The Knowledge Bites blog - grow your skills

If you’ve been effectively following the principles outlined so far in this series, then you’ll automatically be making progress in breaking down silos which exist. You can now bring this all together into thinking about the relationships you have across the organisation to improve communication and collaboration. Understanding where your team fits in In order to widen your professional network within the organisation, you need to think about the people you rely on and the people who rely on you. This creates a very simple workflow to use as a basis for building your internal professional network. As you complete this diagram, you need to think about: •    Who your team relies on •    What your team does •    Who relies on your team •    Who the key stakeholders are on each side of the map Once you understand this information, you can think about who would be the most suitable people to have in your internal network. What i...

If you've been following this series of posts, you now have your clear vision for the team. That means that you can now work to make your team gel by developing a team identity around this vision, and the way the individuals in the team would like to operate. A key element of this is the development of a Team Charter – this is a document, created by the team members together, which maps out how the team will operate. It brings a number of advantages: Team members feel “bought in” to the success of the team Greater adherence to “rules” as everyone has had input into their development Mindset that it’s “our” team, rather than “the leader’s team” Team charters are flexible documents which should be reviewed annually, or whenever there’s a major change in the team’s make-up, such as new members joining. The elements of a team charter Whilst there’s no set way to create a team charter, there are some areas which are useful to consider when developing this agreement. These include: Why ...

In a previous blog post, I reminded you of the important skills you have as a leader . Now it’s time to think about the team and the impact you’d like them to have. You need to think about which other parts of the organisation benefit from what your team does. Consider the value you bring. Put yourself in the shoes of these other parts of the organisation, and ask yourself. "In an ideal world, what additional value would these parts of the organisation want to gain from the people I manage?" This should become your over-arching goal for the team. It’s about bringing value to the organisation, either directly, or in collaboration with others in the business. Then, consider what it would mean if you achieved this additional value, for you, for your team, and for the organisation. Your vision statement is a sentence which describes this desired future state, written from the perspective of it being a goal for you: "By [date], we will be [what you’ll be doing] in order to [v...

 In this week's tip, we'll look at how to recognise and overcome self-limiting beliefs as a leader. Before you work on your team vision, it’s important to remind yourself of what you’re capable of, and to remove any self-limiting beliefs. A self-limiting belief is a belief you have about yourself which puts an artificial ceiling on what you can achieve, by draining your own self-confidence in your role. Self-limiting beliefs can come from many places, such as: Past experiences Comments by others Values we inherit The media & social media The way we compare ourselves to others Breaking d...

Welcome to the first in a series of blog posts about what it means (and what it takes) to be a leader. In order to lead successfully, you need to know why you are a leader, and the value you bring to others. To help you to know this, you can create a Leadership Statement of Purpose . This is a short phrase which reminds you why you’re a leader, reaffirms that you have what it takes to be successful, and focuses you on the impact you have on stakeholders across the organisation. It’s made up of 3 elements: Your Unique Leadership Combination Your values Your impact on different stakeholders Element 1: Your ULC A Unique Leadership Combination is what makes you stand out from the crowd. It’s a combination of your knowledge, your experience, and the professional insights you can provide, which make you unique in the workplace from every other RSL and every other employee. Think back over your career to date and imagine you're putting together your CV for a leadership position. Ask yours...

 At Navanter Knowledge Bites, one of our areas of expertise is team-building and conflict resolution. In a way, these are two sides of the same coin: teams become more effective as they become more cohesive teams become less effective if conflict is present Both cohesion and conflict within a team environment are driven by individuals' senses of self-worth. Effective teamwork, therefore, is driven by people's contribution to feelings of self-worth in team-mates. Unfortunately, it's hard enough to understand what contributes to our own feelings of self-worth, without having to worry about other people's as well. And this is where the SDI® (Strength Deployment Inventory®) comes in. This well-respected tool helps individual's to understand their motivators in work, relationships and personal development, as well as opening windows to others' motivational values. By working through a self-assessment and numerous hands-on exercises, participants in an SDI® session un...

By Neil Shorney, Director of Navanter Knowledge Bites . Time to read: 2 minutes. My last strategy for you in this little series on remote management, is about one of the biggest problems of managers of remote teams: how to motivate people from a distance. We all know what motivation is – it’s the feeling we have when we really want to do something, which drives us forward, and helps us to work more quickly and efficiently. What’s sometimes less understood is what it actually means to motivate other people. From a management and leadership perspective, motivating others is about taking positive, decisive actions to create feelings of motivation and desire to achieve, in another person. And whilst there are certainly some general things you can do to motivate groups of people, such as sharing the organisational strategy, giving feedback and thanking people, motivation is much more effective when people are treated as individuals who have specific motivational needs. Because people are in...