Enhance.training: Recent Episodes
Enhance.training
Want to learn and develop more skills to propel your career or business forward? The Enhance.training team share our business knowledge built up over decades of working with top business including Innocent Drinks, Cadburys, Unilever, PA Consulting and many more.
When you master internal networking, increased number of and better relationships within your organisation enable you to do a better job AND help you get promoted much faster than peers.
How to master networking for top personal performance – I am sharing 5 practical actions I have been using for years. I got 13 promotions all the way up to board level, in part, because of how I networked internally.
You can gain the relationships and reputation to achieve similar levels of success with good intelligent networking.
How to network brilliantly starts with knowing and believing how important relationships are to your success. The more relationships and the stronger those relationships are, the more influence you will hold within your organisation. Master internal networking in your business to increase your influence.
Next, for how to network brilliantly in your business avoid 3 key networking mistakes that many make. Networking is not the same as intelligent networking with purpose. You are probably time poor, so maximising the time and effort invested is sensible.
Then I share 5 key actions for networking in the workplace. For effective networking at work, you should be systematic and authentic to build your network.
Networking is another vital communication and relationship building skill that will help you improve personal and team performance.
If you have any questions on “Master internal networking to do a better job and be promoted faster” please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
Learning diplomatic communication has a very direct impact on your ability to manage and lead teams and do a good job. Master the art of diplomatic communication and you can speak directly and be appreciated by everyone.
I share 5 diplomatic practices that any manager and leader should work at getting good at for being diplomatic, to improve communication skills, to build stronger relationships and to increase team performance.
Building diplomacy at work is vital to win promotion quicker and get a lot more done compared to less diplomatic peers.
Being diplomatic or build diplomatic skills - at heart - is about maintaining constructive relationships and preserving trust and cooperation. Very few people work in isolation.
How to be diplomatic at work starts with understanding the other parties’ interests, ambitions, motives and pressures. When you understand, you can tell it how it is without offending or speak your mind without upsetting or offending.
Being diplomatic at work is NOT about being nice, buttering people up, always agreeing etc. How to speak diplomatically is avoiding taking sides too quickly. Find out the context of requests, of complaints, of decisions before taking sides.
Diplomacy at work is learning how to disagree without upsetting, offending, causing offense or angering. How to talk diplomatically is using neutral language rather than works or statements that inflame, annoy, or push hot buttons.
Finally diplomatic communication is learning how to communicate your emotions in a constructive and aligned way to support your message rather than conflict with it.
If you have any questions on “Diplomatic Communication – Speak Directly & Be Appreciated By Everyone”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
If you are worried about making mistakes at work, these 12 actions will help you stop making mistakes at work and overcome your fear of making mistakes at work.
Making mistakes it NOT a problem in itself. WHEN you make mistakes and WHAT you do about those mistakes is the difference between being perceived as reliable, dependable and producing high quality work and being the opposite.
Firstly, to stop making mistakes at work, you need to create time or prioritise time to do one very important action. How you create time to reduce mistakes is important. You don’t want to annoy or create a reputation for being difficult to work with.
If you are thinking “How do I stop my mistakes?” I share the best actions I know to end mistake making for good, or at least the mistakes that damage reputations and relationships.
You will make mistakes. Everyone does. The best performers know that not all mistakes are equal – in fact they are usually very unequal! Limit you mistakes to the areas that have low impact, low visibility and low knock on consequences. Areas with high impact, high visibility and significant consequences – you have to stop making mistakes.
Another really important fact - making mistakes leads to success IF you LEARN from each of your mistakes and do something better the next time. Real success is built on mistakes. Mistakes are part of the learning process.
If you have any questions on “BEST Actions To STOP MISTAKES At Work + How To Overcome Your Mistakes”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
Building resilience gives you a huge advantage if you want to become good at anything in life. With a lot of resilience, you reach tough demanding goals. Resilience transforms leaders because leading others is a hard, tough job where you get plenty of knocks, setbacks and disappointments.
Learn 4 practical approaches to INCREASE your resilience. Give yourself multiple paths or routes to making all the challenges, setbacks, disappointments and failures feel a lot less daunting and be less painful
Build resilience to be a successful manager! As a manager, all the knocks are magnified and multiplied. Resilience helps you get back on your feet, dust yourself down AND it helps you learn quicker. For these reasons, resilience for managers is a huge competitive advantage. You will simply pull ahead of your less resilient peers.
The path to becoming good at something involves disappointments, setbacks and failures. Without resilience you give up because carrying on feels too hard, too painful. Build resilience for management success
How resilience transforms leaders is the mindset and approach to challenge, adversity and setbacks. Resilient leaders do get down, stuck or defeated for long. Leader resilience at work shows in the speed at which these managers and leaders learn, improve and get on with their jobs in a positive way.
Build resilience to enable you to become great at what you choose in life!
If you have any questions on “Resilience Transforms Leaders – How To Become an Unstoppable Manager”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
How To Unlock Faster Career Progression Without Needing To Work Crazy Hours? Getting Promoted Way Faster Than Your Competition Is NOT About Putting In More Hours, Or Being Better Than Them, Or Sucking Up To Your Boss.
I share 5 brilliant approaches that will speed up your next promotion and your career progress for years to come.
The first critical strategy for faster career progression is to create and capture your achievements. If you do the same as everyone else you will be average at best and invisible in terms of promotion. Be proactive. Don’t be passive. I share key actions you can take to build up impressive achievements for your specific level.
The second critical strategy to unlock faster career progression is develop your successors. Far too many managers don’t have the confidence to take this step and it hinders them getting promotion. This is key to getting promoted, give you more time AND to improve team performance. Succession planning is critical.
Next to be promoted ahead of all your peers you need to win your boss’s support. Your boss can be any amazing advocate for your promotion, or they can absolutely kill your promotion prospects. I share 5 key actions to win your boss’s support.
Next, you do need to actively market yourself. The more senior you become the more vital this stage is. I take about how to do this without appearing self-serving, crass or too obvious.
Finally, the last approach is probably the most important of all. If you don’t do this step well, getting promoted simply will not happen.
If you have any questions on “How To Unlock Faster Career Progression – Get Promoted Way Faster”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
Teams and people don’t listen to job titles. They listen to leaders they know, like, trust and want to follow. I am sharing 5 powerful changes that instantly get your team listening to you.
These 5 powerful changes work so effectively because they play directly to human behaviour and group dynamics.
Why isn’t my team listening to me? It is frustrating, painful and insulting when a team or team members don’t listen to what you tell them or ask them. To get team members listening to you, one of best actions you can take immediately, is invest some time to listen more to your own team members. Listening is a basic curtesy. Listen to them and they feel obliged to listen to you. This simple investment works brilliantly. This is a key leadership listening skills
Why staff don't listen to you might be because how you communicate is hard to follow and understand. I have listened to many managers and leaders who are NOT concise, take a long time to say their key point, with rambling statements. If this is you, it is probably why team members don't listen to you. It is too much hard work. I share 5 key tips to change this situation for you.
The third change is a very simple change. It takes about 10 seconds after you have said your piece, and it produces great results. Over time it changes behaviour, builds authority and helps build trust with teams.
The fourth change is providing the clear context with everything you say. This has a ton of benefits for the listener and makes it a lot more likely they will listen to you.
Developing the skill to get teams and team members listening carefully to you and then taking action will help you massively in increasing team performance.
If you have any questions on “5 Powerful Changes That Instantly Gets Your Team Listening To You”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
Build top delegation skills and you will achieve more in less time than 9/10 managers. To have a successful management career you have to learn how to produce your best work through others.
Learn top delegation skills and you will be managing more and more people and they will be doing the work. Don’t learn delegation skills very well and you will be stuck doing a lot of the work yourself as a junior manager. Which appeals to you more?
I share 5 great actions to delegate brilliantly
To assess your delegation skill and for more resources on improving your delegation skills quickly, type enhance.training/2c2 into your browser
To delegate better than 90%+ of managers you have to get to know your team well. Not just their birthdays and interests outside of work. I share 7 areas you should assess your team in to enable you to treble your delegation effectiveness. This is the first step to improving team performance in any situation with any team.
Next, to delegate better than 90%+ of managers it is very important to think carefully about what to delegate to whom. There is not a formula for how to delegate effectively, but you should consider 6 important factors. Improve in this area alone, and team performance will increase. Good effective delegation increases speed of work and quality standards which is how you achieve more in less time vs 90% of managers.
Next to delegate better than 9/10 of managers, carefully define the goals and more importantly plan how to achieve them. I give you tips on both.
Next for how to delegate work as a leader, I talk about context and resources should be used to improve your delegation and the outcomes your team produces.
Finally, I cover the art of following up, which is an area far too many managers struggle with for a variety of reasons.
If you have any questions on “Top Delegation Skills – Achieve More In Less Time Than 9 out of 10 Managers”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
Conflict in teams create a lot of drama and is a big distraction for everyone. I am sharing 4 powerful actions to prevent conflict in teams
A lot of conflict in the workplace can be prevented, and you are in a brilliant position to minimise conflict. Less conflict means better team performance. Great for your team, business and you
For Resourses to stop conflict = enhance.training/2f2
Every team and organisation suffers conflicts. In the best teams, these conflicts are minor and very short lived. In underperforming teams, big conflicts hang around and cause major problems.
To prevent conflict in your team, or as much of it as possible, the first action is to create a lot of alignment. This means that everyone in your team knows exactly what is expected of them and each other, where the boundaries of responsibility start and stop. To reduce conflict in your team further, get everyone clearly moving in the same direction with common shared goals. This will reduce conflict between team members.
Communication is another powerful tool to stop conflict in teams and reduce conflict at work. Understand the other person position through talking to them, and incorrect assumptions and unspoken frustrations are reduced or removed.
I share 5 practical steps for conflict resolution in the workplace. This is brilliant for manage conflict between team members and how to manage conflict in a team.
If you have any questions on “Stop Team Drama Fast – 4 Powerful Actions To Prevent Conflict In Teams”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
To turn difficult employees into great employees, interdependent steps are needed. Improving beats removing hands down (less effort, faster, less risky & more). Too many managers have not been taught what to do to get improvement.
Doing a few actions or taking a piecemeal approach does NOT turn difficult employees into good employees, as most managers find out.
Learn what you need to do and why each step is important to building pressure and enabling change and improvement.
In my experience it is very worth trying to turn difficult employees into good employees. If you start knowing 9 out of 10 people want to do a good job AND that there are 6 main barriers in the way to improvement, then making the effort feels more sensible.
Any time you manage difficult employees, it is not easy. Even having the first conversation is pretty daunting (even after you are used to them!). I have found making these conversations straight forward is all in the preparation. Take a few straightforward steps in the right other, and the team member expects you to speak to them.
How to deal with difficult employees starts with setting expectations. This can feel obvious yet actually setting really expectations is not nearly as straight forward as most managers would expect. Hence, plenty of manager don’t set clear expectations when they think they have.
Turning difficult employees into great team members is 100% in your interests and much easier, quicker, more enjoyable and less risky than removing them. Why go through all the extra hassle and pain to get a similar result?
The next challenge is that one or two actions won’t create much change. To get improvement you need to approach your difficult employee with a campaign of interdependent (linked) actions. To turn difficult employees into good team members, I share 8 interdependent actions to take.
If you have any questions on “Brilliant Steps to Turn Difficult Employees Into Great Employees”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
The most visible managers aren’t just “competent” – they display visible, repeatable behaviours that signal leadership potential and business impact.
I share 6 differentiating behaviours for mangers to be noticed by everyone AND avoid being average as a manager.
The behaviours to stand out as a manager start with building courage. Managers need to be courageous to stand out. For example, it takes courage to speak up when you have a different opinion from the rest of the room. Be brave to stand out. I explain tips to build that courage.
Group think – where everyone agrees because they don’t want to be different is one of example of why being safe makes you invisible. Also average equals invisible in the eyes of senior managers. For how to stand out in your company, be yourself. Have your own ideas, views and opinions and express them.
For how to stand out as a manager, start by owning the bigger picture. That is always keeping in mind the function and company goals and work hard towards achieving those goals with everything you do. This alone is a great for how to stand out at work.
Another important differentiating behaviour that makes you much more effective at work is building strong relationships ACROSS the business. For managers this helps you increase team performance as you get more support for your team, resources when you need them and suffer less blockages.
For all 6 differentiating behaviours for mangers to be noticed by everyone, including practical tips to do each every day, watch the video.
If you have any questions on “6 Differentiating Behaviours For Managers To Be NOTICED By EVERYONE” please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
Become a great negotiator at work and get what you want and need to be successful. How well you negotiate defines what you work on; what goals, objectives and targets you have to hit; and the resources available to you and your team to deliver what has been asked of you.
Personal and career success is resting on your negotiation skills.
I share 6 tried and tested approaches to improve your negotiation skills and to make getting what you want at work so straight forward it almost feels like cheating.
** Coaching Options https://enhance.coach/leadership-coaching-directors-managers-culp002/
To be a brilliant negotiator at work, start with being very clear about what you want. What are the goals or outcomes that you want from the negotiation. Be specific, quantifiable and clear, NOT vague, general or unclear. This is core to be able to get what you want at work.
The next negotiation technique is to understand the negotiating field. That is both the boundaries that you have to operate within (imposed by your company) AND what the other party wants. There is a ton you can do to work out the other sides goals. This informs your negotiation strategy and negotiation tactics.
Negotiating at work should involve asking a lot of questions and listening. You want the other party talking about what they want. The more you know about what they want, the better your negotiating approach will become. This is another one of those key negotiation strategies.
How to negotiate must also include trading options rather than just saying yes or conceding. You have a ton of variables to work with, and I explain how to use them to get what you want at work.
If you have any questions about “Become A Great Negotiator – Be Amazing At Getting What You Want At Work”, please email at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
How to create a hard working team to deliver more is about creating motivating ENVIRONMENTS rather than increasing pressure. More team hours worked often does not move the “value produced” dial much UNLESS you combine it with another important action.
I share 4 approaches that motivate your team to work hard because they WANT to work hard
The goals and expectations you set for a team determine how hard they will work. It is like telling a runner they have a race the next day or telling a runner they have a 10km race the next day and they need to finish it within 45mins. Goals drive planning, which in turn drives work levels. Goals are part of the picture to persuade your team to work hard. There is a art to setting goals. Setting any arbitrary goal won’t motivate and might even be de-motivating.
You want your team to WANT to work harder. Trying to force them or pressurise them to work hard rarely works on its own. If fact you often get less work i.e. it is counterproductive. A hard working team that creates a lot of value chooses to work hard.
A team will only work as hard as its manager. If you don’t work hard, there is zero chance of your team working hard. What you WORK ON is just as important. Show you are working for the team rather than for you.
The leader of a team has a HUGE influence on the success of a team. The leader creates the environment, the rules and the expectations. It is like a micro-climate within a larger climate (or company culture). There is a ton of thing you can do to push your team to work harder while motivating them, keeping them very happy, and significantly increasing the value produced by the team.
Finally, nothing stops a person working harder than when they feel unfairly treated. Balance is really important. In fact, the best managers offer slightly more to the team than they ask from the team.
If you have any questions on “How to Create a Hard Working Team WITHOUT Demotivating Or Upsetting”, leave email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
“Work hard and you will get promoted” is a big lie. I am covering why hard work doesn’t get you to the top and what to do to get promoted.
In my career, I was promoted 13 times in as many years, from trainee all the way to board director level of a large company. I share how to be promoted as a high performer.
Firstly, there are three huge reasons why hard workers don't get promoted. Being brilliant at your current job doesn’t mean you will be brilliant at the next level. If you don’t demonstrate your ability (or potential) at the next level, it is so much easier for your boss to keep you where you are. This is why high performers don't get promoted just because they are good at their current job.
Why top performers don't get promoted can also be about the strength of their relationship with their boss. You need your boss’s support. If you don’t have it, that is a classic reason why you are not promoted. This can also be why top performers don't get promoted.
Even more important: 5 actions / tactics you should put into practice today for how to get promoted at work. These are very effective (I was promoted 13 times) and should be used at EVERY LEVEL from trainee to board director.
Hard work doesn’t equal success. It is NOT the hours that you put in that count. What you do with those hours DOES count a lot. The more value (/profit) you can create for business, aligned to business goals and needs, the quicker you will get promoted. It is that simple.
I know personally, how valuable moving teams and business closer to their goals are in the eyes of bosses thinking about who should be promoted next. Communication of the value that you create is a very close second to actually creating that value. If bosses don’t know about it, they can’t appreciate it. Proactively and regularly communicate to bosses to put yourself in contention for promotion.
IF you have any questions on “Why Hard Work Doesn't Get You To The Top – What To Do To Get Promoted”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you
Jess Coles
enhance.training
Facilitating high-output meetings is one of the most important tools a manager has to increase team motivation, culture and performance.
Learn exactly how to facilitate meetings that really drive team performance while saving you a ton of precious time. You can use these group facilitation skills to get the best from any group: facilitate workshops, facilitate groups, facilitate teams at work.
How to be a good facilitator in a meeting starts with being really clear about the purpose of the meeting. Defining and communicating the meeting purpose can easily reduce the meeting time by 20-40% and still get the results you need. When facilitating groups at work this will save you a ton of time over every month and year.
The next part of how to facilitate group discussions is to create clear structure for the discussion. Without structure the discussion and meeting will drift, go off on tangents and waste time and energy. I share 5 important sections to include when facilitating group discussions.
When you facilitate group problem solving, or facilitate group discussions, how you start the meeting will determine if attendees believe the meeting will be useful or just another waste of time. I explain exactly how to start meetings to instantly get attendees focused, energised and moving in the direction you need. Very important for effective meeting facilitation.
To become a great facilitator or be a great facilitator, I share six vital techniques to control the meeting and to keep the group focused and moving towards achieving the meetings goals. These meeting facilitation tips will help any manager or leader get more from each meeting.
If you have any questions on “The Time‑Strapped Manager’s Guide to FACILITATING High‑Output Meetings”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
I am sharing the best first time manager tactics I know. I wish I had been more aware of and more focused on these tactics from the start of my management career. I would have progressed faster, with a lot less effort and stress.
Included are over 30 practical actions that you can put into practice today in this new manager success guide.
In this first time manager success guide, we discuss how your new role is more about enabling others to be successful than focusing on doing the work yourself. This is one the best new manager leadership tactics you can employ.
You will still have a lot of work to do directly yourself – you probably still have most of your old job. To enable you to manage, delegate as much as you can and help others do as good a job as you did. This is some of the best new manager advice to give.
Another of the essential new manager actions is to focus on building trust. This is even more important to consciously do for first time managers. When others trust, they are much happier to follow your lead.
Another of my best new manager tips is to focus on creating clear goals and expectations for the team. This takes courage, confidence and working with your boss. The clearer the goals and expectations you can communicate, the safer, more engaged and better performing your team will be.
Communication is another key area. Far too managers don’t communicate enough. New managers should aim to communicate twice as much as they think they need to. How you communicate is also vital. I share a ton of my best new manager tips on communication.
Another of my best first time manager advice is to focus on feedback for your team. Employees love and desperately want feedback. Feedback provides safety, development, and another communication tool to your team. Aim to provide feedback at least every day to team members.
Finally, I have 7 areas you should find out about for each of your team members. Get to know your team well. The better you know your team, the more likely you will be able to get team performance increasing. I explain why.
If you have any questions on “Best First Time Managers Tactics - New Manager Success Guide” please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
Keeping your team engaged through change is not easy. The longer the change takes to implement, the harder it is to implement or the less clear the benefits of changing, the harder it is navigate your team through change successfully.
