The Knowledge Bites blog - grow your skills

As a leader, there are times when you’ll need to communicate messages which you receive from above, down to your team. Sometimes these will be messages which you support, and sometimes you might not. It’s important to remember that you’re not there to openly disagree with the message, but to communicate the message onwards in a way which helps people to accept what’s been said. In order to be sincere when you communicate your message, you need to ensure that you have all the information you need from above. If you have to keep going back and checking things, it undermines your own belief in the message, and weakens the impact of your communication. Here are some questions you can ask yourself to ensure you have the full information… What’s the topic? What timescale does it relate to? Which areas of the business does it impact? What flexibility do I have when communicating it? What should I do if it’s badly received? What suppo...

Using Nonviolent Communication to defuse conflict Nonviolent Communication was developed in the 1970s by Marshall Rosenberg as a way to get beyond the typical elements of conflict, and to encourage empathy by both parties. It requires you to adopt the mindset that the other person isn’t trying to annoy you on purpose, and then works to overcome differences and expand understanding of each other. It works like this: Observation: A neutral statement of what’s going on. “When you give me a large piece of work at 4 o’clock on a Friday…” Feelings: An accurate statement of how you feel. Avoid saying “you make me feel” and concentrate on the feelings themselves. “I feel stressed because I want to do a good job, and concerned that I’ll miss a personal appointment after work.” Needs: A statement of your internal needs. Avoid phrases which begin with “I need you to… (XYZ)”. “I need to know that I can deliver work to my usual high quality, and that I will be able to see my friends after work. ” ...

There are many definitions of “conflict” in the business world. It’s important to remember that conflict isn’t always visible. Some people might be “in conflict” with others, but instead of raising their voices and arguing, they withdraw inside themselves and go quiet. I like the following definition of conflict: Conflict is when someone is forced by someone else to operate in a way which makes them uncomfortable. If you take this definition, then the topic captures quite a wide range of situations. How does conflict start? Conflict comes about when an event happens which makes someone uncomfortable, and when it then spirals unchecked into a breakdown in the relationship. It goes through 4 steps: Situation: Something happens. One person does something the other person doesn’t like. Example:     Your manager gives you a big piece of work at 3pm on a Friday and tell...

As a leader, there are a number of internal relationships you should be aware of. It’s not just relationships with your team and your boss which are important – you now have impact and input across other teams and the organisation as a whole. Here’s an image to illustrate: Although to begin with, some of these relationships might be challenging or outside of your comfort zone, it's important to work on your skills to build these relationships to increase your confidence and the way you’re perceived in the organisation. Rights & responsibilities As you grow in your relationships with others in the organisation, it’s important to remember that you have rights in any working relationship, and also responsibilities. And, of course, the other person also has their own rights and responsibilities. If you find a relationship challenging, then it’s worth remember the rights that you have. These are things like: The right to be treated with respect. The right...

Although people are motivated by different things, there are 4 which apply to most people, although different people will attach different importance to these. Daniel Pink explains it as follows: Autonomy: People are happy to be given a goal, but would prefer to work towards it in their own way rather than being micro-managed. Mastery: People want the opportunity to become an expert at something, and to have that expertise recognised by others. Purpose: People want to understand the point behind their work, and what higher purpose they are contributing to. I also think money is in the mix as well. People need enough money to live a reasonable lifestyle. They might have different financial needs at different points in their life. As a leader, you need to motivate your team members. Although people have individual motivational needs, they are likely to respond to these generalisations. Good practice is to ask people what motivates them. Some leaders are uncomfortable asking that as t...

If you can understand the conditions which caused a problem to develop or an opportunity to come along, then you’ll be able to think about how you can replicate those conditions (for opportunities), or change them (for problems). For example, if you realise that an opportunity presented itself which you were only able to take advantage of because of your proactive recruitment strategy, you’ll want to continue that strategy in the future. 5 Whys The 5 Whys technique encourages you to look not at superficial causes, but to look deeper for root causes. For example, imagine you’re waiting for a train and an announcement comes over the loudspeaker saying: “Your train is delayed due to the late arrival of a preceding service.” You likely find this frustrating because it’s not a real reason for the delay – you want to know why the preceding service was running late. The idea with 5 Whys is that you keep asking “why?” until it feels like a daft question. This is likely to be around 5 times. Th...

