upon the other which creates a strong commitment to working together. To achieve high performance, individual team members understand their strengths and those of the team and how these can be used to best effect.
A working group is often brought together for a short period of time and are created because of their diversity. This group can be highly innovative and creative.
Teams and working groups can both be very successful in what they are aiming to achieve but as is the case with so many things the key is to understand what they are trying to achieve, how best to deliver it and how to monitor progress and success.

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Clarifying our services

Thursday, December 17th, 2009

Did you wait with great excitement for the new Harry Potter book to be released. For me today, the excitement is about the same. Over the last couple of months a colleague and I have spent hours defining our values, services and approach in a way that can be published in a brochure.

Today is the day, the printed version has arrived.

A few years ago I read an article about Tom Hanks. He is one of very famous people that has a common condition called ‘imposter syndrome’. Any minute on set he expects someone to tap him on the shoulder and say what are you doing. The inference is that he doesn’t believe that he is good at what he does.

I have to confess to having a sense of how he feels. As I flicked through our brochure – there is a bit of me that says – is this really us…..

If you would like a copy of our new brochure. Please request a copy via our website www.advanceconsultancy.co.uk

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