building teams
3 reasons your team may be resistant to change – and what you can do about it!
3 reasons your team may be resistant to change – and what you can do about it!
By Karen Amos
I’ve been busy delivering the ‘Managing Change’ session from my Effective People Management programmes these last few weeks. This is definitely one of those subjects that at first glance seems easy, but is a veritable Russian doll when you start to unpack it.
I recall times throughout my career where change has been well implemented and accepted, indeed embraced by teams and many more times when I’ve just emitted an inward (and sometimes outward) groan when informed of yet another new strategy/change/initiative [delete as appropriate]. On that note, isn’t it strange what a word so positive as ‘initiative’ can invoke such an energy dump in a different context?
Whilst the vast majority of change is instigated with positive intentions – i.e. to make things better – it can so quickly invoke a negative response and be the cause of low staff morale and even increase staff turnover if handled badly.
Here are 3 reasons you may be experiencing resistance to change from your team (or even personally) and a coaching perspective on how to address this…
1. Your team doesn’t understand why the change is necessary
This is about supporting your team to understand the reason behind the change. There’s an understandable filter that takes place where information is cascaded down an organisation and people in less senior roles are, often rightly, given less detail than people who are more senior. I do think we need to treat people as the adults they are though. To paraphrase Nietzsche, the person with a ‘why’ can tolerate almost any ‘how’.
Solution:
Consider the perspectives and experience of your team. It’s easy to forget as a leader that we have much more information and control than those we manage. An honest appraisal, including the benefits of the changes and the consequences of not taking this course of action will always be appreciated. Over time, your teams will accept you’re trustworthy and there’s no game playing going on. Remember, if there is sensitive information you can’t share, be honest about that too.
2. People don’t feel involved or listened to
In the midst of all the activity in implementing a new change, time to discuss, consult and more importantly, listen can come a poor second. Remember that as manager and leader, you naturally have much more control and usually knowledge, about the change. It’s easy to forget that your team don’t share this.
Solution:
Hold regular check-ins with your team and allow people to voice their concerns. It’s understandable that you may not want to seek this out, lest it turn into another ‘moan-fest’, but hearing people out and giving information where needed will prevent people from lagging behind, or at worst being so engaged they decide to leave the organisation altogether.
3. Your people have ‘change fatigue’
Have you ever stopped to consider that change just seems to be a permanent fixture of working life? Lots of my clients comment that there’s never a pause to take a breath and reflect and let the changes embed. It’s either one change, then straight into another, or what’s more usual, multiple changes going on at the same time. It can be hard for teams and indeed ourselves as leaders, to truly evaluate what the impact of the change is. With this comes a sense of never quite achieving an end result, leading to frustration and low motivation.
Solution:
Ensure you consult with your team to build in mini-goals and celebrate progress and ‘wins’ throughout the change process. Where possible, give people a project, or part of a project to own and champion, in a way that plays to their strengths and things they enjoy if possible. That way, they can have more autonomy and also see they’ve played a clear part in achieving the overall goal. Whilst it’s not always possible, be conscious of implementing multiple changes and reduce these where possible to allow new ways of working to embed themselves, even for a short time. This will then be assimilated into your organisation’s culture and people will be more enthused for the next change.
I hope that helps with a little food for thought regarding change in your setting or organisation.
If you’d like to know more about how we can support your leaders and teams with 1-to-1 or team coaching, or would like to discuss our in-house live, online leadership programmes, you can:
Email us at: info@bright-bird.co.uk
Or call us: 07714 855757
or click HERE to book in a short, no-obligation chat
Karen Amos is an executive coach and founder of BrightBird Coaching & Training. She supports leaders and managers to get the best out of themselves and their teams. She brings a down-to-earth, practical approach to improving working lives through better leadership, communication and working relationships.
Top Tips for Avoiding Boiling Frog Syndrome...
Top Tips For Avoiding Boiling Frog Syndrome
By Karen Amos
As we enter this uncertain future, there are plenty of opportunities to change things for the better. We've opportunity to try new ways of working and build new habits. Equally though, there are threats that we'll slip back into old ways, despite the rhetoric and good intentions. After all, change requires effort and after a tough day at work and all the demands of modern life, I don't know about you, but sometimes that extra bit of effort is just too much to ask. (And a nice sit down with a good book is much more appealing...)