The first place to look for opportunities and problems is within the organisation. For this, you can use a STACK analysis to get a good understanding of the current situation in the business. Strategy Tolerance for risk & change Available resources Configuration Knowledge & skills A STACK analysis helps us to do a few things: Get a good understanding of the current state of the organisation and its readiness to implement change Understand how well-aligned the organisation is from the top, where strategy is developed, down to individual contributors Consider whether there are sufficient resources to take actions you need Identify whether the way the organisation is set up would be helpful to grasping opportunities or addressing problems Understand whether additional expertise might need to be brought in from outside. Once you’ve understood the internal situation in the organisation, it’s time to look at whats going on externally which could affect your strategy. For this...

Remember, the internal and external environments are constantly changing. The organisations which react best to these changing circumstances are the organisations who will thrive whatever the conditions. It’s important to remember certain characteristics which connect opportunities and problems with time: the longer you leave them unaddressed, the benefit of advantages decreases, and the impact of problems increases. What this means, is that to take advantage of any situation in the work environment, speed is of the essence – you need to spot opportunities and problems more quickly, and take action once you’ve identified them.

One of the key elements of your role as a leader, is to think critically about the situation around you and ahead of you in the organisation, and make any adjustments you can to maximise your team’s performance whatever the environment. Critical thinking is the ability to analyse a situation to get the best outcome, making reasoned decisions which are logical and well thought-out. It’s about how to follow your instinct confidently. To be a great critical thinker, it’s not just about analysing situations. There are 5 distinct thinking styles which you need to employ as you look to take advantage of any situation. Those styles, in chronological order, are: •    Reflective: Understanding what’s happened in the past to bring you to where you are today. •    Strategic: Setting a long-term goal of where you’d like to be, with a high-level idea of how to get there. •    Creative: Developing creative, innovative ideas to achieve the st...

I’ve talked in the past about having a vision for your team – this describes where you want the team to be at a set point in the future, and should guide all decisions you make with and about your team. This team vision fits into a wider strategic approach to running your team – you need a strategy for what the team will achieve, and you also need to ensure that the team strategy is aligned with strategies above you in the organisation. Organisational strategy works something like this…   There’s an organisational strategy set from the top. There are then X number of divisional strategies which feed down from this. The sum of all the divisional strategies should achieve the organisational strategy. The next level down is team strategies, and even within your team, you could have functional strategies: the individual tasks and KPIs for each team member. A solid organisational approach to strategy means that all the lowest level parts, when combined, achieve the organisational strate...

Here's a follow-on from last week's post about the 3 leadership personas ... Now that you understand the 3 critical personas, it’s up to you to decide when you should be using each to get the best performance from your team. There are different requirements of your employees as they go through their working week. Taking a sales team as an example, they might sometimes need help to plan strategically, or advice on how to spot opportunities and problems for their clients in order to open up sales opportunities. Sometimes they might need to be coached on how to approach a sales call or meeting, and will need feedback afterwards. And other times they’ll need you to step in directly to share your own sales experience to help them close a deal. Over time, you should look to reduce the amount of time you spend being the expert and increase the time you spend being a manager and a leader. Try to aim for a 40/40/20 split between leader, manager and expert. If you can ach...

If you've been a leader for at least a few months, you’re probably beginning to notice a few things about your “new normal”. These might include: •    There are different facets of your role •    You need to use a different approach in different situations at work •    You still do your “day job” •    You feel that you have more to do, but no extra time to do it in. But that’s life…! Now you’ve recognised these things, it’s time to start thinking about the different elements of your role (I like to call them “personas”), which to employ each, and what that looks like. Persona 1: Leader Being a leader is about setting the vision for your team. It’s about know where you are as a group and where you want to get to. It’s also about thinking about what needs to happen to achieve that. This is about knowing your vision and making sure every decision you make supports that vision. It’s the leader who thinks about setting motivational ...

