Raising Awareness Though 360 Feedback

Many more businesses are providing managers with the opportunity to experience 360 feedback. This is a good thing as our perceptions of our own behaviours, skills and knowledge in the work place may be both different and informed from a limited number of sources.

It’s important that participants receive a facilitated feedback session and not just given a printed report to digest the information. The feedback session should facilitated in a coaching style, be one of an exploration, where the coach through asking questions of the participant increases their awareness of how they perceive themselves and to how others perceive them.
The exploration of when and where particular competencies are being demonstrated, well or not so well, provides the participant with context, is useful in recognising what works so it can be repeated more often and in developing actions for improvement in the future.

Many organisations have also benefited from including personality trait psychometrics into their management & leadership development programmes and the feedback sessions conducted by experienced and qualified coaches can provide quality information for the participant to work with in their personal development plan.

Find you inner hedgehog

The three circles of the Hedgehog Concept is a management tool to help people and organisations morph from ‘good’ to ‘great’. So what is your organisation really good at that it could be even better at?
The Hedgehog Concept is all about identifying and understanding what an organisation is really good at – and to keep doing it.
This theory stems from the story of the hedgehog and the fox. Each day, the fox would try different ways of stealing up on and catching the hedgehog. But the hedgehog did the only thing he knew how to do – curl up in a prickly ball. While the fox tried every different ruse to get past this, the hedgehog focused on just that one defensive response – the thing that he did best.
In his book, Jim Collins talks about the ‘three circles’ which are:
1. what you are deeply passionate about;
2. what you can be the best in the world at; and
3. what drives your economic engine.

Wells Fargo, for example, realised that it couldn’t compete with CitiBank on international banking. But that it could beat the competition at providing bank services to the West Coast of the United States – and ever since that change of direction the company has outperformed the market and its competitors. It was Chris Washington-Sare, who had formerly worked for Greenpeace, demonstrated that the campaigning organisation’s ‘hedgehog’ was what he called ‘media mind bombs’. In 1971 a group of twelve American and Canadian activists chartered a boat and sailed straight into the nuclear test site in Amchitka Alaska. It has been performing similar stunts every since to dominate headlines and sustain awareness of its cause.
The application of the Hedgehog Concept can also be made to personal development , so here is the challenge can you find your ‘inner hedgehog’

Adapted from an Article taken from the People Bulletin July 2011

Leadership & Management Development

All development must start with the raising of self awareness, we do this in a number of different ways. One tool we use is a feedback survey more commonly called a 360 feedback. This involves self appraisal against job competencies and appraisal of demonstrated skills, knowledge and behaviours from others that you work with. Becomming more aware of both how you perceive yourself and how others perceive you is useful to drive leadership and management development and has a large part to play in organisational change, the management of change.

Reveal Solutions design and deliver Leadership & Management Development training www.revealsolutions.co.uk

Coaching in Gloucestershire

We attended the Gloucestershire Coaching Network group last night.
Held at the Maxima Forum on Landsdown Road Cheltenham bi monthly we were undertaking coaching practice specifically using two techniques that of The Sedona Technique and Dilts Neurological Levels.
Coaching whether it be executive coaching, performance coaching, life coaching is a powerful tool. Our group consists of coaches working with business, public and voluntary organisations to facilitate personal, management and leadership development.
Our next meeting is the 22nd September and you can book on through the Gloucestershire CIPD website.
Reveal Solutions are providers of Coaching, Leadership & Management development training, psychometric profiling, assessment and development centres

Coaching Cards

Now going for the fourth reprint our coaching cards are being purchased by coaches, managers, social workers, doctors, Organisations for their managers etc. as a means of management development, leadership development, supporting coaching as a management style and for use in appraisals.
The GROW coaching model is a powerful tool and we see these unique cards as a way of supporting coaching in the UK and around the world.
If your a life coach, business coach or simply want to improve your coaching practice these cards will assist you in your development

NLP a controversial tool?

I had made my mind up on the content of this month’s blog, when whilst reading the Sunday paper this morning, all that changed.  I was drawn to the centre pages and an article ‘How to tackle Town Hall excess’. Within this article, were the very words you dread to read as both a Leadership & Management development trainer & an NLPer.