I share 5 ways to keep your team engaged through change & performing well.
Leading a team through change starts with explaining why change is being made. The why reduces resistance, increases acceptance and motivates. Changing takes effort. Explaining the why is essential when taking teams through change. I share a lot of tips on how to do explain the why at the start of the change process.
To keep teams engaged through change it is really important to find out and understand their fears. Every person in your team will have something to gain and something to lose personally. Find out what these are. This is a really important part of the change management process. I share tips on how best to find their fears.
To successfully create change in the workplace, tackle the teams fears openly and honestly. This part of navigating change at work is daunting. In most cases, this part of managing a team through change is easier than many managers fear. Do a lot listening and you will be halfway to succeeding when making a change at work.
To keep a team focused through change break down every big change into a number of smaller changes. This is psychologically much easier to deal with.
Finally, when managing teams through change, keeping them accountable for the change needed is pretty important. I share how to do this effectively.
If you have any questions on “5 Ways to Keep Your Team Engaged Through Change & Performing Well”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
To be more visible at work, I am sharing 10 practical senior leadership visibility tips. To stand out at work, to get noticed at work, you need more than hard work.
Use these tips to increase your visibility at work by creating a clear and effective plan and put this INTO ACTION.
This is how to stand out at work, regardless of your current position – trainee all the way through to senior management.
Before we talk about how to be more visible at work, it is important to know and believe that in general better visibility in the workplace means more influence, more impact and faster promotion.
Creating visibility at work, to be more visible with senior leaders, is about developing specific communication skills. Anyone can become more visible at work. You don’t need to be super confident or have a special set of skills to start improving your visibility. You just need to know what to do and then take action.
To increase your visibility with senior leadership, focus on the work, activities and projects they actually care about. This may seem obvious yet so few managers really put this into practice in reality. Find out exactly what you bosses care about. I share tactics and tips on how to achieve this.
Next in how to build visibility at work, aim to solve your leaders’ problems. This is a brilliant way to be noticed at work for all the right reasons. I share how you should go about finding and solving your boss’s problems.
To become more visible at work, consciously and deliberately educate your bosses and leaders on the work you do and the results you achieve. Be proactive. Plan out how you are going to educate and take action. I share the methods and tactics I have used over two decades and 13 promotions to achieve this. This is great for career advancement.
I also share 10 practical actions that you should be using every week to increase your visibility with senior leadership. Each of these has worked brilliantly for me.
If you have any questions on “Be More Visible At Work – Practical Senior Leadership Visibility Tips”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
How to be confident in work meetings is what we are covering. Use these 5 actions so you become very happy to contribute in work meetings and stand out in work meetings.
You will have a clear path to gain the confidence for speaking up in work meetings, with really practical actions you can start using immediately.
How to contribute in meetings start with being clear on the value you can bring. There will be a least one or two areas (probably a lot more) that you will know a lot more than anyone else. When you are clear on the value you will be much clearer on how to be more confident in business meetings. I share 7 questions to ask yourself to find your high value areas to add to work meetings.
Next, I take you through the preparation to be confident in business meetings. Most people don’t or can’t do much or any preparation before the meeting. A little preparation goes a long way as a result. I share 5 more questions you can ask yourself – another of the ways to be more confident in meetings at work.
After doing your preparation, to be confident in meetings, and to impress in work meetings, how you deliver your information is important. A few minutes practice before the meeting will massively boost your confidence in work meetings and develop your speaking skills.
Finally, I take you through 8 important techniques to speak well and demonstrate your confident in work meetings. Do each of these actions and you will present very well even when you are nervous or slightly intimidated by important people in the room.
IF you have any questions on “Be Confident In Work Meetings – How To Speak Up, Stand Out & Impress”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
Shout about your team wins at work. Praise your team to your boss. Too many managers stay silent and hope their bosses notice their good performance
If you don’t communicate your team wins at work, you are going to get lost amongst the sea of hard working people.
Shout about your team achievements and your team progress.
Some managers shout too often and too loudly about themselves. This creates more problems and creates visibility for the wrong reasons. Instead shout about your team at work. Everyone appreciates managers shouting about team members.
Very importantly – a manager’s performance is their team’s performance. Shouting about team wins to your boss and others is indirectly shouting about yourself. A much better route to self-promotion.
Create a plan about how to shout about team progress at work and action it. Bosses and stakeholders expect you to shout about your team wins. This is part of good communication in a business. Create opportunities to shout about how your team has done.
I would suggest you communicate wins to boss and team a few times a week. How you do this is important.
I share 5 really important actions to take to carefully and clearly shout about your team wins without coming across as promoting yourself. It is really important bosses and stakeholder LINK actions taken by your team to the success and results they deliver. How you communicate and shout about your team creates those links.
If you have any questions or comments on “Shout About Your Team Wins At Work – Praise Your Team To Your Boss”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you
Jess Coles
enhance.training
Passive team management is damaging to team performance. In my experience, over 50% of managers are TOO passive, and as a result their teams struggle to reach targets.
I share 5 actions every manager should do well to improve team performance and be show active team management.
Many passive team managers feel like that are adopting a hands off approach to empower the team yet their passive behaviour leaves the team confused, unsupported and disengaged.
I have worked alongside plenty of board directors that display passive leadership and a very passive management style whose teams struggled to improve in any meaningful way. My point – passive team management happens throughout the management ranks. There are too many passive managers, in part because they have not been taught what good active management looks like.
I share 10 signs that you might have too much of a passive management style. By reducing these behaviours you join the group of more active team managers.
There are a lot of dangers of passive team management, such as lower co-ordination and teamwork. These dangers stop your team performing nearly as well as they might. Active managers avoid these dangers by having a much more involved team management approach.
Finally, I take you through 5 actions you should do more of right now for better active management. These actions are a great starting point and ANY manager can do them. The better you do these actions, the more likely your team will beat targets.
If you have any questions on “Passive Team Management – Why Your Team Is Struggling to Reach Targets”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
I share 3 methods to improve strategic thinking skills for managers. Demonstrating strategic thinking skills, as a manager, opens doors and elevates you in your boss’s eyes. You can help them solve some of their biggest problems.
The first of the methods to build strategic thinking skills starts with the patterns around you. The more you work to understand the context of the team, function and business that you are in – big picture thinking if you will – the more equipped you will be for how to improve strategic thinking skills. Think about your company strategy and how it fits into this landscape. Does your company strategy enable the company to win? Does it provide clear advantage? How do you and your team help support and implement the company strategy?
The second of the methods to build strategic thinking is all about your mindset. The more curious and open you are to others ideas, views and outlooks the more equipped you will be to deal with the uncertainty and ambiguity of strategic thinking. How to improve strategic thinking is in part how to improve your openness and willingness to see the world through different eyes.
Lastly, in how to think strategically, and to actually influence and impact company strategy, structured thinking and problem solving is pretty vital. You have to bring a lot of people with you. Creating clear structure to your thinking and to the build up of your strategy ideas and direction will massively help you get agreement and alignment behind your ideas.
If you have any questions on “3 Methods To Improve Strategic Thinking Skills For Managers”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you
Jess Coles
enhance.training
I am sharing 5 proven practical ways to build collaboration in your team. The higher the collaboration in your team, the higher the team performance. There is a lot you can do to build team collaboration.
I take you through the actions for cultivating collaboration in teams.
If you don’t have trust, you don’t have a team. To create team collaboration you first have to build trust. I share 8 proven ways to build trust in teams to get high levels of team collaboration. The leader of the team has a huge influence on the levels of trust in a team.
Next, to improve team collaboration and get great team collaboration you need a lot of communication. Without communication there is not collaboration. Show the team how to communicate. Demonstrate what you expect of them and keep encouraging high levels of communication.
The next of the actions to improve collaboration in teams is to help or persuade the team to work together. Create lots of opportunities for team members to work with each other. Ge them talking, problem solving, planning etc.
The next of the actions to build collaboration in teams is to build a helping team culture. There is a process to achieve these which needs a bit of work and discipline. Creating a helping team culture is one of the best ways to build collaboration in your team.
The final of the actions to encourage collaboration in teams is to remove conflicts in teams quickly. Conflict stops collaboration in the team. Step in to resolve conflicts quickly.
If you have any questions on “5 Ways To Build Collaboration In Your Team To Step Change Performance”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
Top managers create clear direction in their teams to be able to consistently beat team targets. How top managers create clear direction is exactly what I am sharing today.
As I am sure you have worked out, creating clear direction in teams in not straight forward or easy. It takes work to set clear team direction. What you get back in improved performance is worth every single minute spent.
Learn the top six ways for how top managers create clear team direction
How top managers create clear team direction starts with choosing one way (or less than 5) to measure or define direction. Most companies have a lot of data. There are so many different ways of measuring progress, it can be tempting to follow lots. Don’t. To create clear team direction choose one.
Next for how the best managers create clear direction, managers translate company strategy into simple language. People don’t follow what they don’t understand. Jargon or corporate speak is not useful. Make sure each individual in your team has targets and goals they can relate to aligned to company and team direction. Essential for setting team direction.
In communicating clear team direction, you can’t say your message once and expect it to be enough. People lead busy lives and there are a ton of distractions every single day. Keep repeating your message to set clear direction and for instilling team direction
Next in giving direction to teams work to foster engagement and buy-in from the team. I share really practical tips on how to achieve this fairly quickly.
Always keep your direction and any KPIs you use visible. Keep reminding the team every day and week about progress and the goals.
If you have any questions on £How Top Managers Create Clear Direction To Consistently Beat Targets” please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
I am sharing 7 great ways to handle employee push back on ideas, solutions and requests.
It can feel like a massive drag, difficult and even undermining when you get challenge from employees. Team member push back sucks up your energy and time. Turn what could be a hassle into incredibly valuable feedback that can easily double the value you create as a manager.
I share the best ways to deal with team member push back – constructive AND undermining
How to deal with team member push back starts with thinking about all the different reasons employees push back. Sometimes they do it for negative reasons. MOST of the time it is because they don’t understand, they have different idea or solution, or they have spotted something wrong.
There are loads of ways to handle team member push back really constructively, so you and they get something from the exchange.
You should never let a team member damage manager authority through publicly undermining you or trying to make you look silly. Towards the end I share 4 vital ways to stop employees undermining manager authority.
I think as a manager you WANT challenge from employees and constructive push back. I know helps you do a much better job as a manager. To ensure you get the right kind of push back, I share what you should do to encourage it WHILE in parallel stop employees undermining your authority. The more negative push back you prevent, the less you have to deal with.
I share 7 straight forward steps to handle constructive challenge confidently. These are practical actionable steps that I have been using for decades.
How to manage staff who undermine your authority through push back? That starts with asking them questions about why they are challenging or pushing back. I share 3 other really effective steps that will make any team member think twice before they attempt undermining manager authority.
If you have any questions 7 great ways to handle employee push back on ideas, solutions and requests, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
Every time you speak at work, people judge you. By getting into these habits for clearer communication and improving the confidence you display EVERY TIME you talk, you change and improve their perceptions of you
I share 5 habits for clearer speaking, teaching you how to express your thoughts clearly.
The first great habit for clearer communication is to say less. A lot of people say too much. They write or speak what is their head without organising it first. For clearer communication just think about the core message you want to send and focus on that. I share a set of steps to go through to condense down for how to express yourself clearly at work.
The next of the habits to speak coherently is about structuring what you say or write. I share several very simple structures that will help you do just this. Structure helps the other person take in and understand your message without their brain having to run a mental marathon. This is one of most important actions to speak clearly.
The next of the actions to speak coherently is to be explicit. This is obvious yet so much of our speak is not direct or explicit. We hedge. We add in emotional or provocative language. We ask permission. We show deference. Etc etc. We speak unclearly because we are worried about upsetting. Being explicit is a core part of communication skills and one of the great communication tips to focus on and PRACTICE.
Next to communicate clearly create emotional predictability for your audience. This is about reducing distractions, so your audience only has to concentrate on your message.
Put all these communication skills into practice and you will speak with confidence and speak clearly all the time.
If you have any questions on “5 Habits For Clearer Communication. Actions To Speak Like Top Leaders” please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
Learn exactly how to sound assertive at work. When you speak confidently and assertively, you are more likely to communicate clearly, constructively and get your message heard, taken in and understood.
To help you sound assertive quickly, I am sharing 11 tips to speak confidently at work.
How assertively you speak at work has a direct impact on everyone’s perception of you. The more confident and assertively you speak and communicate, the more willing others will be to do as you ask and follow where you lead.
Being confident and assertive, when backed up by being good at your job, is going to help you progress your career faster than those who are not as confident.
Communication in any job matters more than most people think!
How to be assertive and speak powerfully starts with being very aware of your intend behind the communication. I cover 4 different communication styles. For how to be assertive and confident you want to stick to the assertive style and not use the others. Your mindset drives the styles used.
The first of the tips for confident communication is all about what you do with your message before you speak it. Some mental preplanning is needed. The next of my tips to speak confidently, is to keep the emotional language to a minimum. The next of my tips to instantly sound more confident is use a lot of “I” language. The last of my tips to talk confidently is to remove most (/all) of the deference in your language.
How to be assertive when communicating is also about how you deliver your message. I share 7 tips to talk confidently at work. All of these will help you with how to communicate assertively.
IF you have any questions on “How to sound assertive quickly – 11 tips to speak confidently at work”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
How to establish authority as a manager quickly and effectively without annoying, alienating or upsetting. The more manager authority you have, the quicker you get work done, the quicker others do what you ask, the less push-back you get and more able you are to influence and impact team performance.
I share 5 super important approaches to how to earn authority as a manager quickly, regardless of your job title or confidence levels.
Why increase authority as a manager? In short – it enables you to do a much better job, be more influential, have a great impact and get a ton of personal rewards … when used in the right way.
How to build authority as a manager, without relying on your job title or position, starts with building trusting relationships. With good relationships, you will be a lot more persuasive to those people, get a lot more help, get a lot more done, … in short be much more likely to have a performing team. This is massively important to gaining authority as a manager.
To increase your authority as a manager make the time to understand the team and the situation in depth. When you really understand the problems being faced, you can create good solutions. Jump into action too fast and you risk making poor decisions or making things worse. Exactly what you don’t want when getting authority as a manager.
Publicly removing problems that impact the team is a brilliant way to increase manager authority. You demonstrate 4 key areas of expertise and show you can help the team. This is great for building authority as a manager.
I explain why consistency of direction and expectations is so important for gaining manager authority. A lot of managers make easily avoided serious mistakes that damage your attempts at getting manager authority. Learn how to avoid these mistakes.
Finally, for how to establish authority as a manager a lot quicker, borrow credibility from your boss, peers and leadership team members. I explain how this dynamic works and give you 5 practical tips you can implement right away to gain authority through your boss and other managers.
If you have any questions on “How to Establish Authority As A Manager Quickly”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
Every team has a worst employee. When you improve your worst employee, you increase overall team performance, usually by a lot more than the contribution of one person.
Any manager with people skills can improve their worst team member. You just need to know what to do and take action.
I share 7 practical proven actions to improve your worst team member quickly
One of the most important tactics to handle your worst employee is to not ignore the problems, especially when they are relatively minor. Problems get worse over time if left alone. Problems are much easier to fix before behaviour patterns become established.
How to handle low performers or those missing your expectations starts with understanding what is holding them back or causing them to be your worst performer. This is a really important step to do well.
Another key step in how to handle the worst performer in your team is to ask yourself “Is their potential worth developing?” Will the effort you put in to improve them be worth the gains you get or are they a lost case?
The next steps in what to do about low performers is set out your expectations. This is not talking about a bunch of financial targets. Setting expectations well is not easy and I share tips on how to set expectations quickly and effectively.
Next in how to handle your worst employee, give them lots of direct and honest feedback. Comments like “Good job” or “well done” or “work harder” do not count as useful feedback.
If you want o give your worst team member a realistic chance of improving, you must help them improve.
Finally, if you don’t get improvement after trying to help them, or they are not putting in the effort, you must remove them from your team – into a more suitable job or out of the company.
If you have any questions on “7 Practical Proven Actions To Improve Your Worst Employee Quickly”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
Staff who do not take the initiative are very frustrating and time consuming to manage. There are a number of reasons that stops staff taking the initiative. The manager is in a great place to remove these reasons and encourage staff who don’t take the initiative to be a lot more proactive.
I share 4 powerful ways to energise employees who do not take the initiative
Staff who don't take the initiative are a real anchor on team performance. As a manager you can almost see your bonus shrinking. There are a number of factors that stops staff showing initiative. Some of these are environmental which the manager can change. The others are to do with the individual. Either of these stops staff being proactive.
To encourage staff to be proactive, it is really important the manager doesn’t make classic mistakes like micromanaging or punishing mistakes. I list more mistakes managers much avoid that stops staff thinking for themselves.
To encourage proactivity, the manager should take several actions to build and maintain psychological in their teams. Trust and safety are key starting points. I list more actions for the manager to undertake.
When managers don’t align their actions with what they ask staff to do – this create confusion and damages trust, which in turn will stop employees being proactive.
On the positive side, there are lots that a manager can do to develop confidence and capability in staff who do not take the initiative. Often this can be because staff simply don’t know what to do. To build real confidence quickly, I suggest you take 4 key actions with staff who are not proactive.
Finally, towards the end, I share how you should adapt your management style to the person and situation to encourage any staff not taking the initiative to be a lot more proactive.
If you have any questions on “4 Powerful Ways To Energise Staff Who Do Not Take The Initiative”, please lemail me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
I am sharing 5 proven actions to transform poor teams at work quickly & effectively. That is take the WORST team in a company and transform it into one of the BEST teams.
Any manager with people skills can implement these actions to significantly improve team performance. I share lots of practical tips that you can put action straight away.
How to transform the worst team in a company? It has to start with building team trust in you, the leader. In your capabilities and how you are going to help the team. I share 9 practical actions that are great to start transform underperforming teams.
I have transformed the worst team into the best team, in multiple different companies, generating £’millions in additional profits in the process for the business employee us.
It does take confidence to improve the worst team at work. One of the best first actions is to identify what is holding the team back. I share 6 areas that I nearly always investigate in transforming poor teams. These will give you plenty of ideas for what to do to transform the worst team in a company.
Next, invest your time, and resources, into removing problems publicly and privately. The more problems you remove, the more able the team is to improve their performance. Without some time investment at least, it is very hard to improve poor teams at work. I share how you should approach prioritising your time.
Next, plan a path to achieving team goals and walk with the team. The better and clearer the plan of HOW to achieve goals, the more likely goals will be achieved. The HOW part is vital. Poor performing teams often lack the expertise to perform well. Teach and coach the team.
Finally, doing great work and NOT shouting about it within the company is doing yourself and your team a disservice. Make the time to market and communicate your team’s achievements and successes. I share a lot of options for how to do this.
If you have any questions on “5 Proven Actions To Transform Poor Teams At Work Quickly & Effectively”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
Struggling with Boss? I share 3 vital approaches to transform your most important work relationships
The worst mistake in boss relationships is to do nothing or try to ignore the situation. Taking the right action will transform their perception of you. Want more respect, more appreciation, more praise, better development opportunities, a bigger bonus, a promotion … take these actions to transform your most important relationship at work.
When you are struggling with manager relationships, the first vital approach to transform the relationship is to be perceived as good at your job. This is not about working harder (another common mistake in boss relationships). WHAT you work on and HOW you communicate it is vitally important. i.e. your boss’s perception of you
I share 5 core things you must work on to ensure you are perceived as good at your job. Doing these are vital if you are not getting on with your boss or you have problems with your boss.