As a leader, you often don't benefit from the same level as support as your team do. For that reason, you need to be a little more self-sufficient about developing your own skills. Here are some ideas to help you do that... There are 2 topics in this article: Asking for feedback Proactively developing new skills How to ask for feedback Most people would agree, that when it’s delivered well and fairly, feedback is incredibly helpful. Our definition of feedback at Navanter is: Shining a light on something, positive or negative, that the other person isn’t aware of, and the impact their actions is having on their work. If you take this definition, then you should always want feedback, because it stops you doing things which make you look bad, and it gets you the appreciation and recognition you deserve when you do something well. Feedback is also just one person’s view on something, and not necessarily a balanced assessment of your performance. To ask for feedback (and use it), you sh...

Here's the next part of our series on leadership skills... There's an ongoing trend in organisations at the moment for decisions do be made further down the organisation where appropriate. As a leader, you’re going to need to take decisions, either alone or with others, so you’ll need to techniques in this section to ensure your decision is a strong one. The Impact-Ability matrix This is a particularly helpful tool to take the subjectiveness out of making decisions. It helps you to take an unbiased view by considering two elements: The impact your chosen path will have on the team, organisation or problem. How easy it will be to action the decision once made. The matrix is a simple 4-box grid: You plot your options on the grid according to the two axes, then you select the option(s) nearest to the top-right corner as your “good ideas” to take forward. Identifying risks So you’ve made your decision… except you haven’t tested it at all to check for problems. A major consideration...

Running an engaging meeting Unfortunately, if you ask most people in any organisation, they’ll likely tell you that they attend too many meetings. The first key element in an engaging meeting is knowing what the meeting needs to achieve. If you don’t spell this out, then the meeting lacks direction, drags on too long, and people don’t see the point in being there. Desired Outcome Statement A Desired Outcome Statement is a short, SMART (Specific, Measurable, Agreed-upon, Realistic, Time-constrained) statement which shows you what you want to happen at the end of your meeting. An example could be: By the end of this meeting, we will have an agreement on the current status of our sales, and five actions to give sales a boost. Having a statement of this sort in place at the beginning of planning for your meeting enables you to build the entire event with this in mind, including: Setting the topic Inviting the right people Engaging the right people in advance Considering th...

Welcome back as we finish our journey through the different personality styles of the Navanter Personality Styles Instrument. If you missed the previous parts of this section, you can start here . To take the NPSI test yourself, visit this page . Motivation: Quality and reliability There’s only one way to do something as an Investigator , and that’s the way which is most likely to achieve strong results with a minimum amount of risk, even if this means a longer process. “Shortcut” doesn’t appear in the Investigator’s vocabulary – if a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing properly. Words chosen: Precise and detailed language where appropriate Investigators are not particularly verbose under normal circumstances, preferring instead to take a step back and observe rather than rushing in with solutions to problems. However, when something is said, it’s important that it’s said clearly, and Investigators are skilled at using precise language in order to communicate an exact ...

Welcome back as we continue our journey through the different personality styles of the Navanter Personality Styles Instrument. If you missed the previous parts of this section, you can start here . Motivation: Low-pressure and comfort for others The Harmoniser is motivated less by their own feelings of comfort and inclusion, but that of people around them. Harmonisers want to help others where possible, and make an environment in which others feel comfortable and are free to thrive. This desire to make others comfortable means that Harmonisers prefer not to assert themselves, but to give others space to shape their roles and lives. Words chosen: Inclusive language creating a shared journey Harmonisers prefer not to ask others to do what they wouldn’t attempt themselves, and this desire manifests itself in their inclusive approach to communication. The Harmoniser prefers “we” to “you”, and speaks in a way which coaches others to find their own goals. Tone of voice...