‘WASTE: The council spent £400,000 on training courses involving controversial Neuro Linguistic Programming techniques popularised by television hypnotist Paul McKenna’.

Over my many years of involvement with the NLP community, with individuals on a journey to better understand themselves and with organisations wishing to improve their communication, leadership, customer service etc., I have not heard anyone say that their learning was a waste of either time or money or was in any way controversial. What I have experienced following training that may have elements on NLP or NLP practitioner trainings, is individuals expressing a greater understanding of why and how people do what they do, understanding they have more choices personally, more ways they can encourage others to examine the choices they have and improved communication & leadership skills.  In what way can that be a waste? Why would such a well-respected organisation as CIPD recognise NLP? In fact they describe it as ’significant and important in business today’.

Here is the downside; I have witnessed people and organisations having a cautious approach whenever those 3 letters come up…’NLP’! Why?  Well we all come to our own conclusions and have our own beliefs, what is certain, is that we all reach conclusions and establish beliefs based upon our own experience.  So where are these experiences of what NLP may be coming from?  What is the personal experience of NLP of the 3 journalists who wrote the article referred to above?  In truth, I don’t know, but I have my suspicions.  I am, and have been for some time, worried that the only limited exposure that many people have to so called NLP techniques has been through television programmes made for entertainment purposes & featuring celebrity psychological entertainers.  They, in my opinion, have chosen to seek personal gratification and celebrity status from their knowledge, rather than to use their keen understanding and skill to help others.  A prerequisite presupposition for me is to ‘do with not to’!  And always to test the ecology of any intervention.

The way NLP is referenced in these programmes and the size of the audience that they have is the issue for me. Personally, I think that these celebrities have the opportunity and the influence to show people the very positive aspects of the collective study known as NLP, not just use it to enhance how it makes them look and how they feel!

It may be that when John Grinder and Richard Bandler were discovering what they were discovering back in the 1970’s at Santa Cruz in California, an alternative name other than Neuro Linguistic Programming might have been more useful.  So many people take a mental step back and possibly the name congers up thoughts of a ‘cult’ or ‘mind meddling’ etc in peoples minds, which I think is a pity.

What we can do as trainers and educators, is to ensure that we are open minded, seek the opportunities to link science to the techniques, encourage and participate in studies so that the scientifically-compiled data is produced to support what Bandler, Grinder and others since have noticed in how humans code, order and give meaning to their subjective experiences.  Neuroscience is producing more information, which is informing our understanding  on how the connections in the brain work, MRI scanners were not around 40 years ago! http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/charles_limb_your_brain_on_improv.html

Research into NLP techniques in education is starting to show teaching techniques incorporating NLP knowledge helps more pupils learn successfully.

http://www.cfbt.com/evidenceforeducation/our_research/evidence_for_practice/neuro-linguistic_programming.aspx

We might also wish to remember that there were others around before Bandler & Grinder with more than a passing interest in behaviour & conditioning

Pavlov http://psychology.about.com/od/classicalconditioning/a/pavlovs-dogs.htm

Skinner http://www.terapia-conductual-cognitiva.cl/archivos/descargas/B%20F%20Skinner%20-%20Science%20And%20Human%20Behavior.pdf

Korzybski  http://www.generalsemantics.org/etc/articles/40-1-read.pdf

Bateson http://www.som.surrey.ac.uk/NLP/Resources/BatesonLevels2006.pdf

The significance for me of this, is that NLP is not an invention, it’s a discovery, a blend of what people notice in others.  It’s not exclusive and it links well to other tools and frameworks such as MBTI, Spiral Dynamics, the enneagram and understanding personality Type & Trait, brain science, etc. NLP is not manipulative, those who are manipulative by nature, who put personal need or gain before respect for others, will be running patterns that support their beliefs and values anyway.

A hammer in the hands of a craftsman can produce great works of beauty, it is merely the tool to externalise the values and beliefs of the holder. In the hands of another with contrasting values and beliefs it can be used to wreak havoc, break and destruct whatever is in its path.