To improve your relationship with your boss you have to communicate. Relationships are built on communication. Don’t make the biggest mistake in relationship with boss – communicating less when things are not going well. I explain how to do this and give a ton of practical tips plus discuss frequency of communication.
Another vital action to take to improve your most important work relationship is to find your boss’s pains and help reduce them. I have been using this technique for over 20 years, and it works brilliantly. (13 promotions demonstrate its effectiveness). I talk you through how you can find out your boss’s pain points and give you ideas for how you might create solutions to reduce common pain points.
Always make the time to look after the relationship with your boss. There is not other more important relationship nor one that will have a bigger impact on your success and enjoyment of being at work.
If you have any questions on “Struggling With Boss – Transform Your Most Important Work Relationship”, please leave a comment below and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
Managing effort or managing outcomes – which is best? Get it right and you get a ton of benefits – better team performance, happier staff, more time plus more. Get this right more than you peers, and you will enjoy better team performance, better pay and bonuses, higher status and more.
Get it wrong and team performance suffers, you have unmotivated staff and you have a lot less time available personally.
I share 7 factor and approaches to maximise the benefits you get from getting a better balance between focusing on effort or outcomes. The best managers get it right by considering each of these 7 factors.
What to focus on - managing activity or results – is not always easy. It can even harder when it you struggle in measuring activity or results. You can’t manage what you can’t measure.
I start by explaining exactly what we mean when we talk about managing activity or managing effort. This is when a manager focuses on managing each step in a series of steps to get an end desired result. One extreme of this is micro-managing.
Then I explain the difference between managing effort and managing results. This will help you focus on activity or results, or get a better balance between the two for everything you and your team does at work.
Why results matter more than activity comes down to results are end result of a lot of activity. If the results are good, the activity to get those results is very likely to be good too. Good activity doesn’t always give you good results.
Finally, I take you through 7 factors you should consider every day in deciding about what balance you strike between managing effort or outcomes. There is rarely a right or wrong answer. There is certainly better or worse in terms of creating great team performance and impressive results.
If you have any questions on “Managing Effort or Outcomes. How The Best Managers Get It Right”, please email me at support:enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
Having better work relationships makes being at work a lot nicer, more enjoyable and certainly a lot more rewarding. I share 5 tips to have better work relationships, to increase your likeability, confidence and influence.
Take actions today to create better work relationships!
The first action to build better relationships at work is to think about other people and not yourself. We all have very busy lives and spend a lot of time focused on ourselves. You cannot think only about yourself for how to create positive relationships at work. To build great relationships at work, focus on those around for at least part of your day. I share tips on exactly how to build relationships at work when you don’t know the other person at all.
The next action for how to have great relationships at work is to make it easy for others to work alongside you. Some people you would work alongside all day, others 5 minutes is too much. What creates the difference. I share 10+ tips on how to build professional relationships at work.
Next, to build better work relationships, focus on making sure you are not dragging down your colleagues and making their life harder. This is really important in any group setting to create the best conditions for others to like you and want to work with you.
Fourth, doing this action is absolutely brilliant for how to have great relationships at work. I have used this action all my career and it builds great work relationships, a lot of respect, a lot of influence and a lot of appreciation. If you take no other actions, take this one.
Lastly, to build and maintain relationships at work, show your interest in and appreciation of coworkers, colleagues and bosses by taking this vital action. When you are a leader or manager, you must take this action every day to enable you to do a great job with you team.
If you have any questions or comments about “5 Tips To Have Better Relationships At Work For Likeability, Confidence & Influence”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
Deliver what you promise at work, and you will probably be happy and very successful in whatever career you choose. I share 4 vital stages to beating expectations, week after week. Beat expectations and you build a ton of trust, colleagues want to work with you, bosses appreciate you and you get the best tasks and projects to work on.
Before you set expectations to beat, take time to mentally plan out how you will deliver what you are being asked. Don’t say yes until you have done this or you make setting expectations at work ten times harder.
When you know what you can and can’t do, THEN you can start negotiating. If you do this stage after saying yes, you are going to look bad and have to go back to the other person.
Be very careful what you agree to so you can set expectations you can meet. In my experience, bosses prefer to be sure a person can deliver what they agree when they agree it compared to a person than just says yes. Bosses expect some questions and some level of negotiation. This is the sign of a person good at managing expectations and who will action what you promise.
Another key stage to set expectations you can beat is negotiating on resources alongside the goals or expectations. Don’t do this stage later. If you don’t have the right resources, the work will take longer and will be harder to do. Get the right resources or the best resources you can from the start. I share tips for how to do this.
Finally, the best workers and managers ask for assistance and help. From co-workers. From managers. From people who are better than they are at x. Playing to strengths is what makes them so effective at their jobs. I share how they create the goodwill and trust to enable them to ask for help and assistance so effectively.
Always do what you promise.
If you have any questions on “Deliver What You Promise – 4 Vital Stages To Beating Expectations”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
Stop being nice at work. Managers cannot be nice and still increase performance personally and of their team. I explain what managers should do instead and take you through 7 actions to stop being nice at work will helping improve team performance.
Leaders and managers cant be nice and lead a team effectively. There are so many difficult decisions and situation where being nice is detrimental to you and your team. There are a ton of problems with being too nice at work for anyone:
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You get swamped with work you can’t possibly deliver
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You are seen as a walk over and people take advantage of you
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Respect, appreciation and authority are drastically reduced
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Your ability to your job is a lot lower (for pretty much any position)
I share some of the classic signs of being too nice at work and explain why they cause you (and your team) such big problems. Stop being too nice at work.
Being very nice to others does not actually win you more people who like you. In my experience, it creates the opposite effect because you are not being genuine and honest and people sense this. People don’t like those they don’t trust and know. This is also the problem with being too nice at work – being too nice is harmful.
I then share 7 actions you should take (particularly as a leader or manager) at work to stop being too nice and position yourself to do a better job and/or increase team performance. Be fair not nice at work. Stop being too nice to people.
If you have any questions on “Stop Being Nice At Work – Managers Cant Be Nice & Increase Performance” please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
Losing your job is very traumatic and very stressful, not to mention painful for your bank balance. I share 14 signs you are losing your job to look out for. I also share 10 actions you should take especially if you see signs you may be fired. Taking these actions will improve your job security
Firstly, I list out 10 signs you may be losing your job due to your personal approach or performance. Looking out for these signs enables you to take action to stop being pushed out of a job. Don’t ignore these signs you are being pushed out.
These signs you are being pushed out of your job also give you indications if your bosses are not happy with you or thinking poorly of you. Being fired is a very unpleasant experience.
Next are listed 4 signs you are going to lose your job due to issues within the company – for example cost cutting. It is harder to take effective proactive actions to avoid losing a job in these circumstances. If you are in the top 50% of employees in terms of performance and attitude, you are generally a lot less likely to lose your job.
Finally, if you ever see signs you are going to lose your job, knowing what to do to prevent it, is really important. The 10 actions I suggest you take significantly improve job security at any point. I suggest you put each action into practice throughout your career.
Each action has worked very well for me, both in terms of increasing my job security but also in terms of getting promotions and advancing my career.
If you have any questions on “14 Signs You Are Losing Your Job + 10 Actions To Increase Job Security”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
Messing up at work or making mistakes at work happens to us all. We all want to avoid making big mistakes at work. What is really important is what we do after making errors at work.
I share the 5 best actions after messing up at work or making mistakes at work. Create confidence and trust and get lot of help to rectify any mistakes. These are the best ways for recovering from making mistakes at work.
It is always a good idea to make less mistakes at work or the ensure the impact of your mistakes is small. Keeping your mistakes small will stop you screwing up at work. Is share 4 really good practical actions you can take to stop making mistakes at work.
When you can’t avoid making mistakes at work, it is really important to reduce the impact of the mistakes that you make. I have made a ton of mistakes at work and they have not hurt my career success. In fact, they have contributed to my success BECAUSE I have worked to keep the impacts small AND I have tried to learn.
Don’t have a fear of mistakes at work or be afraid of making mistakes at work. Take these 5 best actions after messing up at work.
When you make a mistake at work be responsible for that mistake. Work to fix the mistake or create a solution to fix the mistake. Also own up to the making the mistake. This means you are likely to make a lot less mistakes in the long run and build trust and willingness in others to help you fix any mistakes.
When you make a big mistake at work always communicate that mistake quickly to any others affected and potentially your boss. This enables others to help reduce the impact and it prevents the size of the impact of your mistake growing.
Finally, cultivate a growth mindset so that you learn as quickly as possible to avoid making the same or similar mistakes again.
If you have any questions on “The 5 Best Actions After Messing Up At Work Or Making Mistakes At Work”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
Are you making one or more of the 4 worst mistakes managers make with difficult employees? I share the 4 worse mistakes managers make when handling challenging staff so you can avoid making them.
Learning how to manage difficult employees is one of the most critical skillsets to build to have a very successful career in management.
Our FREE webinar on “The Quickest & Best Approach to Remove People Problems from any Team” click here https://enhance.training/lm-lp/remove-people-problems-quickly-ulp043
The first of the worst mistakes managers make with problem employees is putting up with the small problems. The small problems are the easiest to fix and fixing them stops them becoming bigger problems. When dealing with difficult employees always speak to them early about the small problems.
The second of the mistakes managers make with difficult employees is responding with anger and frustration to the situation. This is super easy to do and it one of the most natural responses. This response makes the situation WORSE so needs to be avoided. I explain the psychology behind this natural response and why it is so problematic when resolving people problems.
The third of the worst mistakes managers make with problem staff is failing to build support for sensible action. You asking them is not as powerful as you plus a group asking them when managing difficult employees. Incentives and group pressure increase reasons to change – use them.
The fourth of the mistakes managers make when managing difficult staff is failing to incentivise improvement. Improving take effort and work. Few difficult employees will put this work in without meaningful incentives. Your incentives should be fair, progressive and provide rewards and consequences.
I see these 4 worst mistakes managers make with difficult employees being made by senior staff with years of managing as well as new managers. Great new manager tips - learn exactly what to do as early as possible in your career.
If you have any questions on “The 4 Worst Mistakes Managers Make With Difficult Employees”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
Why managers bully their team in such great number with more than 50% of bullying being carried out by bosses. Surveys state that around 30-40% of employees have been bullied by bosses or those in authority.
I don’t believe that all these managers enjoy hurting others or putting others down or are that insecure to regularly bully. There must be more to why managers bully staff. I share three suggestions for companies to action to reduce performance crippling bully in their organisations.
Why managers bully their employees. Sometimes the bully boss is an unpleasant person who enjoys putting others down. I personally believe most (but not all) bosses resort to bullying because of the situation they are in and the pressure they are under.
Why managers bully when bullying is so damaging to team performance and therefore their own career progress. Why bosses resort to bullying must., in part, be due to pressure placed on them AND their lack of management skills giving them different and better options.
To reduce bullying by managers, I suggest companies do three things starting with training managers in management skills. 82% of UK managers are promoted into management positions without any formal training per the Chartered Management Institute. Not know how to get the results is one factor that drives why bosses bully.
A lack of visibility around HOW a manager is leading a team gives bad bosses and toxic bosses too many places to hide their behaviour and approach. Why bosses bully good employees is a sign of an insecure and threatened manager.
The reasons why managers bully their employees must be reduced by leadership teams and companies if they want successful performance and great results. Bullying is very damaging to team performance, especially if the manager is the bully.
If you have any questions on “Why Managers Bully Their Team - Why Regular Bosses Resort to Bullying”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
Are you leading a team or group of individuals? How much does it really matter in performance terms?
These are the questions being answered. Every ambition manager should be very interested in increasing team performance because this is how your personal performance is being measured. Find out about the performance of team vs group at work.
Leading a team or a group of individuals can be the different between hitting targets or missing them. It is easy to say that working on build teamwork within your team is a must do. Actually, in some situations a group of individuals will perform as well or better than a team.
I share the definitions of team vs group in the office so that you are clear on the differences in leading a team or group of individuals. This should make spotting a team vs group of individuals easier. In practice, you will be somewhere between the two.
I provide a scale with multiple indicators so you can answer “Do you lead a team or a group of individuals?”.
The performance difference between a group and a team can be really significant, reaching hundreds of £’000s and more . Team or group which is better – in 80%+ of cases, I would say the team every time. There are several factors that go into how big this difference in performance gets.
I share some examples of the monetary difference of teams vs groups.
Towards then end I take you through six of my favourite and very effective actions to increase teamwork in any team.
If you have any questions on “Are You Leading A Team Or Group Of Individuals? & Which is Better”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
How many employees for each manager? Don’t apply a one-size-fits-all approach when considering staff numbers per manager. Do so is likely to be detrimental for your business and team & manager retention.
I share 5 crucial drivers of team size for each manager.
The first factors in employee numbers per manager is the pace of change within a business, function or team. The higher the pace of change, the lower the staff per manager ratio should be. Employees don’t like change, and it takes a lot more time and effort from the manager to successfully guide teams through change.
The second factor for how many staff per manager is team capabilities versus business requirements. The more time a manager needs to spend on developing team capabilities, the lower the manager vs staff ratio.
The third factor for employee numbers per manager is the complexity of work undertaken by both employee and manager. I share 7 different factors that increase complexity within the workplace.
The fourth factor for number of employees for each manager is the tools and technology available and being used by the team. Technology tends to standardise employee roles and their tasks and activities. The more standardised the roles, the more people that a manager can effectively manage.
The fifth factor in the number of employees for each manager is what the specific role of the manager is. What goals and objectives are you asking the manager to achieve. For example, is the role maintaining performance or improving performance. Expectations for the manager impacts the number of employees per manager.
If you have any questions on “How Many Employees For Each Manager – 5 Crucial Drivers Of Team Size”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
I share 5 ways to keep your boss happy with better communication. You don’t have to work harder. You don’t have to pander to your boss. Just use these communication tips to keep your manager happy.
How to have a conversation with your boss starts with looking for and understanding their communication preferences. How to communicate with your boss should be one of the first things you sus out. Think about how often, methods and styles with communicating with boss.
Next for effective communication skills with your manager, over-communicate rather than under-communicate. When you are proactively telling your boss what you are up to each day, they get a sense of control and involvement. Very important in how to keep your boss happy.
To keep your manager happy with better communication, focus on giving clear, concise and progress focused updates. Bosses are more time poor than we are. Spend time thinking about the keep points you want to get across before speaking to your boss. This is one of the best communication tips to keep your boss happy.
Next in how to communicate with your manager, spend the time to question, listen and respond. Asking questions and listening is the other HALF of communicating with managers. Find out what your manager is working on and their pressures.
Finally, when communicating with your boss, commit to ensuring “no surprises”. Every boss hates surprises, even the good ones. Remove surprises with good and proactive communication.
If you have any questions on “5 Ways To Keep Your Boss Happy With Better Communication”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
In this manager training success guide we cover some of the key factors to deliver effective management training.
I share the best managers to give management training to, who you should train first, how to measure the benefits and 6 core skills to focus on first.
Why training is important for managers? Managing a diverse team with different strengths, interests, energy levels and more is not an easy job as any manager knows. Good managers will multiply the value of output from their team. The top 5% of managers deliver more than 8 times what an AVERAGE manager delivers through their team. That is tens of £’000s to £’millions in profits for the company depending on the size of the team.
Think how much you are losing through missed opportunities. Over 80% of new managers are not given any training. Training new managers will give them confidence, tools and a route to delivering better team performance.
Which managers to train? Those that are keen to learn, enthusiastic and are energised by leading teams – these are the best managers to enrol in training.
Training managers at any time will help company performance. Managers are responsible for all the decisions with significant impact. Managers are also responsible for helping everyone else be as productive as possible. Training managers leverages your training spend in effect across everyone in the company.
Who gets the most from manager training are those managers that are ambitious and put their team ahead of themselves.
Measuring the benefits of training managers is not as easy as other forms of training as managers generate most of their value indirectly through the team they lead. With good KPIs and feedback from their team you will know which managers get the most from training.
Finally, I share 6 core management skills that any manager should focus on first. When managers get really good at these skills and they generate a lot more profit through their team.
If you have any questions on “Manager Training Success Guide – Deliver Effective Management Training”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
How to balance boss and staff, especially when they have conflicting demands is not easy. For managers to avoid feeling stuck in between these two important groups for your success, I share 3 tactics that every manager should use.
Make you like as a manager more enjoyable and professionally successful by keeping your boss and your team very happy with you!
How to deliver for both boss and team starts with understand what both parties want. If you don’t find out what both parties really want and need keeping your boss and your team happy is nearly an impossible task.
To balance your boss and your team, without feeling you are being batter from both sides. It is a good tactic to act as a bridge between the two groups rather than being a barrier.
How to balance boss and team starts with expectations. When you set aligned expectations with boss and team, communicate them clearly and repeatedly, you will have the least hassle and disconnect. When the desires of both groups are out of alignment or in conflict, overcommunicate and negotiate balance your boss and your team's demands.
Balancing boss and staff is not easy. It is easy to focus on one, rather than both. The wheels can start coming off the wagon if you do. One of the best ways to balance the demands of your boss and your team is to overcommunicate with both groups. Understanding and appreciate solves lots of problems.
Lastly, for how to balance boss and team members, really work hard at delegating and developing your team. Delegating well gives you the personal space and time to focus on the highest value work you can and gives you time to develop the capability of your team. This enables you to delegate even more, and is essential to progress through the management ranks.
If you have any questions on “How To Balance Boss And Staff – 3 Tactics For Managers To Keep Both Happy”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
Overcome the fears that stop you giving feedback and you open the doors to a ton of benefits as a manager. Giving feedback to help your team member builds trust, increases performance, develops and a lot more.
What stops managers giving feedback – the fears we all have of annoying, upsetting, of damaging relationships. I share a tried and test approach to build your feedback skills no matter where you are in your career.
What stops you giving feedback to your team are fears that we may upset others and cause ourselves social harm. What stops you giving feedback to your team is fear of what might happen. You have been promoted into a manager position because you have good communication and people skills or good potential in this area. You won’t mess up.
To help you overcome the fears that stops you giving feedback I take you through 8 fears and why they are a barrier in your head only. These 8 barriers to giving feedback are easily overcome with a little practice.
To reduce your fears about giving feedback, I share some really interesting survey findings about feedback. The bottom line – employees are desperate for more feedback – positive or corrective. The mindset you have giving feedback is probably the most important thing.
Then I take you through the practical steps to start giving team feedback in the lowest risk way, building up to being a master at giving all feedback, including corrective feedback.
Giving feedback to your team daily, is one of the most important jobs as a manager or leader because it enables so many other really good management practices. Why no feedback means no manager promotion is because you miss out on encouraging and helping the team perform that much better.
If you have any questions about “Lead With Courage - Overcome The Fears That Stop You Giving Feedback”, please leave a comment below and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
Build great teamwork fast! I share 6 ways to create great teams quickly. This have been tried and tested with many teams, in top companies and when transforming the performance of the worst team in multiple companies.
Most managers lead a group of individuals, not a team. Groups of individuals typically work alongside each other, doing their own work. There is chat but not a lot of in depth discussion, not much collaboration and little joint problem solving.
Use these tips to build teamwork in any team, no matter where the level of teamwork is in your team today.
The leader or manager is the most effective person in building a great team culture. I share multiple ways to teach teamwork to your team. Each are ways to increase teamwork so you will see a noticeable improvement within weeks.
The first of my tips to encourage great teamwork is to show you have the team’s back. Trust is one of the most important currencies managers have with their team. Everything you do in front of your team should be to demonstrate you are trustable and have the best interests of the team at heart (rather than you own). I share 6 actions you can take to build trust quickly – essential in building high performing teams.
