According to Google (last time I looked!) we are now one of the top Change blogs. We are now getting over 6000 human visitors per month and I know nothing about who you are or why you visit.  I’d really love to close that gap and learn a little about what brings you here, what you like, what you are looking for…

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About a year ago the government started this programme.  GrowthAccelerator is a new, premium service that will help England’s brightest growing businesses achieve their ambitions with rapid, sustainable growth. It’s a partnership between private enterprise and government. And it’s affordable.

GrowthAccelerator’s network of world-class growth experts work side by side with leaders of high-growth potential small and medium-sized businesses to provide them with the know-how and ability to achieve sustainable growth. The service will help discover the real issues that could be holding businesses back, define the right growth plan and open doors to world class business experts and networks.  Whatever these businesses need to speed and sustain growth, GrowthAccelerator will help drive them forward.

Richard is now a registered & approved GrowthAccelerator Coach

                                                                                                          

Obviously English has a number of things going for it as a global language; the legacy of the British Empire, the impact of Hollywood, and it is the language of technology.  However what interested me was that there are more native speakers of Mandarin (935 million) or Spanish (387 million) compared with English (365 million) yet because it is the most common second language it is the de facto global language.  I was watching a Swedish film the other day and we saw the Swedish detectives talking flawless English to their FBI colleagues and then then doing the same when meeting with the Dutch police.  There were no subtitles, it was assumed their audience all understood it.

There is so much focus these days on being the biggest or the first, it is interesting to be reminded that sometimes those who are not first can win in the longer game.  Look at how Nokia was the biggest mobile phone player then Apple stole their clothes, and just when they seem unassailable Google came along and overtook them.  So if your business isn’t the biggest or the most well known it doesn’t mean that you can not still be highly successful if you are clear about exploiting your advantages and playing to your strengths. 

After the longest, coldest, wettest winter in living memory, and having had snow for Easter, today was the first day I have had both dry grass and a little sunshine.  I looked at it and thought I ought to try to give the lawn the first cut of the year.  A perfect opportunity: I was mentally and a physically ready, had nothing more pressing to do and the weather Gods were on my side… Great!

I had had the battery for the mower on charge a few days ago, so it ought to start shouldn’t it?  I sat on it and turn the key and was greeted with …silence.  The mower had a mind of its own and it wasn’t firing just because I was ready!  It was a  frustrating waste of time.  However it put me in mind of lesson, which I’d like to share with you.

It turns out that lawn mowers and your staff have something in common; they don’t start just ‘cos you are ready.  You need to prime and prepare them, to look after them during the periods when you don’t need them to do anything special if you want them to perform for you when you need them to.  In fact, I suspect lawn mowers are a little easier to to get going than staff morale.  They both  need the right conditions to work for you. 

You have to approach them in the right way; explain what you are trying to do and why it is important; and why it is important to them too.  You have to ensure they have to skills and bandwidth to perform and protect them from criticism whilst you get the program moving forward.  Like cutting the lawn, you perhaps won’t find the best way to do it first time round so you need to learn from your experiences and keep making it easier to do the job.  And once the job is done, you need to ensure they are looked after till the next time you need them!

This is a guest blog by Sean Conrad

What is coaching and why is it so important? Oh, and just to clarify, I’m not talking about sports team coaches. I’m referring to coaching in the workplace—the ability for a manager to bring out the best in his or her employee for the good of the individual and the organisation.

What we do know about coaching is that it isn’t about managers providing direction, instructions and comments on behaviour to employees (that’s feedback). Coaching is a unique one-on-one relationship in which a manager helps an employee explore—through meetings, discovery and ongoing dialogue—the obstacles that hinder performance and how to deal with them. The coaching process can reveal a wealth of information that can be used to drive positive change for the individual and the organisation as a whole.