This reminds me of the Boiling Frog Syndrome...
This is a somewhat gruesome metaphor where a frog is slowly boiled alive. The premise is that if a frog is put suddenly into boiling water, it will jump out, but if the frog is put in tepid water which is then brought to a boil slowly, it will not perceive the danger and will be cooked to death. ¹ (I did warn you!)
There are several interpretations of this story, but the one that jumped out at me (See what I did there!) is the need to be aware of negative threats that arise gradually, leaving us unaware of the danger until the situation is critical and in many cases, terminal.
This led me to reflect on how this applied in real-life and here are a few thoughts and tips to avoid overcooking our frogs...
Personal Wellbeing...
It’s a strange one isn’t it? We mostly know what is good and not so good for us regarding our wellbeing - whether that’s mental, physical or otherwise - but it’s always an effort to maintain it. Good habits slip and before we know it, we’re stressed out, anxious or fighting the flab and trying to regain lost energy.
Stress and our mental health can be a very slippery slope. We accept one more task, another responsibility, lose another hour’s sleep and without recognising why, we find ourselves in tears, yelling at the kids, or slumped at the laptop wondering how to get through the day.
I’m sure many of you will recognise yourself in at least one of these examples. I train others on this stuff for a living, but it's still a constant battle to stay on track. The problem is that the downward spiral is gradual and mostly painless – until you reach the bottom.
Here are some helpful tips and coaching questions to keep your frog healthy…
-
Have a plan
Seems a bit obvious right? But without a plan, you won’t know whether things are going astray until something critical happens to remind you. With a clear plan, you can measure your progress alongside expected outcomes and take corrective action quickly.
This could be a business plan, a marketing plan, or even your own 'get-and-stay-fit' plan.
-
Get a sounding board
Whether that’s a coach, mentor, or just a trusted friend or colleague, we all need someone who has our back and who we can check in with, but more importantly someone who will give us some honest feedback and advice. Not only do we need these people, but we need to ensure we plan in non-negotiable time for this checking in, as remember that we don’t recognise the need as the water gets gradually hotter. I always ensure I've people around me with whom I can have that, 'Is it me...?' conversation - in the knowledge that they may well say, 'Yes, actually Karen... this time it is just you!'
-
Build in regular wellbeing check-ins:
Boiling frog syndrome is allowed to occur because we simply don't recognise our personal 'Red Flags' until it's too late. We're completely enmeshed in stress and often by then, it's having a huge detrimental impact on our work, life and wellbeing.
One simple way to avoid this slippery slope is to schedule in regular check-ins with ourselves. This could be as simple as scoring your stress levels on a scale of 1-10. Whilst it's a completely subjective and individual approach, it gives you the opportunity to recognise when you need to start taking some remedial action before it's too late. We discuss this much more in our Positive and Productive programme.
So to avoid boiling your frog, ask yourself these useful coaching questions on a regular basis:
-
- What are my pressure points right now?
- Is this level of pressure tolerable – if so, for how long before I need to take action?
- Would I think my current situation was acceptable for my friend/colleague/family member?
- What action would I be advising them to take?
- What are my warning signs that something needs to change?
- Is there anything I could STOP doing right now that would actually improve my situation?
- What could I replace this activity with, that would improve my personal wellbeing and that of my business/organisation/education setting?
Remember, we need to ensure we check the ‘water temperature’ regularly. Build this into your diary, perhaps at the start or end of every week – that way you won’t be lulled into inaction by the nice warm water…
If you would like to find out more about how you and your teams can improve their time management and productivity, whilst minimising stress and overwhelm, check out our new Positive and Productive online programme.
For schools
For Business and VCSE organisations
For an informal, no-obligation chat about how we can help you, call us on 07714 855757, or email info@bright-bird.co.uk.
