Manuel Mesones

I was coaching a client last week when we entered into the subject of meetings and how these ate into the working week. It amazes me how many people – whether it’s in education, the public, not-for-profit, or commercial sectors – still conduct regular meetings, just because they always have. You know the type… monthly manager’s meeting, weekly team update, daily meeting to moan about people not washing their own mugs up, etc., etc.

With the huge pressures on all employees and leaders, isn’t it time we looked for better alternatives and consigned pointless meetings to the dustbin?

Here are some coaching questions to help improve your productivity around meetings…

‘What’s the purpose of this meeting?’
Is there a specific outcome that can be met by the end of the meeting? Does the stated outcome really happen?

‘What would happen if we didn’t hold this meeting?’
This way you can check the reality of the situation. Often the answer to this question is, ‘nothing,’ or ‘abject relief on behalf of all attendees…’

‘Is there another way to address the issue?’
Think of as many alternatives as you can, including having shorter meetings, less frequently, making better use of IT, improving team communications in other ways, etc., etc.

‘What can we drop from our agenda?’
Have you attended meetings, where there’s a standing item of ‘latest updates’, or ‘Policies & Procedures’? No-one needs to sit in a meeting to be talked at, so why not find other ways to pass on information – and to build team and leader accountability at the same time.

‘Is there an unofficial outcome from this meeting?’
Often the official reason for the meeting has become redundant, but there may be other hidden outcomes and needs that still need to be met – for example, the monthly meeting may be the only time the team has to engage with each other personally.  This is certainly the case for many teams who may be geographically dispersed, or even for people just working from home.  If this is the case, look at addressing that issue specifically – e.g. would this need be better met by setting up regular team coaching sessions, or social evenings?

Hopefully that’s given you food for thought to begin to free up some time in your busy schedule. If you’d like more information on how we can help you improve your individual, team, leader, or organisational productivity and practice then please contact us at info@bright-bird.co.uk

If you would like to develop your own coaching skills as a leader, check out our Coaching Skills for Managers Programme.  We will show you how to build skills and confidence to bring a problem-solving mindset to your work.  Practical and down-to-earth, with NO HOMEWORK, our training will help you boost productivity and effectiveness for both yourself and your team.

Click HERE to find out more and book your place now.

Tel: 07714 855757 or email: karen@bright-bird.co.uk

Karen Amos is an executive coach and Director and founder of BrightBird Coaching & Training. She supports business owners and managers to get the best out of themselves and their teams. She brings a down-to-earth approach to improving working lives through better leadership, communication and working relationships. 

As many of my followers know, I’m a huge advocate of Authentic Leadership and confess to being on a bit of a mission to show people this is not the fluffy-bunny, touchy-feely (or indeed any other double-barrelled) approach, it may appear.

One area of Authentic Leadership came to mind the other day, when I experienced problems with purchases I was making from two businesses. The leadership area in question was that of ‘Taking Ownership For Your Mistakes’.

I’m an avid gardener and I recently purchased some plants from a mail order company. I’d ordered from them before and was always happy with the quality of their plants. On this occasion however, the plants I received were in very poor condition and were clearly ready for the great compost bin in the sky.

My second purchase involved an order of bird seed from a local business (Yes, it’s a Rock n’ Roll lifestyle up north!). Unfortunately, I was delivered the wrong kind of seeds (No, I won’t go into detail, as the excitement could prove fatal!).

So what’s the link? Well, on the first occasion the business owner took time to find out what the problem was before quickly offering various solutions to my problem – i.e. refund, replacement plants, alternative plants – and a huge apology for not getting this right first time. I opted for replacement plants and remain a very happy customer, already planning my next order from them.

The bird food supplier however, proceeded to maintain they’d ordered the right food, making excuses even after they’d checked their order book and seen their mistake. They were then reluctant to take back the stock, saying they couldn’t return it to their supplier. The result? I ended the call and immediately began looking for a new supplier online – not something I take lightly, as an advocate of supporting local small businesses.

So, the moral of the story…. We’re all human and we all make mistakes, but it’s actually how we deal with things when they go wrong – rather than when they’re going well – that really gives a true measure of our, and our organisation or business’ worth.

If you would like to develop your leadership skills, check out our Effective People Management Programme.  We will show you how to build skills and confidence to get the best out of yourself and your teams.  Practical and down-to-earth, with NO HOMEWORK, our training will help you find the authentic leader in yourself.

Click HERE to find out more and book your place now.

Tel: 07714 855757 or email: karen@bright-bird.co.uk

Karen Amos is an executive coach and Director and founder of BrightBird Coaching & Training. She supports business owners and managers to get the best out of themselves and their teams. She brings a down-to-earth approach to improving working lives through better leadership, communication and working relationships. 