The next of my tips for great teamwork is to advertise responsibility and accountability. To build a strong team, each team member needs to know what is expected of them AND what their team members will be covering. Make this clear to each team member and advertise responsibilities across the team. This is the first important step to holding team members accountable.
The next of my tips for effective teamwork is to incentivise a lot of communication. Lead from the front. One of the ways to coach teamwork is to demonstrate communication and then help each team member build to build stronger relationships with each team mate. Create the expectation for a lot of talking, discussing and joint work together.
Another of the really important activities to build teamwork is to find goals that scream success. Choose goals that have a story, that are relevant to team members and that the team can get behind. Don’t just talk about goals in terms of financial targets. Common shared goals are a key part of team building and essential to build a strong team. I explain how to start finding valuable goals.
How to build a great team at work is a process that any manager can follow. Chances are you have the skills. You just need to know what to do AND work hard in service of the team.
If you have any questions on “Build Great Team work Fast – 6 Ways to Create Great Teams Quickly” please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
Making decisions at work and having good decisions making skills are highly prized by all organisations. I have 9 questions to ask yourself when making decisions at work. These form a framework, a decision making process, that will keep you making GOOD decisions at work.
The first question to ask when making decisions at work is “How much time do I have to make the decision?” With a day, there is lots that you can do and a lot of questions to ask yourself when making decisions. With 5 minutes, the questions you can ask are much more limited. You nearly always have more time to make a decision than you (or the other person) thinks.
How to make decisions quickly, in my view, is about following a process, a framework. Following a framework will feel clunky and slow to start with as you learn the steps. After a few weeks, the process will feel very natural. After a few months, you won’t realise you are following it out of habit.
The next of the questions to ask yourself to make great decisions at work is “What specifically is the desired outcome?” Being really clear on what is needed is huge in terms of how to make decisions faster. You also get better decisions. Start asking questions to really understand what the decision you are making or being asked to make is really trying to achieve. Once you have this really clear, everything else in the decision making process will be a lot quicker and easier.
The third of the questions to ask when making decisions is “What is the context of the decision?” The context of the decision will literally change what you decide. Think about authorising a hiring request. In a growing business your decision would be yes. In a struggling company, your decision is very likely to be no.
The fourth question when making decisions is the last of the core questions that you should always ask yourself regardless of the type of decision you are making.
Then I share 5 very valuable questions to ask for the more complex decisions, the ones with larger impacts or those with only bad options to choose from.
The 9th of the questions to ask yourself when making decisions at work is the one missed by many decision makers. Missing this question nearly always causes a lot more problems later on and can be pretty embarrassing. Always ask this question whenever you need to make any significant decision.
If you have any questions on “9 Powerful Questions to Ask Yourself When Making Decisions At Work” please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
Working with an insecure boss can be very bad news for your development, your happiness at work and your career progress IF you don’t know how to handle the situation. It is easy to find yourself on the end of put downs, criticism, and undermining when you don’t know how to work with an insecure boss.
I share 5 actions of insecure managers and then 5 key actions to take to gain the support and trust of an insecure manager.
I take you through 5 actions of insecure leaders. Knowing the signs, you can quickly spot an insecure boss and take action that will improve rather than damage your relationship with your boss. For example, A person’s natural reactions to their boss trying to exert too much control is to push them away and communicate less. This type of reaction makes things worse not better.
Another classic action of insecure managers is be overly concerned about what other people think of them. They take decisions and actions for popularity rather than what is best for the team and business. I share other signs your boss is worried by you. These are each signs your boss is intimidated by you in some way.
Next, learn about 5 ways for how to work with an insecure manager. These work just as well for how to work with a jealous boss or a boss intimidated by you.
When you are working with insecure leaders, the first action is to play to what they need from you. Understand what makes them feel insecure or what actions or language creates a negative reaction in them. With understanding you can then plan tactics to avoid their trigger points while giving them what they need to feel more in control and secure. I share practical tips for what to do and how to use language to keep them feeling safer.
Another very important tactic when working with an insecure boss is to position yourself as a ally and not be a rival to them. Again, use all the practical tips I share to achieve this quickly and with confidence.
If you have any questions on “5 Actions of Insecure Managers & How to Work with an Insecure Boss”, please email me on support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
Creating strong ownership in teams is a great step to significantly improve team performance. Team performance defines a manager’s performance and directly impacts a manager’s personal rewards.
I share 3 approaches to create strong ownership in teams for great performance in any team.
The first of the stages to create strong ownership in teams is all about responsibilities. If a team member doesn’t take responsibility, you have little chance of they taking ownership.
The most important insight to remember – employees will only take ownership if the CHOOSE to.
How to create strong ownership in teams starts with creating responsibility. I share my best tips for HOW to create responsibilities in teams - the first stage to create high ownership in teams.
The second stage to create high ownership in teams is to build accountability. Creating accountability is undertaking 5 inter-dependant actions, that when put into practice well, will drive strong accountability in any team. I share very practical tips of how to start creating accountability. For example, you can’t hold team members accountable for performance unless they have clear goals and objectives, which they understand.
To create more ownership in teams at work first allocate clear responsibilities and then create accountability for those responsibilities.
Finally to get your team taking ownership, and creating ownership at work more generally, work on the creating the right environment for ownership to flourish. This absolutely in the control of nearly all leaders and managers in nearly any business.
To create high levels of ownership in teams put into practice the 5 actions I discuss. Pretty much every manager is able to work on each of these actions to drive team ownership of work.
If you have any questions on “3 Approaches to Create Strong Ownership in Teams for Great Performance”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
Building great decision making skills in teams is brilliant for you personally as a leader or manager. Helping team members with how to build better decision making skills will free up your time to focus on the tougher more challenging decisions. More time on these usually means better results and more interesting work.
I share 4 approaches to build great decision making skills in teams.
Resources
Access all our prize winning management expertise for you to stand out from your peers, increase your confidence and credibility and move your management career forward faster! We share a ton of content, e-books, help sheets and more to save you a ton of time while unlocking more of your manager potential. Click the link to find out more about the Management Skills Hub
https://enhance.training/management-skills-hub-ulp000/
One of the most important ways to build great decision making skills quickly in a team is to encourage team members to take decisions. Just telling team members or verbally giving permission is rarely enough. Alignment of permission, actions, reactions, safety and skills is required from the manager.
How to build great decision making skills starts with making team members feel safe. i.e. no repercussions for making poor decisions through inexperience. If team members don’t feel safe, they simply won’t make decisions. They will pass making decisions onto you. Safety is the first of the steps to build great decision making skills.
The next step of how to work on decision making skills in teams is to give them the right decisions to make. No all decisions are the same and breaking down all the different decisions being faced by the whole team and intelligently allocating them is vital to building skills and confidence.
How to work on decision making skills with team members depends on their current decision making skills and confidence. The impact of decisions is big psychological factor to consider. The bigger the impact, the harder the decision to make for most people. What help and support available is a big factor. Are the decisions going to be reviewed by more experienced colleagues before being actioned is another big factor.
Another way to build great decision making skills in any team is to plan specific activities for individuals and groups to work together on different decisions. Deciding together is often a lot less daunting than deciding alone.
Like all skills, how to improve your decision making skills is through practice. How are you going to get your team members practicing the right level of decision making skills for them. I share my best tips and practices for doing just this. Developing team members is a vital leadership skill for manager to be very successful.
If you have any questions on “4 Approaches to Build Great Decision Making Skills Quickly in Teams”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
Who likes micromanagement. Next to no-one. Yet nearly everyone has experienced some form of micromanagement. I am sharing 4 tried and tested ways to quickly win over your micromanaging boss.
Stop micro management quickly!
Resources
Access all our prize winning management expertise for you to stand out from your peers, increase your confidence and credibility and move your management career forward faster! We share a ton of content, e-books, help sheets and more to save you a ton of time while unlocking more of your manager potential. Click the link to find out more about the Management Skills Hub
https://enhance.training/management-skills-hub-ulp000/
Working for a boss that doesn't let you think for yourself is frustrating and career limiting. Turn the situation into one where your boss trusts you and lets you solve problems independently of them by building trust and demonstrating capability. This is great for how to win with micromanaging boss.
I have 4 tried and tested ways for how to get a micro managing boss to trust you.
Firstly, it is critical to understand exactly what your boss wants from you. Ask for specific and clear goals and expectations. If your boss doesn’t provide these, then create them yourself and get their approval. This is critical for how to survive a micromanager. I share additional vital tips for how to get really valuable goals to your boss.
Second, start overcommunicating to your micromanaging boss. Tell them exactly what you are doing and what you plan to do. There are ton of ways that you can do this. The more you communicate, the more you alleviate their fears and insecurities (if relevant) and the more trust you build.
Third, when manager that doesn't give you any autonomy and you are overcommunicating and meeting expectations, start educating your boss on how they can get more from you. This is a particularly good approach when your boss has recently become a manager for the first time.
If you have a boss that treats you like a robot, the fourth approach is to consistently overdeliver. Doing a good job is only half the battle. To turn performance into trust I share a couple of vital steps too many team members miss out doing. This build trust quickly and reduces micromanagement just as quickly.
You absolutely can reduce micromanagement. Take the proactive steps I share, and it will happen faster than you expect.
If you have any questions on “4 Ways To Quickly Win Over Your Micromanaging Boss”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
I am sharing 6 ways managers should use numbers to get their best team results possible. Using numbers in your communication, your feedback and to analyse will help you boost your team’s performance – between 20% and multiples of current team value.
Using numbers every day in your job will transform how well you can do you job as a manager. I share insights and practical tips on how to use numbers very effectively.
For each for these ways leaders should use numbers to deliver the most value, I touch on how to communicate with numbers to increase team performance and give examples for each. This is not theory but actual practical tips that I have been using for decades in top companies. I explain how to be a better manager and leader using numbers
6 of the ways managers need to use numbers starts with including them in goals and expectations. This may seem obvious yet so many goals I see (when coaching leaders) don’t have any numbers in them.
Increasing accountability in teams and individuals in another reason why every manager needs to use numbers. If you have no scale and no way of measuring progress, creating accountability is very hard.
Another management skill is using numbers in creating specific useful feedback. The better quality your feedback and the more often you provide it, the quicker your team members and the team overall will improve their performance. Feedback is one of the vital communication skills for managers.
Another reason why every manager needs to understand numbers and I would argue – understand financial information – is so they can make better decisions and take better actions. There is not better way than using financial data to ensure your team creates the most profit for a business possible.
Finally, using numbers and financial numbers is needed to prioritise the most valuable work for you and your team to do. Finance data is the most comprehensive and accurate way to assess the performance of just about anything.
If you have any questions on “6 Ways Managers Should Use Numbers to Get Their Best Team Result”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
Being yourself and managing teams very successfully is not straight forward. I explore how to be authentic at work while still keeping your bosses happy and your team performing.
Learn 3 secrets to being yourself and managing teams that will make you stand out from peer and move your career forward a lot faster.
Firstly, authentic leaders are held up as great or successful leaders. Why is this the case? How does managing and being authentic impact team performance? Does being yourself and managing others create that big a difference to results? I explore these questions and explain the link between authenticity and team performance.
Secondly, what does being yourself and leading or being an authentic leader really mean in today’s workplace.
There are a ton of pressures from all directions that work to prevent leadership authenticity. For example, there are the group pressures to conform (present in every group, in every culture). There are the pressures to tow the company line regardless of what you think and value.
How do you navigate these and remain authentic? How do you keep your bosses happy while still being yourself? Getting this balance right makes or breaks careers and reputations. Be too much yourself and you lose the trust of bosses. Conform too much and you lose the trust of your team. I explain how to find leadership identity and get the right balance to maintain trust, team performance and career momentum. Successful authentic leaders are brilliant at this.
Lastly, to create an authentic leadership style through being yourself at work, you need to build a few things first. Creating leadership authority and leadership integrity takes a bit of time and undertaking the right actions to demonstrate you will improve the group and business.
If you have any questions on “3 Secrets To Being Yourself And Managing Teams Very Successfully”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
Being engaging and clear when speaking and presenting to groups increases your influence and impact. Increasing your impact makes these speaking skills for managers a brilliant investment of your time.
I share 4 speaking skills for managers, including 7 actions to deliver a clearer more engaging message to any group.
Resources
Access all our prize winning management expertise for you to stand out from your peers, increase your confidence and credibility and move your management career forward faster! We share a ton of content, e-books, help sheets and more to save you a ton of time while unlocking more of your manager potential. Click the link to find out more about the Management Skills Hub
https://enhance.training/management-skills-hub-ulp000/
The first of the speaking skills for leaders is to know your purpose. To build influence and impact you need something from your audience, even it is just understanding. When you know what you want you can structure your messages to get the outcome you are looking for. Essential communication skills for managers.
When you articulate your thoughts clearly, you are much more likely to sound confident. Building confidence and conviction about what you are saying is a process which takes a little preparation. Anyone can go through these steps and feel and sound a lot more confident. When you believe, your audience is much more likely to believe.
How to communicate clearly and concisely needs structure. Good communication skills for leaders includes knowing how to structure your message for best effect. I share three simple structures anyone can use – each for different types of communication. Message structure is also a big part of how to speak clearly and concisely.
Finally, I share 7 actions for how to speak more clearly and concisely in any group setting. How to talk more concisely is a really important communication skills for managers and supervisors. The higher your position, be better at speaking concisely you need to be.
If you have any questions on “4 Speaking Skills for Managers - Supercharge Your Influence and Impact”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
If you are not valued by your boss, you want to know about it fast and have a clear plan to quickly change how you are perceived. I am sharing 11 signs you are not valued at work and what to do if any of these signs are what you are experiencing right now.
There are plenty of actions you can proactively take that will quickly improve how others value you at work. Take action today!
Resources
Access all our prize winning management expertise for you to stand out from your peers, increase your confidence and credibility and move your management career forward faster! We share a ton of content, e-books, help sheets and more to save you a ton of time while unlocking more of your manager potential. Click the link to find out more about the Management Skills Hub
https://enhance.training/management-skills-hub-ulp000/
How we are valued at work is important for our happiness, our confidence and our wallet. When our bosses value what we do, when we are being valued in the workplace, we are much more likely to:
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Get more interesting work and projects that are more likely to further develop our skills and experience
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Be given more responsibility and autonomy
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Get more development opportunities
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Gain higher social and professional status at work
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Be paid more and be promoted more often
So when you are not valued by boss, unappreciated by boss or not valued at work, there is a very real personal cost to you.
So you know when you might be under valued at work, I go through 11 signs you are unappreciated at work. When you feel undervalued at work, use these as a checklist to confirm if you really are being undervalued or if you are just having a bad day or week.
[Also use these as signs you are being pushed out of your job if you are unfortunate enough to be in this position]
The most important point to take away if you are feeling unappreciated at work is that there are plenty of actions you can take to CHANGE the situation FAST. Most of these actions very much within your control.
Being unappreciated by your boss or unappreciated at work is horrible. We have all been there at least once. I share 5 common mistakes that lead to being undervalued at work. Make sure that you are not making any of these. If you are making one or more of them, you can quickly improve how you are valued by stopping making these mistakes.
Finally, when your boss doesnt value you or your feel unappreciated at work – take 5 powerful actions to change perceptions of those around you quickly!
If you have any questions on “11 Signs You Are Not Valued At Work Or Not Valued By Your Boss – Change That Now!”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
Staff pointing out problems with initiatives, plans, activities and solutions can be really frustrating, annoying and sap team morale. Let negativity get out of hand and your team’s motivation and performance will start dropping. Just what any manager doesn’t want. Stopping negativity quicky stops your problems getting worse.
I cover how to stop negativity in teams and how to turn employees pointing out problems into better performance with 3 easy approaches.
Resources
Access all our prize winning management expertise for you to stand out from your peers, increase your confidence and credibility and move your management career forward faster! We share a ton of content, e-books, help sheets and more to save you a ton of time while unlocking more of your manager potential. Click the link to find out more about the Management Skills Hub
https://enhance.training/management-skills-hub-ulp000/
There are lots of reasons for team members pointing out problems. Why staff point out problems is really important. The 4 main areas I consider with staff who always point out what is wrong are:
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Staff covering for their own character flaws
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Staff deflecting attention from themselves or their work
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Employees subconsciously crying out for help
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Staff genuinely seeking to help by spotting what could go wrong
Staff pointing out problems is not all bad, especially when you turn it to your advantage. I share 3 key approaches to turn staff pointing out problems into better performance. I have used these for decades very effectively.
With employees who always point out what is wrong, finding out why they focus on the negatives is important. There are ton of potential reasons such as being jealous of others, or trying to deflect blame, or to undermine others. Stop this behaviour by putting in place boundaries and enforcing these boundaries day in day out.
Team members who always point out what is wrong can be really useful to activities, solutions and projects when used in the right way. If their intention is to help the group and those around them, put their negative outlook to the best use of the team by giving them a special role in the team.
When staff always point out problems, they are giving you an amazing opportunity to develop their skills in a very positive way and move their mindset into a more positive place. You can do this while getting better performance from them and the team.
Finally, at the end I share 6 actions that I have found invaluable to stopping negativity in individuals and teams particularly for those covering character flaws or deflecting attention from themselves or their work. Use the techniques on team members who always complain.
If you have any questions on “3 Easy Ways to Turn Staff Pointing Out Problems into Better Performance”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
Every manager faces staff who refuse to do what you ask. Staff who don’t take direction cause you a lot of stress, anger, delays and uncomfortable questions from bosses and stakeholders.
I share the winning actions to persuade staff to do as you ask.
Resources
Access all our prize winning management expertise for you to stand out from your peers, increase your confidence and credibility and move your management career forward faster! We share a ton of content, e-books, help sheets and more to save you a ton of time while unlocking more of your manager potential. Click the link to find out more about the Management Skills Hub
https://enhance.training/management-skills-hub-ulp000/
There are lots of actions you can take to painlessly turn the “No” into a “Yes”, even from the most stubborn of employees. Learning how persuade employees who don't follow instructions to do what you ask will give you a ton of benefits:
· Spend less time delegating work
· Encounter less roadblocks
· Be more relaxed
· Less stress
· More confidence in you from bosses and team members
and more. When employees don't do what you ask, they cause problems for the team – less co-ordination, less collaboration, less teamwork … all lead to lower team performance.
The first critical approach when dealing with employees who don’t take direction is to understand why. Most staff who doesn't take direction when you ask have reasons for their no. Find out what this reasons are by asking questions and listening. I share the principles for asking questions to get employees who don't take direction talking.
Next, I share 5 of the best tactics to use to persuade team members who don't take direction. These are practical actions that ANY manager can implement quickly and easily. You don’t need a ton of specialist skills. I have used these for over 20 years with employees who don't take direction and many bosses above me. They work without annoying or upsetting.
Gaining understanding and using the 5 persuasion tactics will get you great results with 90%+ of staff. When you have an employee not doing what you ask even after going through these steps, move into creating attention grabbing consequences. There is an art to creating and communicating consequences that get the right action from difficult staff members. I share the steps I go through to get the support and permission I need to put the consequences into action.
Good luck!
If you have any questions on “Winning Over Staff Who Refuse To Do What You Ask. Painlessly Turn No To Yes”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
How to lead when you are not the expert and deliver impressive results needs another set of skills, a different mindset, and a new approach. The good news is you (and any manager) will be able to learn exactly what is needed for success fairly quickly.
I share the essential mindset changes you should make to be successful and the practical actions to take.