Karen Amos is an executive coach and founder of BrightBird Coaching & Training. She supports business owners and managers who are feeling the pressure, to get the best out of themselves and their teams. She brings a practical, down-to-earth approach to improving working lives through better leadership, communication and working relationships.
Investing in Staff Wellbeing - Can you afford not to?
Investing in Staff Wellbeing – Can you afford not to?
By Karen Amos
The Education Staff Wellbeing Charter is launched this autumn. Whilst few would argue this isn’t needed in the sector, the practicalities of publicly signing up and implementing such a measure can have the paradoxical effect of actually increasing the stress of those charged with the task.
This is a fantastic opportunity to commit to positive steps to improve the working lives of all working in education. The danger is however, that it becomes another ‘bolt-on’ to the day-to-day work. The fact is that for any actions to be truly meaningful, the principles of this charter need to form the bedrock of your setting and define your wellbeing culture.
So what is culture?
Culture can be defined as the guiding beliefs and values evident in the way a school operates. ¹ Put simply, culture is seen in our behaviour, or ‘the way we do things around here’. ²
This is more than just having some pretty graphics of your values on the wall. This is about observable, tangible behaviour. For good or bad, your setting’s culture is determined by how people consistently behave.
In practical terms, this means we have to do much more than just bring cake into the staff room. This is a nice gesture, not a wellbeing support intervention. If you have a team who are stressed out and on the edge, you’re quite likely to make matters worse and risk being told where to shove your cake, if there are no other support mechanisms in place.
The costs of not implementing a wellbeing culture:
Of course there are clear ethical issues why staff wellbeing should be a priority. But there is also a financial and business case for improving wellbeing too.
The latest Education Support Teacher Wellbeing Index survey showed some shocking statistics. If they don’t constitute a crisis in the education sector right now, there should certainly be some very loud alarm bells ringing.
Deliotte’s research highlights the financial impact of the problem. The cost to the Education Sector in 2020 in the UK is £1.1 – 1.5 billion per year. That £1.1-1.5 thousand per education staff per year. Let’s put the ethics aside for a moment and just ask yourself what your setting could do with that money instead? What difference would this make to the outcomes of the children or communities you work in?
There are obvious costs such as sickness absence, but also other less obvious, but equally impactful issues, such as lack of productivity and presenteeism from burnt out or disillusioned staff. And what about the time costs of counselling unproductive, unhappy or unwell staff teams. How much time do you and your team spend each month on these activities, when someone reaches crisis point?
Viewed this way, implementing a culture where staff wellbeing is front and centre should be seen as an investment, not a drain on resources. In fact, Deloitte4 found a clear Return on Investment from implementing wellbeing support in the workplace, with a 10:1 ROI on training.
Also at a time where many schools are struggling to recruit the right calibre of candidates, wouldn’t it be a benefit for your setting to be seen as a ‘go to’ employer?
How to implement a wellbeing culture in a busy setting:
Whilst there is some element of ‘setting up’, a successful wellbeing culture shouldn’t add to your workload and does not have to mean a major financial investment. Here are a few suggestions to get you started:
- Embed wellbeing in training and development – The Education Staff Wellbeing Charter states there is no expectation for managers to provide professional wellbeing support for which they have no professional training, so…
- Consider outsourcing – See this as an investment. How much do you currently spend in staff cover or lost productivity? Consider the business case for bringing in the experts, whether that’s training, resources, or an Employee Assistance Programme.
- Build staff engagement – start with building great conversations in your setting. Not just between managers and their teams, but also between peers. Recent surveys show that 57% of education staff were not confident in sharing unmanageable stress/mental health issues at work. 3 Building trust and understanding are key to positive staff engagement.
Building trust and understanding are key to positive staff engagement – which leads us to…
- Develop a supportive leadership culture – Where people feel supported, not criticised. Using a coaching approach is a fantastic and practically cost-free strategy. This doesn’t mean lengthy 1-to-1 sessions with people, but simply that we have meaningful conversations where leaders are curious and solution-focused.
- Draw up a Wellbeing Strategy – this will support everyone to maintain realistic expectations and standards, including around workload. This doesn’t need to be a huge document. No-one needs another ‘War and Peace’ that never sees the light of day. Just one page with your aims for the coming year and a couple of concrete actions constitute a strategy. This could be as simple as having a realistic workload policy and an effective return to work interview format.