Do we pass judgement on the hammer or the holder?

Research into NLP http://www.som.surrey.ac.uk/NLP/About/whoarewe.asp

Association of NLP http://www.anlp.org/

Coaching with NLP O’Connor J & Lages A.  Harper Collins 2004 ISBN 0-00-715122-5

New Year Resolutions

We are at that time of the year when many set themselves ‘New Year Resolutions’. I have always thought of it as a peculiar practise, to wait until a certain time in the calendar and then make changes. What’s also noticeable and unfortunately backed up with plenty of statistics, is that lots of us start off with enthusiasm for possibly one or two weeks, only to revert back to the old behaviour or habit. I am of course referring to two of the most common ‘New Year Resolutions’ to give up smoking and to lose weight. Sales of patches and anti smoking gum surge in January, memberships of sports clubs and gyms increase dramatically and the facilities are packed with people for the first two to three weeks and then attendances drop off.
What I am interested in though, is people being successful in achieving their resolution, their goal or the objective that they have set themselves. Its fair to say that February brings many private coaching and hypnosis clients who wish to achieve their goal, but have had a setback and taken up the old behaviours. When we have the initial consultation, there is one thing that is present in the vast majority of those we see. When asked what is it that you want to achieve, the client responds with a statement stating what they want to get away from. i.e. ‘I want to give up smoking’ which is the same as the statement ‘I do not want to be a smoker’ or ‘I want to lose weight’ which is the same as the statement ‘I don’t want to be the weight I currently am’. When pressed a little further along the lines of ‘If that’s what you don’t want, what do you want instead?’ they are often initially confused, and here is the heart of the issue that many setting goals and objectives for themselves and others find. The goal or objective has been stated in the negative, it means we are looking to move away from that which we currently have that we don’t want, but actually in our mind have no destination, no positive outcome.
Her are a couple of examples of how we can reframe an initial goal that is stated in the negative into one with a positive intent.

I want to give up smoking
I want to be able to walk the 1.5 miles to school with the children and be able to talk with them as we walk.

Or I want to be able to play football with my son on a Saturday in the park for 15 min at a time by February 31st.2011

I want to lose weight
I want to be 13 st 6lb by May 1st 2011 by losing 2lb each week a total of 32lb so that I can wear my new suit for my son’s wedding in May.

Or

I am currently a size 16 and will be a size 14 by May 2011. I have seen a dress that I will buy to celebrate the achievement of this goal and wear to my husband’s business awards ceremony later that month.

So what are the key steps to successful achievement of any goal through the language we use? Using the acronym PACER from the field of NLP, you can craft achievable and compelling goals and objectives for yourself and others.

P                            Positive:
the goal or objective must be stated in positive terms, giving you a positive destination to head toward. What will achieving your goal bring for you?

A                           Achievable:
Your goal or objective must be achievable. You want to be successful. Has it been achieved by anyone else before? It is important that you identify what it will look like, feel like, sound like when you have achieved your goal. What is the first step you will take? What will be the last step prior to you succeeding?

C                            Context:
When, where and with whom do you want it?
When where and with whom do you not want it?
How long for? (at what point does it stop)

E                            Ecology:
What time will this outcome need? Who else is affected and how will they feel? How does it fit in with your other outcomes? How does it increase your choices? What will happen if you get it?
What won’t happen if you get it?
What will happen if you don’t get it?
What won’t happen if you don’t get it?

R                            Resources:
Can you start and maintain it?
What resources have you already got? (skills, people, money, objects, etc.)
What resources do you need?
Who has already succeeded in achieving this outcome

Whatever you wish to achieve, having a positive mind and attitude increases your chances of success. Coaching as a management style helps to develop not only yourself, but also those around you. It facilitates ownership and responsibility to act, it encourages experimentation and risk-taking to learn. Organisations who have captured the coaching culture are more successful in the long term than those who manage the business purely by targets and results.

Remember that New Year Resolutions are about Resolve, and this aspect of will power and determination will be greatly enhanced by wording your goals with their achievement in mind from the start.

For further information on coaching to support you and or your organisation please contact us at execcoaching@revealsolutions.co.uk