And find out exciting news about our forthcoming alliance with GEM Compliance Training and Yvonne Sinclair Consultancy.

Well here I am – clear evidence that not all people in business are Richard Branson… I’ve several deadlines to hit this week, so taking bank holiday off, just isn’t an option. This isn’t so unusual for me and many other self-employed people, but the problem is today I’ve got the dreaded accounts to finish.

Yes, like many people, this is far from my favourite job, but of course it has to be done and my lovely accountant is eagerly awaiting the finished item, ready for our meeting in a few days time. (Amazingly it appears some people actually choose to do this stuff).

Prof. Steve Peters has a brilliant way of getting yourself to do things you wouldn’t usually want to do. He calls it ‘giving your chimp a banana’. The very basic tenet here is that your inner chimp is the bit of you that wants to go play/sleep/[insert own non-account-based activity here] – in other words chimps do NOT like accounts. One way of getting around this is to do a bit of a deal with your chimp. Prof. Peters calls this ‘Giving your chimp a banana.’ In basic terms this is you saying, ‘Hey chimp – I know you’re not happy, but if you sit here quietly and let me do these pesky accounts, then afterwards we’ll go out and play/socialise/[insert own chimpish, fun-based activity here].

This has the added advantage of getting the important, but boring stuff done, but also ensures you get to schedule the nice stuff in too!

So whatever you’re doing, hope you’re having/had a good bank holiday weekend. Now where’s my stapler…

If you’d like to know more about Prof. Peters’ work, I can highly recommend his book – Peters, S. (2012). The Chimp Paradox. London. Vermillion.

Tony Robbins often coins the phrase, ‘If you lie down with dogs, you get fleas’ and this, I think is the moral of my tale – not that I am saying Malcolm has fleas mind you – but rather, had I have hired an electric bike, or done the easy-peasy routes with the less advanced cyclists, I’d have never have improved (or had such a good time). What actually happened is that Malcolm would hurtle ahead of me on his bike and I’d rattle along behind, doing my best to keep up, but knowing that because he’d done it, it was in fact possible. As a result, I raised my game and got WAY out of my comfort zone.

But here’s the really interesting point I think – every time I broke that comfort zone barrier, that became my new ‘normal’. It really didn’t take time after time to do this, just doing something once became just ‘what I do’. This I believe, is the real key to personal improvement of any kind – growth and development will only come hand in hand with some discomfort or difficulty if it is to be truly meaningful and worthwhile, whether that’s in business, professional life, or just life in general.

So what’s your next challenge – and who are you going to enlist to help you get there?

I’m recently back from a super holiday in the French Alps and wanted to share a few coaching related musings I’ve had on my travels.

As I possess the boredom threshold of a small butterfly if sat on a beach, I’d been looking forward to an exciting fortnight of mountain biking and hiking.

The problem is I’m not actually that good at mountain biking, having a ‘More Enthusiasm Than Ability’ approach to most of my hobbies. The plan was that we’d stay in one of the ski resorts, which double as mountain bike destinations in the summer. A fantastic idea I thought – ‘get a ski lift to carry my bike up, then it’s all downhill from there’. Literally!

Having grown to the dizzy heights of 4 feet 11 inches in my 49 years, I guess I’m what could be called ‘diminutive’ in the mountain bike world. Especially when we arrived in resort to find clouds of testosterone filling the bike scene, with full suspension bikes, full-face helmets and body armour being de rigueur. I’m not sure anyone really noticed me with my little blue bike, complete with bell (I don’t really use the bell, but I like the dinging noise when I go over a bump!). Up I trotted to the ski lift, before promptly getting it stuck in the barrier because I went through the wrong way. (Much to the amusement of the trés cool barrier attendant – yes, laughter does transcend all boundaries!)

What I did find however, was that I became a ‘non-person’. My partner Malcolm, would ask for directions, or advice on the difficulty of a trail and the other mountain bikers would happily chat away to him, completely ignoring my presence. The final straw came when I asked a guy in an adjacent campervan to ours about his ride, for him to say, ‘Are you the pit crew?’

So what to do? I was pretty annoyed at myself for caring, but also quite intrigued about the assumptions that were being made. I then came up with a cunning plan/social experiment – if I made myself look more like the others, they’d think I was a good rider like them! Having ruled out growing a foot in height overnight as being a bit impractical, I trotted off to buy a biking jersey like everyone else’s, which I promptly named my ‘Rufty-Tufty Jumper’.

I saw this post on social media and thought, ‘Wow!’ This is so powerful and really taps into our personal values and why, when these are compromised, we find ourselves in difficult situations, working under pressure and often, increasing stress.