- Develop robust HR procedures and get the right support – This way you can ensure you ‘do the right thing’ by your staff, but also ensure any responses and approaches are proportionate and aligned with your setting’s wider strategy and outcomes. This isn’t about giving in to unreasonable demands or lowering standards, but setting clear expectations and knowing what support you will and won’t give.
The ethical argument in favour of building a wellbeing culture should be obvious, but if implemented, everyone wins. Everyone. The children, the staff, the setting, the community… everyone. What are your next steps?
- Fullan, M., (2007) The new meaning of educational change, Routledge, New York.
- Hawkins, P., (2021) Creating a coaching culture: Developing a coaching strategy for your organisation, Open University Press, UK.
- Education Support Teacher Wellbeing Index 2020
- Deloitte – Mental Health and Employers – Refreshing the case for investment – 2020
If you would like to find out more about how you and your teams can improve their time management and productivity, whilst minimising stress and overwhelm, check out our new Positive and Productive online programme.
For schools
For Business and VCSE organisations
For an informal, no-obligation chat about how we can help you, call us on 07714 855757, or email info@bright-bird.co.uk.
Karen Amos is an executive coach and founder of BrightBird Coaching & Training. She supports business owners and managers who are feeling the pressure, to get the best out of themselves and their teams. She brings a practical, down-to-earth approach to improving working lives through better leadership, communication and working relationships.
Positive & Productive - News about our NEW beta programme!
BREAKING NEWS!
We're delighted to announce our new Positive & Productive online programme - due to commence January 2021!
This programme will bring you all the aspects and content from our existing popular training workshops, including:
- Time Management & Work-Life Balance
- Managing Stress & Building Personal Resilience
- Building Confidence
The programme will consist of a combination of:
- Short recorded webinars
- Workbooks and training resources for each session
- Live, online Q&A's on a variety of subjects
- An online community to share ideas, progress and support
Check out our course leaflet for more information:
SCHOOLS
BUSINESS & ORGANISATIONS
We're bringing this at a special discounted price of £49 per person, so grab your place whilst they're still available.
We are able to offer significant discounts for group bookings - get in touch for a no-obligation quote!
If you'd like to find out more via a no-obligation chat, you can contact us on 07714 855757 or email info@bright-bird.co.uk
To make a booking, complete our booking form HERE
Want to Avoid Catastrophe? Mind Your Language!
Want to Avoid Catastrophe? Mind Your Language!
By Karen Amos
Well, 2020 truly is the gift that keeps on giving! Have you ever wondered though, how some people seem to sail through things easier than others? The reason isn’t usually due to their circumstances, but all about mindset – that is to say, the way they think about or perceive things.
The great thing about our mindset is that we can change it and by doing so, we can change our perception and in turn our experience in life.
Just a quick cautionary note here. Some people are experiencing truly catastrophic events right now; they are suffering the loss of loved ones and failure of businesses they have invested their life savings in. This article isn’t about negating these events – we need to be allowed to freely express our emotions at this time – but rather that our day-to-day language needs to be proportionate and also ‘helpful’ to us.
Mind your language...
The language we habitually use can significantly impact our mindset – negatively or positively. This has never been so crucial as at a time like the one we’re living through. There’s a phrase to describe this as coined by Albert Ellis – ‘AWFULIZING’ – where we perceive or describe a situation as being much worse than it actually is. ¹ I had such an experience in a recent coaching session with a client.
Like many people, my client is working under huge pressure due to the covid situation. They are supporting a team who are dealing with negative changes on a daily, if not hourly basis. What jumped out at me was the language she and the team were using. ‘I had a meltdown,’ and ‘It’s a nightmare,’ were just a couple of examples.
Let’s just examine this for a moment. ‘Meltdown’. ‘Nightmare’. Really? When we started to unpick this, it was obvious that such extreme language was actually adding to the stress and anxiety experienced by both the person saying the words and those hearing it.