--- Resources
Access all our prize winning management expertise for you to stand out from your peers, increase your confidence and credibility and move your management career forward faster! We share a ton of content, e-books, help sheets and more to save you a ton of time while unlocking more of your manager potential. Click the link to find out more about the Management Skills Hub
https://enhance.training/management-skills-hub-ulp000/
When you are not an expert, working out who IS an expert is a little tricky. I have come across many “experts” who talk a very good game and when it comes to the crunch, can’t deliver even half of their promises.
I share 4 approaches to help you navigate the expert minefield with confidence, so you find experts to trust. Leading when you are not the expert starts with getting the right experts on your team.
When team members who know more than you , when you are leading experts, there is one responsibility you have that is critical for the success of your team or project. If you get this wrong, the best experts won’t help you. Get this right and managing experts becomes easy plus you deliver much better results. Make the time and ask the right questions to get this right every time when leading those who know more.
When leading employees who know more than you, it can be difficult to work out what you should focus your attention on. How to you give your experts the space and autonomy to fully utilise their expertise, yet still control the direction of their work, and the results they deliver. I share my managing tips and the one thing you should always focus on.
Finally, for managing when you are not the expert, I share 9 actions or approaches that you should use every single day for great team leadership and especially when managing experts who know more than you.
Use all these and you will be very confident in how to lead experts.
If you have any questions on “How to lead when you are NOT the expert & deliver impressive results”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
Developing talent in your team is one of the best ways to boost your own personal success as a manager. The more value and profit you can create directly and through your team, the more your bosses will want to give you more staff to manage (promotion).
I will explain exactly how to boost your personal promotability and share 4 clever ways to boost your success by developing talent in your team without needing a big budget.
One of the best ways of developing talent in your team is to stop providing solutions. You can’t develop the talent in your team if you don’t get them thinking. One of the best management skills is knowing when to ask questions for developing talent in your team.
A great example of developing talent is when a team member comes to you with a problem. Get them to provide you a solution and you improve their problem solving skills.
For the best ways of developing talent at work, focus on 4 core skill groups that all managers need. Improve these in your team and increasing team performance becomes a lot easier. The more you increase team performance, the more people you will be asked to manage and the quicker your career progresses. Improving performance in individuals happens when you develop their skills.
Providing development to employees is also brilliant for motivation, commitment, retention, relationship building … in short a lot of the factors that increase team performance.
How the best managers develop talent, often with very little in the way of budget, includes each of the four actions discussed. Developing talent in the workplace takes a little imagination and some of your time. You have a ton of skills that you can pass on to your team members and you are perfectly placed to create opportunities for them to learn.
Invest your time and the time of others to improve the skills and knowledge of your team and you directly boost your success as a manager.
If you have any questions on “Developing Talent In Your Team - 4 Clever Actions To Boost Your Success”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
How open & transparent should you be when leading and communicating? Management advice is to be authentic for good reason. Authenticity builds connections, relationships and trust, all of which increases performance in pretty much any team.
You can lead and communicate too openly, where respect for you drops, where you damage your credibility and authority and where your bosses become pretty unhappy.
Do you know where this line is and why?
I explain how to balance the need to be open and transparent with maintaining your credibility and authority when leading & communicating.
Additional Resources
Grab our downloadable booklets and help sheets and access our free webinars. Gain more depth of expertise, build greater confidence and be a better manager quicker. Unlock your potential and lead your team to their best performance. https://enhance.training/team-and-business-management-resources/
Creating great teamwork starts with know what makes great teamwork. I discuss 6 behaviours that strong teams always display such as high levels of trust. Managing others well, inspire trust in your team, combined with good communication skills and a desire to promote openness in your team will get you a long way towards a strong motivated team. These are essential leadership skills in the workplace.
To be a good leader, manager, being authentic is really important. To build trust and good relationships with team members, they need to get to know the real you. In contrast, instinctively we want to keep our weaknesses, our less useful characteristics etc hidden. On top of this, there are a lot of expectations that come with the position placed on us. How do we get the right balance of revealing ourselves with maintaining our credibility and authority and inspire openness in your team. We share our experiences and approaches.
Providing feedback is essential to managing teams well. How open and honest do you make your feedback? If the feedback is not open and honest how will the team members improve? How will you increase team performance? How open and transparent should you be with what you think? Will being frank be counterproductive and damage relationships. Will they get upset? Will they stop listening. There is a lot to balance in giving feedback. We explore how to get this balance right.
Finally, you are communicating with team members and others every single day. Using a transparent leadership approach will build trust quickly. How much do you communicate and when do you keep silent? I share 7 questions to help you filter what you should share and what you should not.
If you have any questions on “Leading & Communicating – How Open & Transparent Should You Be?”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
How to lead and motivate managers in your team is different from how you manage employees. Managers have a different range of skills and expertise compared to employees.
How to lead managers and get the best from your managers takes a few changes to your leadership style. I explain 5 big differences in leadership approach needed for success in leading your managers.
I cover why leading managers is different from leading employees with practical tips on exactly what to do differently.
Resources
Grab our downloadable booklets and help sheets and access our free webinars. Gain more depth of expertise, build greater confidence and be a better manager quicker. Unlock your potential and lead your team to their best performance. https://enhance.training/team-and-business-management-resources/
To lead and motivate managers in your team, start by giving them more space. If you manage your managers like you do your employees, chances are that they will not be happy AND you will waste a ton of their talents. For how to lead and motivate managers start by setting really clear goals and direction with them. I share 4 other really effective approaches for leading managers versus employees.
Next, for how to lead more junior managers, focus on delegating problems not tasks. Maximise use of your managers’ problem solving, organisational, and people skills to solve problems you and your team faces. You also create time to focus on the hard more complex problems which means better solution building across the team as a whole.
Third, help your managers develop leadership skills through coaching, mentoring, creating opportunities and more. I share tips and tactics that have worked very well in many companies. Another example of the differences in successfully leading managers.
Fourth, help your managers to think strategically. Strategic thinking or big picture thinking is an increasingly important skill as you rise through the ranks. Starting early will make their progress easier quicker and more successful. You will also get more aligned actions and more focus on the most valuable work which helps drive team performance in the short term.
Lastly, very important leadership skills for managers include the ability to build and maintain good professional relationships with a much wider range of people and personalities. I share tips on how to help your managers raise their profiles and build networking skills.
If you have any questions on “Leading Your Managers - 5 Big Differences To Managing Employees”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
Learn 3 practical approaches to get amazing team results and balance being helpful with being demanding.
Being too helpful at work damages your credibility, reputation and job security. You can go all out to help your team and NOT be too helpful. Get amazing team results by using a specific approach that maximises the help you give while demanding a lot from the team.
Resources
Access all our prize winning management expertise for you to stand out from your peers, increase your confidence and credibility and move your management career forward faster! We share a ton of content, e-books, help sheets and more to save you a ton of time while unlocking more of your manager potential. Click the link to find out more about the Management Skills Hub
https://enhance.training/management-skills-hub-ulp000/
The first approach to get the best team performance is to stop being too helpful as a manager. Being too helpful has little to do with how much you help. You can help your team a bit or you can go all out to help the team be better and do better. Being too helpful happens when you don’t balance enough against the help you provide. I explain 3 ways to stop your team taking advantage of you and potentially create powerful team performance.
Helping your team get better and realise more of their potential is one of the best ways to get more from teams. Serving your team is a vital part of any manager or leadership role IF you want to get great performance while really motivating teams.
Secondly, managers stop trying to be liked! Your job is not to win friends or boost your ego. Your key job is to support and direct the team to INCREASE team performance. Of course you need to build connections, to be relatable, to be empathetic and to be authentic. You should not be looking to make friends because doing so will make it a lot harder for you to make the necessary tough decisions and unpopular choices. Stop being taken advantage of at work.
Instead, aim to be respected. Being respected is a direct outcome of doing a good job as a manager. The more respect you get, the better you are doing your job!
Finally, demand more by providing more. This is crucial to get amazing team results. If you don’t demand much from your team, it is unlikely you will get anywhere near goals set, let alone smash them. I share 7 example practical actions that you can put into practice quickly to balance demanding more from your team, so you get the best team performance possible.
If you have any questions on “Get Amazing Team Results: Balance Being Helpful With Being Demanding”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
Be fair not nice when leading teams and you will effortlessly be a lot more popular and a lot more effective in your job. Getting the balance right is not always easy. You can’t be too nice. You also can’t be a tyrant.
I share critical skills for managing teams effectively, creating connection, building trusting relationships and increasing team performance.
Resources
Access all our prize winning management expertise for you to stand out from your peers, increase your confidence and credibility and move your management career forward faster! We share a ton of content, e-books, help sheets and more to save you a ton of time while unlocking more of your manager potential. Click the link to find out more about the Management Skills Hub
https://enhance.training/management-skills-hub-ulp000/
Be fair not nice when leading others. This is one of the critical management skills to learn early. Managers are told for team leadership, that they need to create connections and relationships with their teams. The type of relationship has a direct impact of team performance.
I share 10 examples of getting the wrong balance that stops effective team management. Learning what is not good is just as important as learning what is good. Be fair not nice when managing others.
Next are six actions to create trusting manager-employee relationships. Building good relationships are essential management skills in business. Be friendly not nice to maintain your authority and the respect others show towards you.
Build strong relationships with the team and between team members and you foster teamwork, co-ordination, trust, communication, collaboration, problem solving and more. It is an amazing feeling to be responsible for transforming a quiet caution team into a lively banter filled environment with great teamwork and high levels of motivation.
Lastly, I go through 10 example behaviours for how to be nice but not too nice. Each of these behaviours are brilliant actions to take at any point and will help you build a good team environment, encourage your team to work hard and smartly, and to value the work that you do for the team. These behaviours translate into increasing team performance which is great for any manager at any level to be responsible for.
If you have any questions on “Be Fair Not Nice When Leading Teams + 10 Team Performance Tactics”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
Make change easier for any team by using 6 actions to reduce fears, provide purpose and help individuals learn and adapt to what is changing. If we don’t pay enough attention to the human side of change management with teams, the changes planned are going to be painful for everyone
I share 6 key actions to make leading teams through change easier.
Here is a link to all our downloadable booklets and help sheets and our free webinars. These all provide you more depth and will help you develop your management expertise that much faster. Build your confidence so you can lead any team to their best performance! https://enhance.training/team-and-business-management-resources/
How to lead teams through change starts with explaining the why. The why provides context and the purpose behind the change. Team members can then decide for themselves if the change will make them, colleagues and the business better off or worse off. Not knowing the why is one of the classic reasons why people resist change in the workplace.
Next, explain clearly what is in it for them – a key part of how to help teams through change. Everyone wants to know the impact on them of the change. Helping teams through change is clearly explaining the upsides without ignoring the downsides.
Third for how to lead through change, break down the change into manageable tasks and activities for each individual in the team. This takes away a lot of the fear element. Staff also know what to do rather than having to try to work it out themselves.
Whenever you are managing staff through change always spend a lot more time listening than talking. Listen to concerns, issues, challenges, ideas and solutions from team members. You will get amazing insights into how they are thinking and get a ton of useful ideas and solutions to boot. Listening a lot is key in change management.
When managing teams through change, teach team members how to change. Teaching them what is needed to change will speed up making the change plus you are more likely to get the change you are expecting. Always train and teach your staff through change.
Finally, when leading teams through change, hold teams and team members accountable for making the changes needed. There are 5 key actions to take in parallel to hold team members accountable during change – make sure you are taking each one.
If you have any questions on “6 Actions to Make Change Easier for Any Team”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
Develop influence as a manager, or at any level, and you will be able to do more, deliver better results and be viewed as more valuable in your role. Build your influence at work and the great your effectiveness in your role and the greater your personal rewards.
I share 5 principles for influencing others in the workplace.
Resources
Access all our prize winning management expertise for you to stand out from your peers, increase your confidence and credibility and move your management career forward faster! We share a ton of content, e-books, help sheets and more to save you a ton of time while unlocking more of your manager potential. Click the link to find out more about the Management Skills Hub
https://enhance.training/management-skills-hub-ulp000/
To influence people as a leader or manager, being competent at your job is a must. Do you WILLINGLY follow people you don’t admire and respect? Do you willingly follow people you don’t trust to do their jobs well? I don’t think that I do. Influencing others starts with trust. The more trust you can build with those that you want to influence, the more influence you will have with those people. This is the power of influence and trust.
How leaders influence people starts with becoming good at leading themselves. How well you know yourself, how confident you are to reveal weaknesses, how you manage your reactions and behaviours and more … are all part of leading yourself. We follow those that lead themselves better than we do. Work on your own self-awareness, self-management and emotional intelligence to influence more in the workplace.
One of the most important principles in the art of influencing others is reciprocity or helping others before asking for help. Helping others creates influence. We like, trust and respect those that help us (generally) without strings attached. So go out of your way to help others, knowing that at some point in the future you will have that help returned. Helping others is an investment in your own productivity and investment. It is much easier persuading and influencing others when they are happy to be influenced by you.
Leadership is having the courage to take risks and step into the unknown. A great starting point to building leadership skills for managers and your confidence is speaking up and sharing your opinions, ideas and solutions. Start small and build. Have the courage to use your voice every day and every week.
Finally, a very important part of influencing others is building relationships. As mentioned before, we are a lot more open to being influenced by those we like and trust. Build positive personal and professional relationships with your team and bosses. I share who you should target and in which order.
If you have any questions on “5 Principles To Develop Influence As A Manager”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
Planning your work week as a manager is the different between doing a great job and doing an okay or even a poor job. The more people you manage, the more moving parts, demands and deliverables you have to stay on top of. Planning ahead at work gives you a ton of benefits.
I share six actions for planning your week as a manager to be really effective in your job.
How to effectively plan your week at work starts with be very aware of the team, functional and company goals. Consistently ensuring what you are working on aligns to the wider business goals increases the value of your work to bosses. You also meet more than one goal with the same piece of work – a great way to leverage your time and value creation. Very effective productivity tips and time management tips for managers.
How to effectively plan your week as a manager is about prioritisation. You will always have more to do than time permits. How to plan your day week and month must include separating the important and urgent tasks from the unimportant and not urgent tasks. How to be productive at work is not about doing more but about doing more valuable.
How to effectively plan your week as a manager also includes what you are going to do yourself and what you are going to delegate. Delegating is not always a time creating activity. I share tips on time management for managers.
How to plan your day for success should include how you use your calendar and organisational tools to reduce the number of disruptions you get. The average office work is interrupted every 3-11 minutes. I share tips on how to minimise disruptions which kill productivity.
In management roles, the unexpected nearly always happens. Something will come up to disrupt your plans. One of the essential time management tips for work is to build in contingency time to account for requests, challenges and problems that arise.
Finally, at the end of every day, take 5 minute to review what was achieved against your plan and what was not. Replan so that you always have up to date weekly plan in place.
If you have any questions on “6 Actions for Planning Your Work Week As A Manager -Boost Productivity”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
I am sharing 5 people skills to become a great leader. The ones I am discussing today are some of the most important people skills; the ones that every really great leader displays.
Great leaders have the leadership skills to bring something out of us. To become a great people leader, encourage, inspire and motivate through how you make people feel and what you motivate them to achieve.
Communication is one of the most important skills for leadership. I share 5 communication skills that I view as essential people skills for leaders and good people skills in the workplace for anyone with ambitions.
There are a lot of skills needed for how to become a great leader at work. Leadership is about change. Being courageous is a requirement for leaders. It takes courage to change, to do something different. It takes courage to speak your mind, to share your ideas. Courage is needed for how to become a great team leader.
Demonstrating integrity is also a very important skill. I share 8 different ways to demonstrate your integrity (and there are plenty more). Integrity builds trust, it creates safety, it means staff members will be treated fairly.
People follow people they admire and who help them bring the best out of themselves. Being yourself, being authentic is needed for people to relate to you, to learn about you. Trust is massive when leading others. If you are not being true to yourself, how can others trust you?
Finally, flexibility is a critical skill of many management skills. Leadership skills for managers and leadership skills training focus on different approaches to the massive range of situations and personalities any manager faces at work. Work on the flexibility of your approach because everyone and every situation is different. Work at your people skills training and learning and in particular these 5 core people skills to become a great leader.
If you have any question on “5 People Skills To Become A Great Leader”, please leave a comment below and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
As a leader or manager, how do you build great management skills in your organisation? How do you encourage the coaching of great management skills, so you are developing the next generation of managers AND upskilling the managers you currently have?
I share tips and actions to help you encourage managers to develop their teams and in particular their manager direct reports, which in turn will drive increasing team and business performance.
To incentivise coaching of management skills, it is really useful to identify which skills leaders should be encouraging their managers to develop. I list out 7 of the key skills which are great management skills training.
Next to encourage managers to develop their teams work to create a development culture in your team. There is lots you can without budget to get every team member learning and especially you managers. For example spending time mentoring and coaching your managers is great to incentivise building management skills.
To incentivise management skills coaching throughout your organisation, create a management skills development plan for each manager. A development plan provides clear direction, activities and projects for development plus gives you the ability to hold both parties to account (manager and line manager) to deliver that plan.
Finally, I share 4 practical actions to encourage coaching of great management skills within your manager population. Each are great in how to develop team lead skills. For of these skills, I list out practical actions to take and activities to encourage the practice of management skills which will improve management performance and the performance of the teams your managers lead.
Developing better coaching skills is another way to incentivise managers to coach their teams. Get them to pass on the skills they have learnt. Incentivise management skills coaching!
If you have any questions on “How To Encourage The Coaching Of Great Management Skills In Your Team”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training,
Start quickly and successfully by implementing 5 actions for first week success as a new manager. Have a good first week and you set the stage for your ongoing success, you feel a lot more confident in yourself and your team will be a lot happier and more confident in you too.
I share 5 actions to take in your first week – all great first time manager tips
Resources
Access all our prize winning management expertise for you to stand out from your peers, increase your confidence and credibility and move your management career forward faster! We share a ton of content, e-books, help sheets and more to save you a ton of time while unlocking more of your manager potential. Click the link to find out more about the Management Skills Hub
https://enhance.training/management-skills-hub-ulp000/
Start your first week as a new manager by focusing on the new 20%, not the old 80%. Chances are you will be doing a lot of your old role as a new manager. For first time manager success, focus on your new responsibilities – the management part, rather than stay in your comfort zone. I share 5 steps to take to start doing this brilliantly for first time managers.
Next, for first week success as a first time manager understand the goals and expectations for your team. Maybe obvious, yet so few bosses provide clear goals and expectations. I share tips for new managers to work with their boss to get clear goals.
Third, the next of my first-time manager tips is to start with a team focused attitude. Success to become a manager is all about growing yourself. As a manager, success is growing your team first.
For first time manager in their first week, don’t make changes too soon. There is a lot of pressure on managers to make their mark, impress, and prove that hiring or promotion them was the right choice. Too many managers make the wrong changes too soon as a result. For a first time manager success guide, I share how you should go about making your mark quickly.
The last of my new manager first week tips for success is to focus on building relationships. Probably the most important action for the first few months in any new role, and particularly so as a manager. I share tips on who to focus on first and how to go about building the right relationships in the right way.
If you have any questions on “5 Actions for First Week Success As a New Manager – 1st Time Manager Tips”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
Resolving organisational conflict makes everyone’s lives better, more enjoyable and more productive plus it adds significant profit onto the business
I share 4 ways and 10 steps to resolve organisational and inter team workplace conflicts. I also cover what is organisational conflict and provide organisational conflict examples.
