I am working with a client at the moment, whose business is leading edge in that it is data driven. His view is that Agile businesses who ‘learn fast or ‘fail quickly’ have the edge in this market, but his concerns lay in his employees’ business skills and business practices are not keeping pace with the technological advancements around them.
The number one challenge for his business was not only to change and develop faster than his competitors but to create systemic change within his organisation.
In the last few years, his business has made step changes to engage with an ever-changing technological environment, moving from hierarchies to flatter structures, from command and control to employee engagement and leadership. Yet, still his people were not where he needed them to be. He decided to engage us as external coaches to coach his internal staff & leaders.
Our aim to work in partnership to embed a coaching culture, overlaid with KPI’s & data efficiency, to develop their business and staff for strong business growth – – ‘This is how we do it’.
Talk to us if you are interested in knowing more about embedding coaching programmes for cultural change.
Author Kate Mutter-Bowen
I have been working with a team, who are highly engaged, brimming with ideas, but are frustrated by the lack of opportunities given to them to develop their ideas and career. They pointed to their Leader as being the key reason for this.
It made me look back at my own career and consider the most effective Leaders that I have worked with and for. It was those that took time to consider which aspects of their role could be delegated and had thought through the projects that would develop me the most. Some of which, quite simply took me out of my comfort zone.
The key with these Leaders, was that they saw delegation as not simply passing the responsibility for a task or project to someone else with little or no guidance as to how they should set about achieving a successful conclusion. They set about delegating to me with clear thought process, structured guidelines, and regularly checked in with me to see how I was doing.
They were fearless in their delegation, never abdicating responsibility, but recognising that good performance in the task reflected well on both of us.
Speak to us today if you are interested in a fresh approach to engaging & developing your people proposition.
Author Kate Mutter-Bowen
Working with a client recently I was asked what did I think is the key to motivating people. The business had a very clear commission structure, however the MD was struggling with engendering team spirit across the front-end teams.
I have been brought up in business to understand the simple fact is that all people are motivated to a degree, but it is up to the Leader to recognise whether their team is motivated by achieving targets they have been set, or by something else, something less tangible. Simple, trite even, but nonetheless true. Throwing money at people only works so far, assuming of course that there is fair pay for a fair’s day work to begin with and that targets are SMART!
The highest performing Global companies undergoing Business and Transformational Change are those whose leaders intrinsically recognise the motivational needs of their team, and reward by:
- Appreciation – Thanking their staff sincerely and on a regular basis when appreciation is deserved
- Recognition – Seeing and acknowledging what team members have achieved and contributed
- Encouragement – Instilling confidence to their teams and individuals to be bold, to take calculated risks and not to be afraid of facing challenges that arise
- Empowerment – Communicating openly with their teams and engaging them in decision making, whilst giving them the tools to achieve this
- Delegation – Delegation is the key to the success of a team, and must be done in a supported, unambiguous and structured way – delegation is not abdication of responsibility. Effective delegation will free up the Leader’s time to focus on his/her own goals, and will develop more self-confidence in the delegates to achieve even more of their and their team’s goals
Speak to us today if you’re interested in a fresh approach to Leadership and Motivation for your people proposition and Business Transformation.
Author Kate Mutter-Bowen
Working with businesses of all shapes, sizes, & cultures, I always find it fascinating the “step change” you see in a business when you get people really working together as a team.
Those that get it really right always seem to have some common characteristics that I admire in great businesses & which I can really empathise with:
Common Characteristics
The leaders in the business:
- Create & encourage an open culture that inspires creative thought, innovation, & an energetic environment.
- Embrace & drive empowerment
- Everyone’s opinion is valued & welcomed equally
- Each department respects the expertise & experience within others
- Divergent & contrasting viewpoints are hard fought but consensuses reached are supported & collectively driven forward
and “yes” these very same businesses often tend to be the same top performers in:
- Customer Advocacy results
- Staff Advocacy results
- & business growth & profitability
That feels like a business model and culture I’d buy into …
Speak to us today if your interested in a fresh approach to engaging & developing your people proposition & enhancing your Customer Experience.
Author Derek Findlayson
Wouldn’t it be great if everything you did got a great big thumbs up from your employees? Then of course, we’d have nothing to complain about! The great thing about the real world of business is that your employees do push back against decisions that you make, consciously or not. Some of these aren’t always that helpful (we all have that employee who is convinced you don’t see him slink into the office at 9:07am every day with a Starbucks in hand…). The good news is some of the things that staff push back against are great warning signs.
Many of the businesses we help are in the middle of planning a business strategy, perhaps revising an existing plan, rejigging one, or looking at creating a new plan.
One massive mistake we see is that sometimes these plans are not run through the staff until they have been set in stone, shipped and delivered. There are 2 reasons why this is a bad idea.
The first one is that your staff will definitely have some clear ideas about what will and won’t work. Bearing in mind that process management, planning, KPI reporting and many other business functions are a top down initiative; getting buy in for the process is critical.Here are some oversights we have seen in businesses before:
- Duplication of effort –Multiple spread sheets, online reporting systems, email reports and meetings
- Product failures not identified – poor competitor & customer research
- Technical issues and software failings not being identified early enough
…And we could go on.
The key feature here is that asking the right employees in your business key questions before you get to the stage of signing off your latest business plan / new guidelines.
The second mistake is that staff buy in is so critical.
Even if they were ignored when they were asked about the latest initiative, the right leaders and managers in the business being consulted can produce a culture of trust which in turns leads to the initiatives having a much stronger chance of succeeding if they do need to live and breathe on the sales floor.
So – homework for you – what can you ask from your employees today that will potentially have a real effect on your processes and procedures?
We hope you get some interesting answers!
Speak to us today about changing your strategy for a business that shows real growth and development.
Author derek Findlayson
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