Whilst there are obvious practical difficulties with ‘doing the right thing’, particularly in large businesses and organisations, imagine the freedom of being able to live to your personal values and at least begin to voice what’s ‘right’. Remember, change has to start somewhere and your voice alone has the power to influence and begin a process that could improve things for the benefit of many…

So many of us see stress as a fact of modern life, whilst it continues to affect personal and professional productivity and well-being. The Third Sector is no exception in the current political and economic climate, with 79% of staff saying stress is a fact of life in their work and 46% saying they feel stressed all, or most of the time.

There are some issues that affect this sector in particular, including:

• Frequent, unpaid working hours.
• Lack of job security – due to short term commissioning and high competition for ever-decreasing funding pots.
• Dependence on an unpaid and/or casual workforce.
• Organisational structures meaning decision making and change can be slow and power is often devolved by default, rather than design.

It’s no surprise, that these and other factors often result in high staff turnover, lack of productivity and in some cases, mental health and wellbeing problems. Of course, the impact of high staff turnover for example, can compound the amount of stress workers experience. This is particularly true for those leading teams of paid or unpaid workers, who frequently feel the pressure of meeting targets and outcomes for funders, with ever-changing levels of resources.

One thing that’s often not recognised, is that the strong personal values of the people who work in the Third Sector can also lead to increased workplace stress. Both paid and unpaid staff in the sector often have a strong identification with their work. As our values drive our behaviour and decisions and help form our personal identity, it’s hardly surprising that the current political and economic challenges facing the Third Sector, can feel like an assault on a person’s very being.

As a coach, I believe leaders and managers within the Third Sector need to accept that ‘caring about the work’ isn’t enough. They need to actively take practical steps to regain control for the benefit and wellbeing of themselves, their teams, their organisations and ultimately the communities they serve.

BrightBird provides practical, result-focused coaching and training on Personal Resilience, Stress Management and Work-Life Balance. Check out our brochure, or contact us on 07714 855757 for a no-obligation chat if you’d like to know more about how we can help you reduce stress and increase staff wellbeing and productivity in your business or organisation.

References:

DUDMAN, J., et al. (2015) Revealed: How the stress of working in public services is taking its toll on staff. The Guardian. [Online] 10th June 2015. Available from: https://theguardian.co.uk. [Accessed: 11th May 2017].

OPEN LEARN. (2016) Causes of stress in the voluntary sector. [Online]. Available from: https://www.open.edu/openlearn/ocw/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=50114&section=1.2# [Accessed: 11th May 2017]

Check out my latest training workshop in partnership with Voluntary Action Leeds.

Course outline:

Stress is frequently seen as a fact of modern life, affecting personal and professional productivity and well-being. The voluntary sector is no exception in the current political and economic climate, with 79% of staff saying stress is a fact of life in their work.

Frequent, unpaid working hours, coupled with a lack of job security can result in high staff turnover, lack of productivity and in some cases, mental health and wellbeing problems.

We offer a practical and interactive course to identify and overcome the causes and effects of stress.

Our training will allow you to develop coaching-based approaches that can be used both in the workplace and personally, allowing you to enhance your own wellbeing and that of your staff and volunteers, to build a more positive and productive team.

Venue: Voluntary Action Leeds (VAL)

This course will help you to:

• Understand the physiological and psychological causes of stress and how to manage these.
• Set out personal strategies to be proactive in dealing with your own stress and to support others.
• Identify the importance of personal values to gain greater self-awareness and build resilience.
• Utilise practical coaching techniques to maximise personal and professional control.
• Understand the impact of ‘rules’ and how to manage the effect of these both personally and at work.
• Develop practical approaches and strategies to support yourself, staff teams and volunteers.

Suitable for:

Any managers or supervisors who wish to manage their own stress and support staff teams and volunteers to build personal resilience.

Date: 14th June 2017 – 9.30am – 4pm

To Book:

Visit VAL’s training page at: https://doinggoodleeds.org.uk/training-courses/ or phone 0113 297 7920

The course

Are You:

• Constantly fire-fighting?
• Overwhelmed with work?
• Working too many hours?
• Feeling unproductive?
• Missing targets and deadlines?
• Feeling like there aren’t enough hours in a day?
• Find out how to maximise your time and be more productive at our interactive, practical, Result-Focused Workshop.

Please Note: This is not the usual approach to Time Management, looking at minimising time-wasters, etc. We utilise proven coaching and management tools and approaches to allow you to build your own personal system to maximise your productivity, including managing the demands of the digital age.

This training is brought to you in partnership with Airedale Enterprise Services.

Date of training: Thursday 25th May 2017

For more information click here.