Coaching can be a powerful approach for helping employees who are suffering from “I can’t get there from here” syndrome. These individuals might request coaching for any number of reasons, including a need to:

1. Clarify goals and objectives, and put action plans into place to achieve them
2. Resolve complicated issues related to colleagues, relationships and trust
3. Develop the skills that can help them become a stronger leader, better manager or more skilled professional

When done right, coaching is a great tool for increasing employee engagement and productivity, driving up overall organisational performance. Naturally, this begs the question, “How do you do it right?” Here are a few tips to help you along.

Perhaps I’m stating the obvious, but it’s an important point—everyone is different. There isn’t anyone in this world that thinks or acts in exactly the same way. Equally important to remember is that the perspectives, motivations and responses of others aren’t any better or worse than ours, they’re just different.

We need to value our different ways of thinking, perceiving, solving and acting. Often we can achieve the best results when we consider all perspectives, and adopt a combination of approaches to any situation.

This means that when we coach our employees or give them feedback, we need to first consider our differences and the value of our differences, so we avoid making judgments based on these.

Do a little discovery. Ask your employee questions about the work situation or challenge to reveal his or her way of thinking, assumptions, preferences, and bias. Here are some questions you might try asking:

1. Why did they choose their particular course of action?
2. What do they think and feel about their performance in the situation at question?
3. What do they think and feel about the results?
4. What other tactics or behaviours could they have adopted?

Once you’ve helped your employee explore their thinking and feeling about the situation and their perception of its impact, you can share your own observations, including what you saw and what you think you saw and remember.

A word of advice here, be careful not to jump to conclusions and remember that your perceptions might not be 100 percent right all the time—yes, really.

Now that you’ve done some preliminary discovery work with your employee, it’s time to share your perspective. Tell them about personal career examples of how you’ve handled situations that are similar in nature. The objective here is to explore other approaches and to highlight their respective strengths and weaknesses as this is how we broaden our perspective.

You want to help your employee see how a different approach can lead to more effective results, and find new ways that work for them.

Consider offering your employee some closer coaching as they work to change their behaviours and practices. For instance, they might want to check in with you to review an alternate approach before they actually put it into practice.

Regardless of approach, techniques or individual differences, a good manager will work with employees to listen, question and “coach” them to a deeper self-awareness and growth. The outcome of this approach? Greater engagement, higher performance and the ability to adapt more easily to organisational change.

A senior product analyst and Certified Human Capital Strategist at Halogen Software, Sean Conrad regularly writes about talent management trends and issues in industry publication and the Exploring Talent Management Blog.

As previously admitted, I’m a Quins fan and I spent a miserable afternoon this Sunday shivering on a touchline in freezing temperatures to watch my team play a dreadful game against their most dangerous rivals.  Saracens had just nudged us off top place in the league and we needed to to beat them in order to reclaim the slot we have held for the best part of two seasons.  This was our first game in their brand new stadium and it was clear from the start they were really up for it.  They seemed sharper, faster, and more dangerous.  Even though at at halftime we were still in the game in wasn’t long before we gave away a try and you knew that the game was as good as over.  In a single game we went from being shoe-ins for a top two place and a home semi-final to wondering whether we’d make the play-offs!

So why is any of this relevant to a non-rugby fan?  I was fascinated to hear what their coach had to say after the game.  We are so used to people putting a brave face of failure or trying to somehow mitigate its impact by talking about the things that went well, or perhaps explaining why someone/something else was really at fault.  In this video, he simply and powerfully tells the truth.  His comments are balanced, neutral and honest.  He doesn’t seek to reduce the consequences of failure or slump into doom and gloom.  He just says that we let ourselves down and now have a much harder task getting where we want to get to.  I’ll be fascinated to see how the team respond in their must win fixture against Gloucester on Friday.  I’ll also be interested to see who he picks, the ‘junior’ players who in the weeks before won us the LV cup or the legends who have won so many international caps.