Learning how to handle organisation conflict (organisational conflict management) starts with understanding how a lot of conflict occurs within the workplace. In my experience, more conflict occurs because of decisions, organisational setup, goals and processes that have not been designed carefully enough. You see the impact through individual getting into conflict, yet the cause is external to them.
I share 7 classic causes of conflict in the workplace.
How to resolve workplace conflict starts with understanding what is happening and why it is happening. Separately, speak to both parties is essential, ask lots of questions and listen carefully to what they tell you. Understand what is happening. Figure out why it is happening. Understanding is essential for managing conflict and organisational conflict resolution. I share 5 steps to practice for this stage.
Understand what organisational conflict types you are dealing with – conflict between individuals, conflict within a team or conflict between teams. A lot of conflict management in the workplace is redesigning goals, objectives, policies and procedures so individuals and teams are more aligned and not set against each other.
To resolve workplace conflict, then bring the parties together to get them to create solutions. I share 5 steps to follow for this meeting and process.
If you have any questions on “4 Ways of Resolving Organisational Conflict: Reduce Workplace Conflict” please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
Use 5 techniques to speak with the confidence of a leader. Communication skills are probably the most important skill set for leaders and managers. At the heart of leading others is building relationships, earning trust and making the lives of those you lead better.
I share 5 techniques to speak like a leader, so you can feel more confident when speaking with executives, when public speaking or presenting to the board of directors.
Resources
Access all our prize winning management expertise for you to stand out from your peers, increase your confidence and credibility and move your management career forward faster! We share a ton of content, e-books, help sheets and more to save you a ton of time while unlocking more of your manager potential. Click the link to find out more about the Management Skills Hub
https://enhance.training/management-skills-hub-ulp000/
To sound like a leader you must know your audience. Put in the time to do your homework and think through the challenges, pressures and desires the audience has. To speak like a CEO or leader, speak to the audience’s fears and hopes. This is a key part of confident communication and presentation skills.
To be an effective leader, building and keep trust with the teams you are leading is essential. The same can be said when speaking effectively with executives. The greater the trust levels, the easier it is to do your job without questions and challenge slowing down the results you can produce. Always speak with as much openness, transparency and honesty as you can.
One of the essential public speaking skills to master is creating clear digestible messages that are easy to understand. Creating concise well-structured communications will help you speak like a leader and are great public speaking tips and tricks.
When speak in public, to large audiences, and if you want to sound like a leader, your practice is your performance. That is the more you practice out loud before speaking, the better your performance. I share 4 key mental tricks and practices to reduce your nerves before speaking publicly or to large audiences.
Finally, to speak confidently, you must master your own non-verbal communication. These are the facial clues, how you use your voice, the pauses, your body positioning etc to convey additional meanings with the words you use. I share 6 areas you need to be aware of and practice improving as you speak.
If you have any questions on “Speak With The Confidence Of A Leader – 5 Vital Speaking Techniques”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
There are lots of people problems managers can’t ignore if they want to have a happy and productive team. People problems in your team usually get worst over time if left alone and they will easily damage team performance.
I share THE top 5 people problems managers shouldn’t ignore (in my opinion).
How to Manager Difficult Employees (1 Day Course)
Learn how to manage and improve any difficult, underperforming or problematic employees quickly and effectively.
Find out more here https://enhance.training/lp/manage-difficult-people-usp015/
The first people problem managers can’t ignore is bullying and any behaviour intended to put others down. Any form of bullying that the manager ignores is deadly. No action will destroy team trust, motivation and performance. This drop in performance can be quick and dramatic with these people problems at work.
Always take actions quickly to stop any form of bullying in your team. It is one of the worst people problems that impact performance.
The second of the people problems to always look out for is individual undermining team members or you. Undermining can take many forms – usually a pattern of behaviour to attack another person credibility, confidence, standing etc. Use an escalating set of steps to make it unappealing for undermining to happen in your team.
The third of the people problems managers need to spot is individuals taking credit for others work. This behaviour damages trust, relationships and teamwork. For those take credit for others work, they may get short term gains, but they nearly always lose out long term. Demonstrate how to give credit by praising good work, ideas and actions across your team publicly. Don’t put up with team member unfairly taking credit.
Fourth of the people problems that kill team performance is no or poor communication. Communication is at the heart of relationships, co-ordination, collaboration, teamwork, solution building and more. I share 7 actions to encourage more communication within your teams. Help coach team members who struggle to communicating and give them opportunities to practice.
Fifth of the damaging people problems for managers is conflicts between team members. Conflicts can arise for all sorts of reasons. Often it is not the fault of those in conflict. As a manager you are very well placed to help all parties resolve conflicts quickly, fairly and openly. I share steps to take.
If you have any questions on “The Top 5 People Problems Managers Can’t Ignore For Happy & Productive Teams” please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
You are in control of many of the factors that go into how to develop a winning team at work. You don’t need amazing people or big budgets to develop a winning team at work.
I share 4 development strategies for team success and for developing team capability.
Leadership success depends on growing others because the majority of the value you create in leadership roles is delivered through others. Developing teams becomes a must.
How to develop your team at work starts with understanding what development is needed. There are three important factors to be considered and balanced, one being what development the individual wants and needs. Planning and delivering staff development is a massive part of motivating staff to work harder and improve the quality of their work.
There are lots of ways to develop a winning team. Building skills in a team is as important as building knowledge and experience. I explain 3 key reasons this helps you personally and share 6 skills to build in developing teams and effective leadership. I also talk about how to develop a team at work.
You also have to do you part in building a winning team culture and one of the key strategies is working to remove all the basic repetitive low value tasks the team does. Doing this frees up time for to spend on higher value tasks and provides staff development all by itself. There are 4 main ways to remove these low value tasks – are you working at all of them?
Lastly, another important of the development strategies and important in how to develop a team at work is to create a team culture where peers develop each other. This reduces the burden on you, giving you development too! I share 5 key activities to enable you to build a great team culture and brilliant for how to motivate your team at work.
If you have any questions on “How to Develop a Winning Team At Work – 4 Team Development Strategies” please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
How great leaders hold employees accountable is an approach, a process and set of actions that works together to create accountability in individuals and teams.
I share 5 interdependent actions essential for creating a culture of accountability in teams.
Resources
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How great managers hold employees accountable starts with creating and maintaining really clear goals and expectations at a team and individual level. Know exactly what is expected is essential in building accountability in teams. I share tips on how to communicate verbally, non-verbally and writing to set really clear expectations and goals your team pays attention to and owns.
Next in creating a culture of accountability in teams, build team capability. If staff members don’t know how to reach a goal, they are unlikely to reach that goal. Ensure they have the knowledge, skills and resources to be able to achieve goals – a key part of how to hold team members accountable.
Next in how to make my team members more accountable, create a lot of visibility of progress towards goals. Clear goals, objective measurement of progress and visibility is great in creating accountability. Work out how you track progress against team and individual goals and share this progress.
How great leaders hold staff accountable includes undertaking a lot of follow-up and providing a lot of feedback. Both activities provide a lot of guidance and support and well as communicating exactly where each employee stands.
Finally, in holding employees accountable, create clear consequences for missing goals and expectations and for beating goals and expectations. If there are no consequences for either, there will be little accountability.
How to hold your team accountable requires the continuous application of all 5 elements. Miss one and your team and team members will not be nearly as accountable. Don’t let accountability slip through the cracks.
If you have any questions on “How Great Leaders Hold Employees Accountable – Use 5 Essential Actions” please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
5 steps to ask for your next promotion at work takes you through how to prepare to make asking your boss almost a formality. Asking for a promotion is daunting enough. Learn exactly how to prepare so you are confident and much more likely to get a yes.
Before you work out how to ask for a promotion at work, make yourself ready to be promoted. Think about the skills and experience you need to demonstrate for the role you want to be promoted into. How do you compare right now? Work out your gaps and close them before going for a promotion at work. I share 5 methods for working the gaps out.
Getting promoted at work is showing you can do a lot of the role before you ask for your next promotion. Think about the tasks, activities and responsibilities of the role and the level at which you need to operate at. Work out how you are going to demonstrate this - key steps to get your next promotion at work. Make yourself ready for a promotion at work!
Next, build your list of achievements and how much value (revenue and profit) you add to your business. This is really important for your conversation with your boss and your bosses conversations with others deciding on promotions. Achievements that make you stand out really help with promotion at work
How to ask for a promotion at work includes preparing for objections. There will be objections: there is not a role available, you are not ready yet, we don’t have budget etc. These can all be big blockers to your next promotion at work. I share tips on how to prepare and overcome objections to your promotion.
When to ask for a promotion is also important. There is never a perfect time. There are plenty of bad times to avoid which I go through. Choose a good time and book a meeting in with your boss and ask for that promotion.
Good luck!
If you have any questions on “5 Steps To Ask For Your Next Promotion At Work”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
Preparing for your first board meeting is daunting. It doesn’t matter if you are a new director or if you are attending the first meeting of the board of directors in a new company.
I am taking you through 4 key actions you should take in preparing for a board meeting to make sure you create the right impression and allow you to contribute fully.
How to prepare for board meetings starts with be really clear about what you are bringing to the board team. You will have skills, experience and knowledge that other board members don’t have. To prepare for you first board meeting think through how your differences are can be used in the board meeting to best effect.
Next, speak to the chairman of the board (or who leads the meetings) and find out what they expect from you during the board meeting.
Second, I share 4 key areas of background preparation for a board of directors meeting that will increase your confidence and give you good insights to share in the board. You will also be a lot more confident asking questions and challenging other board members. A great way to prepare for a meeting with the other directors.
Third, build relationships or re-calibrate relationships (if internally promoted) before attending your first board meeting. I share tips on how best to do this. Knowing your peers on a professional and personal level is another key step in preparing for board meetings.
Fourth, for how to prepare for a board meeting, plan out how you will contribute to each agenda point in the meeting. Prepare well and you can demonstrate your strong communication skills and leadership skills to peers. Setting the right impression will make working with peers a lot easier, more productive and more enjoyable.
If you have any questions on “Preparing For Your First Board Meeting – 4 Actions For A Knockout Performance”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
To go from manager into your first executive level position is a big jump up in responsibility, pressure, influence and impact on the business you work for. Getting your first executive level position requires you to operate in a different way from your peers.
I share 6 key areas to focus on to get your first executive position, to enable you to go from manager to leader.
To book a call in to discuss a coaching programme with me to land your first executive level position or to make a bigger impact in your first six months of a new executive role, click on this link https://bit.ly/40y8gLW
In executive level positions, you are part of the team running the business. You will need to put the company first and think at a strategic level. When getting your first executive level job do your homework so you can demonstrate you can and do think at a strategic level. I share 5 areas you should focus on to build your knowledge and confidence.
Getting your first executive level role is much easier when you focus all the activities and actions that generate better profitability for the company. Profitability is the comprehensive measure of performance and a great way to demonstrate all the value you are adding to get promoted from manager to director.
Next, in getting your first executive level role, it is essential you get the best from the teams you manage. The higher you go, the more you have to work through others. I share 8 different ways to encourage more from your team.
As senior manager, show you are able to deliver great results when working on cross functional projects for getting your first board director role. Executive level positions have to work across all departments and manage conflicting goals to get the best results for the company. This demonstrates your leadership skills and is great leadership development.
For how to become an executive spend a significant amount of your time building good relationships with as many colleagues and co-workers as practical. This increases your influence and enables you to deliver a lot more in your role. Essential skills to go from manager to leader.
Finally, for your career development, it is essential that you build good relationships with the current executive team. Working hard and delivering amazing results is not enough. The executive team want to know about you, if you will fit in with their group and if they will enjoy working alongside you. I share tips for how to create opportunities to build your relationships with the current executive team.
If you have any questions on “Go From Manager to Leader: Getting Your First Executive Level Position”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
I share 6 brilliant ways to encourage more teamwork at work. Most of us work in jobs where we depend on others to enable us to do our jobs well. Most company leaders and managers want more teamwork in the workplace because they know the company will be a lot better off.
Learn more about how to create and encourage teamwork at work with any team.
The first of the ways to increase teamwork is to set clear team goals. This is standard advice, yet I coach a lot of managers that don’t set clear goals or they set them and then forget about them. I explain methods to set and remind the team of the team goals for how to make your team work better.
The second of my tips for effective teamwork is to think of ways to teach teamwork to your team. Great teamwork can absolutely be demonstrated to a team by you to improve their teamwork skills and improve teamwork and collaboration in the workplace.
Third, effective teamwork in the workplace needs clear responsibilities and accountabilities throughout the team. Work to give everyone a clear role and activities and projects. Spend time with individuals to ensure they understand exactly what they need to do and also communicate this to the team.
Fourth, for how to build teamwork in the workplace, work on building trust between team members and yourself and between team members. Without trust, relationships do not strengthen, nor does reliance on each other. There are different types of trust so work on building personal and competence based trust.
Fifth, encourage lots of open and honest communication between all members in the team. This is one of the essential ways to coach teamwork and to get each team member focused on helping their colleagues.
Finally, align the personal rewards that you offer to team members with how well they personally work within the team. I share 6 different ways to reward team members so do stay for this.
If you have any questions on “6 Brilliant Ways to Encourage More Teamwork – 6 Ways to Teach Teamwork”, please leave a comment below and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
We all want to build great relationships at work because great relationships make work enjoyable and enable you to deliver a lot more in your role. Quickly build great relationships at work and you get a ton of benefits personally and you help your team just a much.
I share 5 ways quickly build great relationships at work. These principles and actions also keep your relationships strong year after year.
Relationship building starts with making yourself a nice person to work with. Be friendly, smile, be positive etc – these are things that most people do already. I share 6 traits of those that build great relationships with coworkers. We should all work at improving these to improve workplace relationships.
Next, think about how you quickly build great work relationships. Spending time with the person face to face is the best way. I explain exactly why and give you tips for this. Taking these steps needs a bit more time and effort with the benefits gained far outweighing this investment.
Another way to quickly build strong relationships is to seek to proactively help co-workers who reciprocate. When you help most people do a better job, get resources they need or help them solve a problem, they will be much more willing to help you in return. When you help others, you also help build good trusting relationships – a double benefit. Help others were you can for building relationships at work.
Next for how to build relationships at work always deliver what you say you will. The most important part of this is setting and managing expectations so that you don’t let others down. Of course you need to put in the work too.
Finally, work on building personal relationships as well as professional relationships. It is all the personal stuff that creates strong connections and shared interests. Connections and feeling the other person is interested in us and gets us are really important parts of building great relationships.
If you have any questions on “5 Ways Quickly Build Great Relationships at Work”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
Knowing how to praise staff at work and being able to show your appreciation to your team is
brilliant to build team motivation, a positive culture and help increase team performance.
Everyone wants to be appreciated and valued. Learn exactly how to praise employees at work to maximise motivation and action.
Course Links
To learn exactly how to give really useful positive and corrective feedback to team members without upsetting and to maximise the chances of action, take a look at our course on giving powerful feedback
https://enhance.training/lp/how-to-give-powerful-feedback-usp007/
Learning how to compliment staff at work and regularly showing employee appreciation with massively help you increase employee engagement. Praising staff at work by saying “Good job” and “Well done” is a great start.
This type of general praise in not memorable and does not inspire repeat action nearly as much as more considered praise.
Firstly, praising staff is great for you as a manager. Giving praise creates positive reinforcement and action. Praise demonstrates your appreciation and that you value them. Happier, motivated teams are much more likely to work harder. Use your praise to guide your team to work smarter. Use praise as employee recognition and for how to show your appreciation. The more you appreciation your team members, the more they are likely to appreciate you.
To give praise intelligently, you need to be on the lookout for good work, good actions and events to give praise about. I explain what type of actions you should be looking for and what to praise and what not to praise. Learn how to show appreciation at work while reinforcing your expectations.
To make your praise standout, remain memorable and maximise the chances of repeat action, make your praise specific. I explain exactly how to do this. Learn how to show employee appreciation and get more action.
Finally, we cover where to give praise and how to use private and public praise to motivate team members and the team overall. Learning how to give intelligent praise are great leadership skills.
If you have any questions on “How to praise staff at work – show your appreciation to your team”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
How to boost your productivity as a manager is different because your team’s productivity is more important, and you have a big influence over that productivity.
I share 4 winning productivity tips for managers. These are the best actions you can take for how to be more productive at work as a manager.
To boost your productivity at work an obvious tip is to put time and effort into planning and organising. To boost your productivity as a manager, what is a lot less obvious is what do you plan and organise, plus what less obvious steps do you take to be great at this. I share 4 actions every manager should be taking every day to increase manager productivity at work.
Second, investing the time into managing expectations and saying no creates a huge amount of time for you and your team. Vital for time management at work. Increasing productivity at work with your team and to boost your productivity working on the highest value tasks and projects is a must.
Third, for how to increase your productivity at work as a manager, intelligently delegate and leverage your team. Once you are organising and planning, you can start intelligently delegating – matching the best skills and experience available to the tasks, activities and problems you delegate. From personal experience, this alone will easily boost productivity 10%+ because people work faster and better doing tasks that play to their strengths and interests.
I share 5 other key ways to leverage your team to boost productivity at work.
Fourth, one of the best productivity tips for managers is to invest time in relationships and reciprocity. Very few people can do their job well without the help of other people. For managers the help of other people is essential to even do an okay job. The better your relationships with others, the more productive you will be at work. You spend less time persuading, explaining and waiting for help. As a result you get a lot more done in same timeframe.
If you have any questions on “Productivity Tips for Managers – 4 Winning Actions to Take”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
In my experience, there are 4 main reasons that staff perform badly. To learn how to handle poor performers and to be a lot more successful in managing teams, the actions you take should address each of these reasons.
Remove poor performance from your team fairly, quickly and cheaply.
Most workplaces are so busy with so many initiatives happening at any given time, it is really easy for team members to be unsure of what exactly they should be focusing on. An equal number of employees receive very confusing or contradictory messages from bosses about what is expected of them.
Too few managers spend enough time communicating to their teams exactly what they expect of their employees and reinforcing those expectations with their own decisions, actions and behaviours. Spend more time that you think you need communicating goals and expectations to both the team and individuals.
Another of the reasons staff perform poorly is they don’t know or accept they are under performing. 43% of managers find giving corrective feedback to employees stressful and an unpleasant experience (2700+ leaders surveyed). I also know from personal experience that really good managers provide feedback all the time – every single day.
Providing useful specific feedback means that every staff member knows exactly what their boss thinks of their performance and why. This reduces the reasons why employees perform poorly. Staff are grateful for their bosses feedback, even when they are below expectations. A key part of performance management is to make sure your team know exactly what they are doing well and not so well, week in week out.
Another of the reasons why employees perform badly is that employees don’t know how to improve what they do. Ideally staff would be good at self-learning and good at motivating themselves to improve and you would have good employee performance. A key action when managing poor performing employees is to teach them exactly what they need to do to improve. If staff don’t really know exactly how to improve, this could be why you have poor performing employees.
Finally, on of the reasons why you have poor performing employees might be they don’t want to perform better. There are so many reasons that drive anger and frustration that lead to lack of will to do better as well as a multitude of character flaws that can also stop an individual improving. An important action when managing poor performance at work is to find out why a person doesn’t want to improve. When you know what the problem is, you have a much better chance of improving the situation.
If you have any questions on “Reasons Staff Perform Badly – How To Handle Poor Performers”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
How to ask great questions as a leader is a skill that you can absolutely build no matter where you are today. Asking great questions as a leader gives you knowledge, insights, action, direction, opportunity, feedback, trust, and more
Take these 8 actions to keep asking better and better questions as a leader at work
How to ask good questions? What are great questions to ask?