Other commonly used catastrophic expressions include:
- I’m overwhelmed…
- It was devastating…
- The situation is terrifying…
- I’m exhausted…
Quite simply, our words generate an emotional response, so catastrophic language leads to heightened arousal levels whereas more ‘neutral’ or ‘positive’ language has the opposite effect.
So what to do?
If you find yourself or others around you using awfulizing, catastrophic, or just plain exaggerated language, there are some useful coaching questions that can help:
- Is this really a ‘disaster’ [insert chosen catastrophic phrase as desired!]?
- Is there a more accurate way to describe this?
- What’s really going on here?
- What’s the evidence telling me?
- What did I actually see, hear, experience?
- Are there any positives here? (There are usually some things that we can take from a situation, however awful – e.g. that you were really challenged, but managed to contain the situation.)
Recognise and Replace...
Using the ‘recognise and replace’ process to build new, more helpful habits and language is an easy and effective way to reduce your stress. You ‘recognise’ that you (or others) have used overly catastrophic or dramatic language, then ‘replace’ this with something more representative of what’s really happened. By doing so, you increase personal resilience and empowerment and decrease stress levels – both for yourself and others.
An example might be:
“This situation is a complete nightmare!”
Becomes…
“Things are really challenging us from lots of angles at the moment. Our resources are stretched and we need to make some tough decisions.”
The latter example leaves people feeling more in control and empowered within their situation. Try it!
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_emotive_behavior_therapy
If you'd like support for you or your team to reduce stress and build resilience and effectiveness at work, get in touch for an informal, no-obligation chat.
We offer one-to-one and team coaching and in-house training programmes.
Call us on 07714 855757, or email info@bright-bird.co.uk. Or visit our NEW training pages HERE
Karen Amos is an executive coach and founder of BrightBird Coaching & Training. She supports under-pressure business owners and managers to get the best out of themselves and their teams. She brings a practical, down-to-earth approach to improving working lives through better leadership, communication and working relationships.
Do you trust your team...? If not, why not?
Do you trust your team...? If not, why not?
By Karen Amos
I reflected in a previous post how the current Covid-19 situation seems to have brought out the best and worst in people and never more so than in the behaviour of leaders, managers and businesses/organisations. We’ve had the whole spectrum, from unkind, exploitative and selfish behaviour at one extreme, to altruistic, brave and compassionate behaviour at the other.
In the last few weeks, I’ve seen plenty of examples of both, often in the same sectors. For example, schools who send tons of homework out, expecting staff to provide evidence of planning and marking and sending ‘strongly worded’ communications to staff, parents and pupils alike when deadlines aren’t met. On the other hand, there are the school leaders who have prioritised the welfare of the children and their families over ‘outputs’, leading from the front and doing whatever it takes to ensure people in their communities are OK during this time.
There are also the organisations and businesses who insist on checking up on their staff, expecting detailed daily and weekly reporting, just because people are working from home. Those who expect detailed timesheets to account for people’s working time. Alternatively, there are the leaders who have the conversation with their teams that say, ‘How are things for you right now? What do you need from us to make this work for you?’ – and actually listen to and act on the answers.
In essence, this comes down to a matter of trust. I often ask a question of business owners and managers – ‘Why do you continue to employ someone that you don’t trust to do a good job?’ My view is that we should do one of two things:
1. Create the environment your employees need to thrive and do what they do well.
2. Or if there’s a performance/attitude issue, get some advice and go down the capability/disciplinary route – and/or seriously think about evaluating how robust your recruitment systems are.
If you feel you can't trust your teams, then it's time for you as a leader to take action. Ask yourself, 'What's going on here?', 'What's the root cause of this problem?' and be prepared to take action - remembering that you may actually be the problem. Time to work out how you can be the boss you'd like to have.
If you would like to find out how BrightBird can help you build leadership performance and support your teams to remain positive and productive, get in touch for a no-obligation chat. We offer online 1-to-1 coaching support from senior leadership to front-line staff, group and peer coaching and training/webinars.
Tel: 07714 855757 or email: karen@bright-bird.co.uk
Karen Amos is an executive coach 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.