If more leaders told the truth to their people in simple, clear language I think we might see much better performances.  Conor’s bywords are “Stick to our processes and procedures and the results will look after themselves”.  As a club, Harlequins know what brand of rugby they want to play and you can see everyone in all the squads playing the same way.  This is where values and culture really pay-off, when they are clear, strong and shared.  Everyone there know what ‘good’ looks like.  It is a real lesson for the corporate world where so often they are just words on a poster or in a staff handbook.

“If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:”  Rudyard Kipling

I admit it, I’ve become a diehard rugby fan, and I support Harlequins.  It seems I became a supporter at a pretty good time because in the last three years (since I have been going regularly) I have seen them first win the Amlin cup, then the Premiership last year and this year the A League and the LV cup.  So why am I sharing this with you?

Well I think that there is a very interesting story behind this year’s win.  This tournament is intended to encourage clubs to give their younger players exposure to the pressure, and the thrills and spills of knockout rugby, but it is not mandatory to field youngsters, as the prize entitles the winners to an automatic place in following year’s premier European competition, the Heineken Cup.  There is therefore a temptation to bring more experienced players in as that prize gets closer.

This year we stuck with the spirit of the LV cup and fielded a very young team, 15 of the match day 23 were under 23, and I think we had a single international on the bench.  By contrast, Bath in the semi-finals and Sale in the final  fielded their first teams, full of seasoned international players as they were desperate to qualify for Europe next year.  Conor O’Shea, the Quin’s coach, said after the win:-

“I’m just over the moon for the group. It is a long way into the season and we face a massive next nine weeks but, for those players, that is something that is a reminder to everyone coming back in the next couple of weeks. There is a good vibe in the dressing room and a lot of very proud parents of young men but it sets us up to really attack what will be ups and down in the coming weeks. We know that.  They have won a national trophy and we said before the game not to take anything for granted because you never know when you will get there. We have been very fortunate to be in a number of finals in the last few years and to have come away with a trophy.”

However, he was quite happy to back these youngsters whom had trusted to get the club to the final, and they repaid that faith with an unbeaten run and really fine performances against much more experienced players.

Trust is a very powerful thing and can transform people when it is well placed.  I witnessed another example of this when working with a client the other week, who told a group of people lower down the organisation that he was trusting them with previously confidential information and looking to them to help him drive performance in their teams.  It is an act of leadership to encourage others and help them grow, to see potential and nurture it.  It is possibly one of the key roles of a good leader.  So next time you have a challenge, ask yourself if it is an opportunity to grow tomorrow’s star players.

I was listening to a radio program based on a book “Far from the Tree” about deaf culture.  It was a phrase that gave me pause; it had never occurred to me that deaf people might have a separate and unique culture.  I listened on and learnt about the nuance of meaning the deaf could convey with a gesture akin to the way we use tonality and the penny dropped.  In the same way as each language enables particular subtleties in meaning in particular areas, so the deaf are able to convey shades of meaning to each other that we can not.  They experience the world differently and share those experiences via a different medium… of course they have their own culture.

This got me thinking that in the same way that there is a gulf between hearing and non-hearing communication, there are subtle gaps between each of us.  We all use words which carry uniquely different weights and resonances for each of us; expressions can trigger a variety of emotions depending on our culture and upbringing.  We gloss over all this in the haste of our daily lives but these micro-failures of communication happen all the time, even with those we love.

If it is important, then take the time not just to say what you want, but also to test what they have heard and how they understand that.

I was out walking the other day, doing my daily constitutional, when I spied another walker ahead of me on the path.  I thought “I wonder if I can catch them up by the top of the next hill?” and upped my pace.  Bit-by-bit I cut their lead and and eventually overhauled them.  A pointless exercise of male ego or perhaps a little bit of harmless gaol setting, but it occurred to me that it was a metaphor for a rather more serious business situation. 