Great questions get the other person thinking. There is a good pause before they speak, and you can see them deep in thought. Great questions give you the information or insights you seek. Ask great questions and you often get action in the other person, or you feel you can now take action.
As a leader, you cannot and should not know everything nor be an expert in everything. Even if it were possible, it would be a long way from sensible. A leader harnesses the skills and expertise of others to create better results or outcomes for the group.
To enable the leader to harness the skills of others and do it very well, that leader needs to know a lot about the person, their skills and how best to use them in a given situation. Being able to ask great questions is how they gain all this information. Good leaders ask great questions all the time.
Leaders and managers are ten times more likely to ask good questions if they develop a curious mindset. Be interested in everything going on in your team and you will naturally ask a lot of questions.
Asking questions is one thing. Asking great questions with a purpose is another. Make the time to figure out what are the main levers for business success or what are the main issue behind team member behaviour and actions. Then ask questions with these in mind.
Great questions are usually a series of related questions. One builds on the previous question. You are digging into the detail or situation so you can try to understand what is going on and more importantly why.
How you ask questions matters. The words you use are important. Your tone and pace of voice, your facial expressions and body language are even more important. Be conscious of how your non-verbal communication is impacting the other person.
Asking questions is only useful if you listen to what you are being told. Listening is a lot more than just hearing the words being spoken.
Finally, asking great questions is a skill and to get good at skills, you need to practice.
If you have any questions on “How To Ask Great Questions As A Leader” please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
Get your best employees to stay and you are likely to have a better performing team and a happier team. Your best employees stay because of relationships and loyalties as much as being in a good working environment where they feel they are progressing and developing.
I explain 6 ways to get your best employees to stay.
6 ways to get good employees to stay starts with who you bring into your team. Recruit for fit, culture and values as much as technical skills. New joiners that enjoy a similar culture to your team are much more likely to be happy, successful and stay longer. The rest of the team will be happier and more productive too.
Another great way of making it easy for employees to stay is to find out where they want their careers to go and who they want to be. When you understand each team members interests, ambitions and strengths, you can then organise work that plays to strengths and interests. This keeps employees happier and more successful, plus develop the skills to meet their ambitions. An important way to retain your best employees.
Third, for retaining employees, spending time with each team member, listening to them, using their ideas and making them feel valued is another of the brilliant strategies for employee engagement and retention.
Another key way to stop good employees leaving and improve employee retention is to empower your employees. Empower employees through the frameworks you create as well as your decisions, actions and behaviours within the team.
A great way to provide a fair exchange for hard work from the team is to work hard to develop staff. There is loads any manager can do – delegating work intelligently, personally mentoring and coaching team members, buddy systems and more. Help your team improve their skills in any way you can. Development is vital in how to retain employees.
Lastly, work hard to create a positive team environment so employees have the best chance to do great work and are motivated to do so. I share 7 practical actions you can take to create a more positive working environment.
If you have any questions on “6 Ways To Get Your Best Employees To Stay”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
How to give corrective feedback to an employee is a scary prospect when you don’t know how to do it or when you have had bad reactions with previous attempts
If you don’t provide critical feedback, then it will be:
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Harder for the other person to improve quickly
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They may not realise that they are missing expectations
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You are not really treating them fairly if they are underperforming or have poor behaviours
I share 4 key ways to give negative feedback without offending or upsetting the other person which maximised the chances they will take action.
How to give feedback has to start with your mindset and approach. The whole purpose of giving corrective feedback to get action and improvement from the other person. To do this, they need to listen to what you say, take it in, understand it and then be committed to actioning it.
You massively improve the chances of all this happening when you give feedback with the genuine aim of helping and improving the other person.
Next, we go through what to cover when giving feedback to employees. You have to make your negative feedback as useful as possible. You also want to avoid having lots of difficult conversations.
How to give critical feedback to an employee starts with being specific. You must describe what the employee did in some detail, so they know exactly what they did wrong. Giving critical feedback doesn’t have to be an ordeal for both parties when you know how to approach the conversation. I share key ways to give critical feedback.
Don’t make the corrective feedback about the person. Make the critical feedback about what they did or didn’t do.
Finally, try to avoid stating your opinion when giving feedback effectively. Aim to use examples and evidence rather than you opinion. I explain how to do this so you are clear on the difference and provide examples.
If you have any questions on “How To Give Corrective Feedback To An Employee”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
To be able to speak with clarity and confidence at work makes you more effective in your role and you are seen as more successful. To speak with confidence at work takes a little know how and some practice. That is all.
I share 5 steps to help you speak with clarity at work. Speaking to others are key communication skills for any role and job
To speak confidently and clearly knowing your audience really helps. Make the time to think through what the other person might be thinking and feeling right now. How does their role influence their viewpoint and what pressures does it create. The better you understand your audience, the more clearly you can speak to others so they listen, understand and take in your message.
Preparing in advance, even if it is only a few seconds to think through how you are going to structure your points gives you confidence and enables you to speak clearly. Rambling, long and overly detailed talks or emails are very hard to follow and understand. Create a structure to what you say so that it is easy to follow and easy to communicate.
How you speak or your speaking style can be improved quickly with a little practice. This will help you speak confidently in meetings and with groups. I share tips on how to practice to speak confidently and clearly.
The four step in making your communication more concise – that is having the same meaning in a lot less words. Even those that ramble a lot right now can become concise in how they communicate. I share an simple exercise to practice regularly that will build your conciseness skills quickly.
Finally, your body language, particularly your facial expressions and how you hold yourself communicate a lot of meaning alongside the words you use. Focus on how you use your body language when communicating more than the words you say. Both are important. When you look confident speaking, you will feel a lot more confident.
If you have questions on “5 Steps to Speak with Clarity and Confidence at Work”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
You should value a positive attitude before skills at work. I am going to explain why this is so important as an employee and as a manager thinking about who to promote and who to recruit.
Work on your positive attitude. I share lots of tips of what to do and what to look for to build positive team cultures and get the best from your team in the process.
Courses for Managers to Increase Team Performance & Results
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Most team members appreciate a teammate with a positive attitude at work. Positivity lifts everyone up and creates a nicer working atmosphere. It is so important to develop and maintain a positive attitude at work. This is great for teams and for individuals.
I share 5 signs or behaviours that indicate a positive attitude plus plenty of tips of how to be positive at work and stay positive at work.
The more you have a positive mindset at work, the more likely colleagues will be positive towards you. Being positive is more likely to result in better relationships and receiving more help from those around you. This is brilliant recipe for being personally more effective at work. In addition, those that have a positive attitude are much more likely to get promoted at work. It pays to develop a positive attitude before skills at work.
Next, for managers, it pays stay positive at workplace to demonstrate how you would like your team to behave and operate. Creating a positive team culture starts with the leader and their decisions, actions and behaviours. Always focus on being positive at work. I also share 7 key benefits you will have from creating a positive team culture. Take a look at the links above for more details on how to motivate teams.
Finally, when recruiting staff - put attitude before skills at work. You can teach skills. It is very hard to change a person’s attitude. This is why it is so important to focus a good portion of your time during the recruitment process working out what character traits the candidates have and how positively or otherwise they view the world.
If you have any question on “Why You Should Value a Positive Attitude Before Skills At Work”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
Successfully managing employees in their first few months is crucial for their success, and have an impact on the success of the team. New joiners first few months are critical to creating a good impression, building positive relationships, getting to grips with their role – all of which set them up for success over the coming years.
When new employees are successful, the team is more successful, with reflects very positively on you as the manager.
I share 5 tactics that every manager should employ to get the very best from their new employees.
Managing your new staff successfully has to start with helping them build relationships with team members and then colleagues across the business. Nearly every job relies on teammates and colleagues. With better relationships, you get better teamwork, trust, and interdependency. These in turn produce better results at a team level.
During the probation period of a new joiner there is lots you can do to help your new staff member build positive relationships which don’t take much time to organise. It is in your interest to help your new employees be successful.
Next when managing employees first few months, it is really important to give them very clear direction and set clear expectations and personal goals. This is vital at any point but none more so when managing new employees. When managing an employee during probation you both need goals to assess performance and progress in a fair and collaborative way.
Helping the new joiner be as productive as possible as quickly as possible is in everyone’s interests. There is a lot a new employee needs to learn, regardless of how much experience they have prior to joining. Help them get through this learning process as quickly as possible plus remove problems and provide the resources then need to be successful.
A good manager plays chess, not checkers. To know what your new employee is capable of and what their real character is like, you need to get to know them. Spend time with them. Work alongside them for a bit. Get to know their strengths, weaknesses, ambitions and interests. I share 7 areas that I want to learn about with any employee
Finally, holding your new joiner accountable for performance and their attitude is also very important. A new employee should be on their best behaviour and working hard to impress. If they don’t demonstrate the right level of ability, work ethic and attitude, take action quickly.
IF you have any questions on “Successfully Managing Employees In Their First Few Months – 5 Tactics”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
Working out what your most valuable work is and do that work! Everyone has the same amount of time. What you do with the time you have is the most important thing to move from okay performance to amazing performance. Work out you most important priorities at work.
I share 4 crucial prioritisation tips for managers.
How to focus on your most valuable work starts with understanding that increasing team performance is the most important goal for a manager. This is easily the best way any manager can add significant value to the business in which they work. There are a lot of options for how to increase team productivity. The most important will be specific to you and your team. Common routes include removing problems, training and teaching, creating a positive work culture and supporting and helping your team.
Prioritisation actions for managers must start with what can I do to increase my team’s performance and output. The bigger your team, the more time and effort you should spend directing and supporting your team.
The next best time management strategies and for setting priorities at work is to solve problems your team faces that stop them doing their work or slows them down. These might be outdated processes, low value work, problem employees, lack of resources etc.
Find and solve your team’s biggest problems – a key for how to organize plan and prioritize your work as a manager. This is also a useful approach for how to prioritize tasks at work.
Next for how do you prioritize your work – think about alignment. What tasks, activities and projects are directly supporting the business reach its goals and which ones aren’t helping as much. Focus as much of your and your team’s time and effort on the work that supports the business reaching its goals. When every team in the business aligns their work well, the business performs much better.
Finally, one of the best time management strategies for managers is to teach, mentor and coach team members to develop management and leadership skills. Doing this takes the pressure off you, gives you personally more time and increases team performance.
If you have any questions on “How To Focus On Your Most Valuable Work - Prioritisation Tips For Managers”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
Managers need to improve team results. The main reason a company employs a manager in the first place is to improve team results by more than the cost of employing them. You, as a manager, are in a great position to help your team get the best results.
I share 4 practical and very effective ways to help your team to their best results.
There are lots of ways to help your team to get great results. As a manager, you time is precious and working out what actions and initiatives you take to maximise improving team performance from your actions is really important
You are in a brilliant position, as manager, to improve team productivity because you have more influence and power to make changes to what the team works on and the problems team members encounter.
How you serve your team – that is how you help each individual and the team overall – improve skills, remove problems, guide, direct … is critical to your success as a manager. A manager works through their team, not directly, to create value. It is all about your team and not you. I have found adopting this mindset and the actions and behaviours to support your team, is the quickest and surest way help your team to get great results,
Next help your team to improve team results by living your expectations. A well co-ordinated team that is working in a common direction is a lot more effective and produces much higher value than individuals doing what they think is best. Setting and maintaining expectations, standards and goals are essential to help your team to improve team results. Living your own expectations, rule and standards are essential to setting and maintaining expectations. If you don’t live them, why should any of your team?
The third way for improving team results is to leverage your time intelligently. The work you do should be focused on making each individual more capable, effective and productive. Increasing each team member’s performance by 10% creates a lot more value than increasing your own productivity by 20%.
Lastly, to help your team get the best results, help your team be a team. I have worked in many amazing companies and most teams I see are not really teams but groups of individuals working alongside each other. Teamwork includes high levels of communication and co-ordination, high levels of mutual support and help, a lot of trust, clear direction and goals and more. Great managers build teams rather than just co-ordinating individuals.
If you have any questions on “Improve Team Results – 4 Ways To Help Your Team To Their Best Results, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
How to keep your career moving upwards is a question most of us think about. We all want some progress, so we don’t get stuck doing the same job for ages. There are a lot of factors in how to keep your career moving. Climbing the corporate ladder starts with working hard and doing a good job. More is needed so you don’t lose momentum in your career.
I share 4 key approaches that will massively help you in how to keep getting promoted.
FREE Advanced CV Writing Techniques Webinar. This is ideal for those up against significant competition – for example when going for professional and managerial roles. Learn over 40 actionable techniques that far to few candidates put into practice. https://enhance.training/lm-lp/write-your-best-cv-webinar-ulp034/
Climbing the career ladder is a lot easier when you choose a career goal and then stick to this goal. Having a consistent goal means you put a lot more effort and energy into everything that helps you reach your goal and less into other activities which don’t help you reach your goal. Being more focused means you get to your career goal faster.
This advice is simple to give yet hard to keep putting into practice every month and year through your career. Those that stay focused get a lot further ahead and gain a lot more career advancement.
It is hard to make sure you don’t lose momentum in your career. There are ever changing hurdles to overcome and developing a learning mindset is a really important way to keep overcoming hurdles and challenges as quickly as possible.
Another really important aspect for how to move ahead in career is to ensure you keep a positive attitude at work to as much as you can. Positivity is energising for those around you, great to improve teamwork and looked on very favourably by bosses. Look for the positives in all the situations you can.
Very important in career advancement strategies is to be ready to move company when the opportunities at your current company don’t materialise. Moving is very important to keep climbing up the corporate ladder, so your career doesn’t suffer delays or get stalled. The key to being able to move easily is to invest in learning how to write a knockout CV and be good at passing interviews. Both are skills that can be learnt fairly quickly. See the links above.
If you have any questions about “How to Keep Your Career Moving Upwards – Career Advancement Strategies”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
How to influence people who don’t report to you is a really important skill to make you more effective at work. As you rise through the ranks, you are increasingly expected to influence without authority to deliver results and desired outcomes.
The ability to influence employees who don’t report to you and influence people in other teams enables you to be a lot more effective in your job. You can get more help exactly when you need it from colleagues in different teams.
Learn 5 important actions to build influence without authority.
When you manage people who don’t report to you, using social influencers is much more effective that trying to rely on the limited power of your position. People like to work with people that are nice, pleasant and easy to get along with. It makes the workday more enjoyable and go quicker. When you manage employees who don't report to you, be nice, be respectful and be useful to them.
Another very important action when you lead people who don't report to you is to be interested in them and their world. As a manager you want to get to know them so you can understand their strengths and weaker areas, which enables you to get more from them. Being interested in them also create the bonds and obligations of relationships. The more they like and trust you, the more influence you will have with them. You can influence without authority.
Another incredibly important action is the use reciprocity. That is offering them value first. Look for ways to help the other person and help them. Then you can ask for help in return and be much more likely to get that help. A brilliant way to influence at work.
People are much more likely to do what you ask when they are sure you are working to help the wider group, which indirectly helps them, rather than if they suspect you are trying to help yourself. Create and communicate clear common goals. Even better is to link those goals back to how achieving them helps the other person.
Finally, becoming an influential person builds more influence by itself. Other people know that you are in a better position to help them than less influential people. This gives you more opportunity to influence.
If you have any questions on “How To Influence People Who Don’t Report To You – Influence Without Authority”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
Being confident and self-confident at work is a very big deal – it helps you enjoy your job more, be more effective, be more influential and move your career forward faster.
I share 10 actions for you to take to boost your self confidence at work. Some are short term, giving you improvements in days, others are longer term and very effective to build self confidence.
If you are manager, there is nothing better to boost your self-confidence than investing in your skills and learning how to give better feedback, delegate more effectively, be good at setting expectations and saying no, managing difficult employees etc. Visit us at enhance.training and take a look at all the courses we have to boost your self-confidence.
https://enhance.training/courses/
To explore coaching options, please visit us at https://enhance.coach/
The first action to improve your self confidence is to focus on what you can control and influence. Try hard not to worry about what you can’t control. Measure your progress so you can see your own improvements.
Next for how to deal with low confidence at work, always focus on the positives. Think about what you did well. What was successful and what worked. Our brains are brilliant filters and when we look for the positives our brains filter out more of the negatives.
Third, use mental visualisation exercises to prepare yourself well for actual events. These are brilliant for how to improve your confidence at work. Athletes, speakers and all those who need to perform under pressure use this technique a lot. It works brilliantly.
Boost your confidence by comparing where you are now to where you were a week, month or year ago. Don’t compare yourself to people around you how you feel are more confident than you. They were in exactly the same position you are now.
Fifth, for how to boost self confidence at work – dress well, hold yourself tall and look confident. This will help you feel confident and other people will treat you are more confident. A good self-fulfilling cycle.
These are all very good actions to how to build confidence fairly quickly.
The best way I know for how to build confidence in yourself is to work to be successful at a number of different things. They can be small through to significant. Success breeds confidence. I share 5 actions to take to help you become more successful quicker, so you can build your self confidence.
If you have any questions on “How To Boost Your Self Confidence At Work – 10 Actions To Improve Confidence”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
Going from manager to director level is a big step and a difficult step. Firstly, there are few board director positions relative to senior manager positions. To secure one of the few director positions available you need to stand out and operate in a different way from your peers in senior manager roles.
I share 7 actions to take to get your first director role, going from manager to board director.
Additional Resources and Videos you will find useful:
For coaching options to position yourself for promotion and prepare yourself to be successful when you get your promotion visit us at https://enhance.coach/
Here is a free booklet explaining exactly how to market yourself internally professionally and skilfully to get the recognition, appreciation and promotion you deserve. https://enhance.training/lm-lp/market-internally-booklet/
Moving from manager to director is a big jump in responsibility. The impact of decision making goes up plus you now don’t have anyone to check your functional decision with before making it.
Going from manager to board director also means moving from one job into two jobs – you are joining the team running the company. All of these changes need several mindset shifts to be successful, which are a key part of leadership development. When you are a manager, creating a professional development plan and taking professional development training is very sensible. Being absolutely ready to take on a director role is super important so you will do a good job when you move into that role.
How to go from manager to director is a lot easier when you take specific actions to build your skills and demonstrate you are ready. Showing you are good at decision making is a vital starting point. I explain some of key factors to consider.
Next, for going from manager to director, show you are good at working cross functionally in your business and able to deliver results while working with anyone. This is a key skill to climb the corporate ladder and one of the key leadership skills for managers.
Another very important skill is showing you are good at developing managers in the business. Another part of leadership development skills is showing you think strategically with the questions you ask and the suggestions you make.
There are a lot of actions to take and skills to develop to be ready for a director position and then to show you are ready and a good choice to promote. Starting an executive coaching and leadership development programme is a great way to develop the right areas for you, build your confidence and take the right actions at the right time. Do get in touch to discuss how working with me will get you to promotion for director roles.
Good luck in getting your first director role.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
How to control your nerves when presenting is a big deal when you have to stand up in front of an audience and speak. You might be presenting to a small group, in a team meeting, or giving a presentation on a stage. You worry your nerves during a presentation will make you freeze, make mistakes causing you to look silly.
I share 4 brilliant actions for how to control your nerves during a presentation. Make giving a presentation fun not an ordeal.
How to control nerves when presenting starts with are really powerful mental shift. Your physiological reactions to fear and nerves is exactly the same as your reactions to excitement. Your body doesn’t know the difference; therefore you can train your mind to think excitement rather than nerves. This is a brilliant mental shift that makes a huge difference to public speaking anxiety.