It is often the case that at one moment in time one company has a decisive market advantage be they they a global giant like Apple or the local firm of accountants.  However, as Nokia found, if you aren’t constantly innovating and keeping an eye not just on your current market but the market of tomorrow then you can find yourself overhauled by someone with a new vision and product like Apple.  Now it seems that perhaps their halo is slipping a little and Google are perhaps the next darling of the tech market.  The only thing you can guarantee is that the advantage will shift.

The thing is if you are currently enjoying a golden period then you need to keep an eye on who might have you in their sights with the ambition to overhaul you!  The day that you rest on your laurels is the day this begins.  It is easier to overtake someone who doesn’t even know they are in a race, so keep talking to your customers and your staff and ask “How could we do this better?” because if you aren’t doing that then some else will be!

I was listening to a politician talking and noticed her use of the word “reform” and that got me thinking.  They always talk about reform, which suggests that they are making things better for us, but I suspect that if you asked most voters they would say they either saw no change or no change for the better.  Politicians are always tinkering with the system, but I wonder if they ever make things better.  They use the word “reform” rather than change, because most people feel frighten or at least adverse to change, but surely everyone is for reform?  Their actions don’t change but wrapping them up with a more appealing label is meant to make them okay…

As business leaders get more media savvy, they too tend to shift their language to disguise the content of what they are suggesting.  The thing is people are only fool for a little while and they quickly translate words like right-sizing to redundancies.  People may not like what you have to tell them but they will respect you more if you tell it like it is.  In my experience, they usually know what is going on despite all management efforts to keep things confidential, so maybe next time you plan to communicate with your troops you might like to do it this way:-

1. Decide what the purpose of this communication is
2. Know what you want them to do & feel
3. Understand where they are coming from
4. Keep you messages short and simple
5. Give them a real opportunity to ask questions and respond

It makes all the difference.  I did this with a client company the other day and you could see how pleased they were that a proper opportunity was being made to communicate with them.

I thought that I’d write this for those who took an interest in our story and those who might be in a similar boat and let you know where we are now, three years after Carys died.  It does seem remarkable that it is three years already.  Life has a habit of keeping on keeping on even if you don’t feel ready for that!  A friend of mine recently lost his wife in similarly tragic circumstances and that made me review my journey too.

The children have moved on with their lives, two have now moved out and started the next phase of their lives as independent ladies, my son has nearly completed a degree.  They are all still feel very raw at their loss.  I’m clear that for them it is something they will never get over but they will get better at dealing with the new shape of their lives.  I have done my best to fill in some little part of the void she left for them but it can never be enough.  Meanwhile I set about rebuilding my life.  I seems to me that one of the key lessons is that you must not let your tragedies define who you are or you will hold on to them rather than moving beyond them.  Things like this are an end of something special but they create space for something new that can also be special and good.  I think that the word rebuilding is very apt because it is a job of work like creating a building and you have to put in the effort if you wish to see the change.  You can bury yourself in something familiar and safe but  that is a recipe for every day being less than before and that isn’t how I choose to live my life.

I think there is also a lesson here.  How do we define ourselves?  Who do I think ME is?  If I define myself as the job of work I do, or as someone’s partner or someone else’s parent, then my identity can always be taken away from me.  I have to find a version of me that has its foundations solely built on who I am. I also have to recognise that I change day by day.  I get a little older each day, my shape changes, as does the colour of my hair, but I’m still me. 

One of the real challenges is how you fill your days and nights.  If you have a regular job then a big part of your day is filled for you, but then you come home to an empty house and an emptier bed.  That is tough.  In many ways I think this filling your time is the toughest challenge.  Some of that time will be spent doing jobs that your partner did, jobs you might feel you don’t have the skills to do or that you don’t feel a man (or a woman) should be doing.  I think again this kind of thinking or labelling really makes moving forward tough.  I found myself having to assume all my wife’s household chores, luckily having lived on my own before we got married I knew how to do most of these.  My mum had a rather different experience when confronted with all the practical, ‘manly’ jobs that my dad always did.  I think it is a case of adapt and survive… or fail to do so and die a little bit every day!