Next when thinking about how to control nervousness when presenting focus on your audience and your message. You are communicating messages and ideas that will help your audience. This is serving your audience in the best way. When you are thinking about what might go wrong and the consequences of things going wrong, you are thinking about yourself. Keep yourself focused on your message and your audience and you lessen the pressure you put on yourself. Another great way for how to calm your nerves during a presentation.
Next, for how to overcome nerves when presenting practice visualisation exercises. Picture yourself speaking to your audience, them looking at your and your presentation going brilliantly. Keep visualising success and presenting in the way you want to present. Do this again and again. When you come to the actual presentation, it is just one more visual experience. No big deal.
Finally, for anyone that has a fear of public speaking, nearly all your performance is from your practice. Put in a lot of good quality practice and your presentation will go really well. Practice at least 8-10 times over a number of days. Keep practicing until you feel happy and confident. I share public speaking tips for how to practice really well.
If you have any questions on “How to Control Your Nerves When Presenting”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
There are 4 key reasons that stop staff performing at work. Most of the time, the manager of a team can influence or remove the reasons that stop staff performing.
Learn different ways to reduce or remove the blockers to employee performance to reduce underperforming employees in your team.
The 4 main reasons why employees under perform are:
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A lack of direction and expectations
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Too few resources to do a good enough job
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Lack of skills
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The will is missing
A lack of direction or far more common – confusion about direction is a classic example of what stops employees performing. When everyone is working in different directions, there will be conflicts and actions helping one employee but detrimental to others. Employees working in slightly different directions reduces co-ordination and with it, team performance.
Every employee has to deal with less resources than ideal. Business resources are always going to be constrained. Real problems occur when individuals and teams start hoarding resources which definitely stops staff performing at work.
Another key to managing underperformance is to ensure that the staff have the skills they need to do a good enough job. A lack of skills, knowledge and help is among the top factors that stop employees performing. Employees might get the work done but miss deadlines, work slowly or produce lower quality than is needed. All contribute to poor performance.
How to manage underperforming employees must address expectations, resources and skills. Cover all these areas and you have removed a ton of excuses that poor performers hide behind.
Lastly, a lack of will also stop employees performing. There can be so many reasons for a lack of motivation. They might have character flaws, have difficulties at home, or feel they have been unfairly treated at work. Find out what the issues are and you have a reasonable chance of resolving them.
If you care about improving team performance, you must address all the reasons that stop staff performing. Getting improvement is the quickest, cheapest and best way to improve individual and team performance.
If you have any questions on “4 Key Reasons That Stops Staff Performing at Work & What To Do About It”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
Developing a learning mindset and mastering self-learning at work are critical to developing a management career. Very few managers get formal training which means if you want to get good, a growth mindset is a massive help.
I explain what a learning mindset is, why it is so important to develop for managers and give you 5 tips to help you building a growth mindset at work. The will to learn as quickly as possible is key in how to be a better manager.
Additional Resources and Videos you will find useful:
Michael Jordan on failure leading to success https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_EyPX3CD-g
I think developing a growth mindset for success is a must in leadership and management. There is so much competition, getter better quickly is a key way to stand out. Plus the quicker you learn and improve the more enjoyable managing will become for you and your team.
In my experience, the power of a learning mindset is massive. Few managers get taught, even by their own bosses. Most have to rely on self-learning and get their growth mindset motivation into gear.
Developing a mindset for successful learning starts with your attitude and your mental approach. A growth mindset vs fixed mindset is one that is open to learning, that looks for opportunities to learn and improve from failures and successes. People with a learning mindset believe - at the core of their being - that when they work to learn and improve, they will keep getting better.
Developing a growth mindset does take work. Learning and improving does take work. An incredibly important question – “Do you view the goals you are trying to reach as worth putting in that work?” Is yes, work to build a growth mindset. If no, stop reading.
How to develop learning mindset starts with changing the way you think and react to situations. You can absolutely do this. Look for opportunities to learn: from failures and successes; from all feedback no matter how negative or unrealistic; from others around you – their successes and mistakes; from any opportunity you have.
Take this mindset and you will build resilience, determination and commitment. All very good qualities to have to be successful in whatever you do at work and outside.
I share 5 tips that have been incredibly useful for me to firstly develop a learning mindset and to work at self learning at work; and then to keep putting in the work and effort to find ways to learn from as much as I can.
To be successful, a learning mindset and the will to work are both vital attributes.
If you have any questions on “How The Best Managers Master Self-Learning At Work”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
The mistakes that lead to burnout at work are pretty easy to make if you are not watching out for them. Some burnout happens because of specific behaviours of employees. Even more burnout is caused by the mistakes of managers.
I share 5 mistakes employees make and 5 mistakes managers make that lead to burnout at work.
To reduce the pressure on you and reduce your workload while strengthening your reputation and the relationships you hold at work, consider improving how you manage the expectations of all the stakeholders for you and your team. Learn practical expectation management skills here https://enhance.training/lp/skillfully-manage-expectations-usp004-12/
To avoid the mistakes that lead to burnout at work, I share the common mistakes individuals make and the signs of burnout that are often ignored. Avoiding burnout is important for our mental health and physical health as individuals. It is just as important from the company perspective – burnt out individual can’t contribute to the company’s success.
There are a lot of actions that managers can take to reduce burnout risk in their teams. These are mainly within the manager’s control which I will cover in a bit.
Some common burnout symptoms include mental and physical exhaustion, lack of motivation and energy, difficulty thinking and more. Spotting the early warning signs are key to avoiding burnout in the workplace.
In terms of definition, burnout is the mental and physical exhaustion a person feels when demands being put on them are consistently more than they can deliver. Burnout is usually caused by prolonged periods of high stress levels.
A key mistake individuals make that leads to being burned out from work, is remaining poor at saying no. Saying no professionally is a mental state and a skill to develop.
Another action for avoiding stress and burnout at work is to learn how to manage the expectations of others carefully and realistically. Managing expectations is learning ask questions, negotiate, challenge, and say no.
Managers make all the same mistake individuals do plus they can contribute to workplace stress, anxiety and burnout by making another set of mistakes. Good management practices avoid all of these mistakes so learning how to avoid these mistakes is good from many different perspectives. The mistakes are:
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Managers ask for and expect too much
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A lack of goals, expectation and direction creates stress and reduces output
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Managers don’t provide enough recognition or rewards
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Not providing enough support for team members
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A lack of fairness across the team
For each, I explain what causes these mistakes to happen and give tips on how to avoid making them.
If you have any questions on “10 Mistakes That Lead to Burnout at Work”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
Managers use power and authority in so many different ways. The power and authority you gain from a position is only one type of power and I would argue, increasing ineffective - on its own - in today’s workplace.
How managers and leaders use power and authority are a huge part of their effectiveness in their roles
I explain how great managers use power and authority for the benefit of their team, not for themselves; including lots of practical tips for how to best use power as a manager or leader and 7 actions for how to build power as a manager.
Power itself is not good or bad. How you use power and authority is good or bad. Managing power in leadership is one of many incredibly important leadership skills and a real test of character.
Managers and leaders need power to enable them to do their jobs. Power and authority is part of the job description. There are many types of power, and a manager should aim to build several different types to be truly effective in their role. Some power and authority comes from their position. A key management skills in business is learning how to use this power and build others.
Think about “What is the role of leadership?” and “How should you use power and authority in leadership?”. To build happy, motivated, trusting and high performing teams, I believe you must use as much of the power and authority you have to help the team, to help others improve and perform better.
As a manager or leader, there are so many ways you can use your power for the good of the team (rather than yourself). I share 10 great uses of power and authority, that will gain you appreciation, respect and loyal followers, not to mention a great performing team. Using power wisely will gain you more leadership power.
Team member happily follow leaders that use their power to help the team. These team members work hard and intelligently to support the team. Employee reluctantly, grudgingly follow leaders who use their power to help themselves. These employees do the minimum. Managers are assessed on the performance of their teams, which is why it is so important to use your power for the good of the team.
The power of leader ship comes through all the different ways a good leader builds power and authority. I share 7 practical tried and tested ways to build different types of power in the workplace.
Power is neither good nor bad. How you use power is critical in building high performing teams.
If you have any questions on “How Great Managers Use Power And Authority – Fundamental Principles”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
The goal of every manager should be to build a high performing team or at least a higher performing team. Team performance is how managers are assessed, and it is the core purpose of a manager’s role.
I share 3 must do’s to build a high performing team based on my experience of turning around multiple underperforming teams and winning multiple “Best Team” prizes, again with different teams.
How to build a high performing team starts with being there for your team. Building high levels of trust is a huge part of high performing teams. Being there for your team day in day out, even when it costs you personally, is a great way to build high levels of trust with your team.
I share 7 practical approaches to demonstrating you are there for your team which will all contribute to create a high performing team. Implementing any of these 7 approaches will have a positive impact on the performance of any team.
The second must do to enable high performance in teams is to set really clear direction. Nearly every management book says this, yet the majority of managers send very mixed messages to their teams resulting in confusion, uncertainty and lower team performance. Most managers tell their team what they want. Very few managers align their decisions, actions and behaviours to fully reinforce those verbal and written directions and expectations.
I give you tips on what to work in for help create a high performing teams culture with very clear direction and expectations. Setting and communicating direction and expectations without causing confusion etc is one of the key leadership skills for managers to practice.
The third must do to build a high performing team is the celebrate the differences. Team become great because they use to the maximum the differences between team members. To build high-performing teams play to team members strengths so two plus two really can equal six rather than four.
Recognising and celebrating the differences within your team is a key part of team performance management. I share 6 practical approaches to demonstrate to your team that you accept and appreciated the different views, approaches, backgrounds, skills etc within your team.
Building a high performing team is possible with nearly any team. Put into practice all the leadership development tips in this video and you will significantly increase the performance of your team.
If you have any questions on “3 Must Do’s to Build a High Performing Team”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
Promoting an employee to manager is a very big deal. A great manager enables and increases team performance. A poor manager reduces team performance and increases team costs. Choosing to promote the right person is a very big deal for you, the team and the business.
Learn 7 behavioural signs to look for when thinking about who to promote to manager plus more great employee promotion best practices.
The skills needed to be a great employee or contributor are very different from being a great manager. The employee to manager transition is not easy and many don’t make this transition successfully. Having a good employee promotion process to identify the most suitable management candidates will save you a lot of time, costs and frustration.
Business success and the success of the teams you look after depends on the strength of your managers. People are at the heart of every business.
Becoming a great manager is very much a personal journey as it is a professional journey. Having good manager skills is only part of the picture. Knowing how to use those skills to get the best from teams is a much more important to increase team performance.
As part of employee promotion evaluation, I suggest you look for 7 behavioural signs your potential manager should be displaying before they are promoted. If several of these are missing, I suggest delaying promoting or not promoting at all.
Good energy levels are also important as being a manager is a tough job and to be good needs hard work.
I also think to be a good manager, you need good self-awareness. Without good self-awareness it is very hard to manage yourself well. Good self-management gives you an important platform to be able to manage others well.
Another essential for potential managers to look for is their ability to self-learn. The quicker and more independently they can learn, the more likely they will build the management skills they need.
Finally, good organisational awareness is very important to be a good manager. We all work with others, other team and departments. A manager needs to coordinate and prioritise work and support other areas of the business. Good organisational awareness enables them to be a much better job as a manager.
Promotion at work is a big deal for anyone. Promoting an employee to manager, and getting it right is very much in everyone’s best interests, particularly yours!
If you have any questions on “Promoting an Employee To Manager – Who to Choose & Why”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
How well do you deal with uncertainty at work? We all have to deal with uncertainty – businesses are always changing and adapting, so we do too. Yet humans hate uncertainty. Our brains translate it into a treat and our natural reactions are often unhelpful.
I share 8 different ways to deal with uncertainty at work – 4 for you personally and 4 to help your team through uncertainty.
It is not easy to manage uncertainty at work, particularly when the pace of change is much faster than we are used to. Change means learning new things and adapting – all of which takes effort and work. Good reasons why many don’t like dealing with uncertainty at work.
How to deal with uncertainty starts with accepting that change is needed and expected at work. It is part of modern life. Accepting a level of change is a good way of coping with uncertainty.
How to deal with uncertainty at work also include not worrying about what you can’t control or influence. Worry will not change the outcomes. Not worrying will massively improve your mental state.
Another of the good tips for dealing with uncertainty is to focus on the present. Focus on what you can do today, what the next task or activity needs to be. Don’t think too far ahead. Keep yourself busy – another good tip for how to cope with uncertainty.
Another best way to deal with uncertainty is to create contingencies and action plans. Planning is 100% in your control. Work out what you are going to do if a certain situation happens rather than worrying about if the situation will happen.
I also share 4 very valuable approaches for how to deal with change and uncertainty when you are leading a team. Imagine a group of individuals worry about uncertainty and the rumour mill working around the clock … how would you keep your team focused and delivering even in period of significant change. I have 4 great approaches for you, tried and tested in workplaces experiencing huge amounts of change.
If you have any questions on “8 Ways to Deal With Uncertainty At Work”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
I know how to ask for and get a raise, yet I hate asking for a raise. Asking for a pay rise is an emotional big deal for most of us.
Make sure you are using the best approach to absolutely get the pay rise you deserve – increase your salary today!
Additional Resources you will find useful:
Get more FREE example scripts for how to ask your boss for a raise here: https://enhance.training/lm-lp/salary-raise-example-conversations-ulp028/
How to ask for a pay rise starts with know two fundamental requirements to get a pay rise. 1 you are adding more value than last year. 2 you are a good employee and team player who your boss wants to keep.
When you are definitely doing both, when you ask for a raise, you should get it.
The best way to ask for a raise is to do 3 vital bits of preparation first. You are much more likely to get a salary increase when you have done you job market research, can show your value and demonstrate your performance relative to your peers. Negotiating a salary raise with good research is a lot more successful and you are much more likely to get a bigger raise.
How to ask and get a pay rise must include looking at job adverts for your job and also speaking to recruitment consultants. You get great information AND you also hint to your boss that you could leave for another job. Without realistic market information you are very much on the back foot for how to negotiate a raise.
Another great tactic for how to ask for a raise and get it is to translate your top achievements over the last year into financial figures and compare these to your salary. The more value you can demonstrate you add to the business, the more likely asking for a raise at work will be successful.
I have also include an asking for a raise example which walks you through what to say to your boss for how to get a salary increase.
Lastly, I include what you should expect after you have had the pay raise conversation.
If you have any questions on “How to ask for and get a raise - increase your salary today”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
What should a manager do? What is the purpose of a manager? There are two fundamental outcomes a manager needs to deliver for the company that pays their salary. Deliver both well and you will have a great career in management. Don’t deliver either and you won’t last long.
Learn what a manager needs to deliver, and I share some of the best ways to achieve each that I have learnt in my 20+ year management career in many top companies.
Most know that both good and bad managers make decisions, organise work, manage communications and look after teams - their approach and intentions very different.
The crucial role of a manager is to increase team performance. This is one of the fundamental reasons a manager is employed.
The easiest, quickest and most reliable way to have a very positive impact on your team members, and increase team performance, is to help them, to support them and to serve the interests of the team.
I share 5 of the best ways for how to increase team performance that I know. Each of these crucial manager skills will increase team performance quickly and keep it high over the long term. This also covers the very core manager functions roles and skills you must focus on every single day to be successful.
The second vital part of what do managers do is to help increase the performance and success of a business in which they work. Business success is a key set of manager roles and responsibilities. If there is no business, no-one has a job.
I share 4 key tips on how to put yourself in the best position to be able to increase the success of any business regardless of your exact management role.
If you are asking yourself “As a manager what should I do?”, this video gives you a great starting blueprint for success in a management career.
If you have any questions on “Understanding The Purpose Of A Manager – What Should A Manager Do” or how to be a manager, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
How to get more respect as a manager or leader from the team you lead is an awful lot easier when you follow 3 hugely important principles. You can put these into practice immediately, whether you are a new manager or have many years’ experience.
Learn a ton of practical tips to get the respect of your team quickly
How to get your team to respect you starts with how you as a manager make their lives at work better. If you can’t or won’t try to make their lives better - more enjoyable, more productive, more successful – then you won’t get their respect.
It is a core human requirement – we want leaders that help the group and us. How to gain respect from your employees is about how well you deliver against this human need and how you go about it.
Learn 6 very good ways to publicly demonstrate to your team as a whole and to each team member your ability to help them. All are great for how to gain respect as a manager. These are also great tips for how to be a good new manager.
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Set Really Clear Goals & Expectations
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Proactively Solve Problems for your Team
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Protect Your Team
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Live your Rules
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Communicate Progress & Provide Support
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Help Team Members Learn Faster
The second principle for how to gain more respect at work as a manager or leader is to think partnership rather than boss-employee. After all, you need you team members as much as they need you. Learn 6 useful ways to foster a partnership approach that gives you and your team real tangible benefits.
The mental transition from directly controlling your success as a worker to indirectly influencing your success as a manager or leader is a difficult shift for many. For any manager, making this shift is crucial for how to get respect at work.
How to gain respect at workplace as a manager – improve the performance of your team. Improving team performance is the core reason to employ a manager.
The last principle for how to make people respect you at work is to use the power of your position to help others and the company, not yourself. This is huge! It is very easy to be tempted to use power to make your own life easier at the expense of others. Do this and you quickly damage the respect others have for you.
If you have any questions on “How To Get More Respect As A Manager – 3 Vital Principles”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
Every manager wants to keep their high performing staff longer. High performing employees deliver a lot more value for relatively little more in pay. Keep enough high performers in your team, manage them well and you are nearly guaranteed at least good team performance.
I share 5 actions to keep high performing staff longer
How to keep high performers starts with your approach and attitude towards them. Treating your high performing staff as partners will
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Make them feel more valued and appreciated
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You will utilise more of their talents
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The right mindset will create more development opportunities for them
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They will get more autonomy and responsibility from a partnership approach
Plus you and they get a ton more benefits. You want to get the most you can from your best staff so cultivate a great partnership mindset from the start.
Next, proactively create good development opportunities for your high performers at work. This is easy to say yet quite a bit harder to do in practice. I share the 5 best ways I have come across for getting the most high-value development to your high performers in the workplace.
Third, provides lots of honest and structure feedback to your high performance individuals. High performers want to know what they are not doing well probably more than what they are doing well. Learn tips on giving corrective feedback without offending and how much positive feedback is needed to keep high performing employees happy.
Another massive motivator for high performing staff is minimising distractions and pain points which reduce their output and annoy them. This is an essential priority to create high performing teams. Learn about how to mitigate 4 common problems that always come up in nearly every company that such time and motivation from team members and particularly the high performing staff.
Lastly, pay your high performing staff well. There are common barriers to paying enough salary in practice to make moving more difficult for high performers. Learn how to overcome these issues without causing problems in the rest of the team.
The actions to keep high performing staff for longer must not annoy or upset the rest of the team. Getting the right balance is really important. Learn how to do this.
If you have any questions on “5 Actions To Keep High Performing Staff Longer”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
enhance.training
Being more persuasive at work gives you a ton of personal benefits plus can make you a lot better at your job. Anyone can become more persuasive at work using 4 specific actions without needing to be a smooth talking extrovert or a born salesman.
Learn exactly how to convince others at work to do what you need.
How to be more persuasive starts with understanding the person or team you are trying to persuade. What are the wants, desires, pains, obstacles etc. If you can’t put yourself in the other person’s shoes, persuading them to do what you need is very much an uphill battle.
Ask questions and listen to put yourself in a good position with how to persuade people. The more you understand the other person the better you can work out how to convince people to do what you want.
Showing empathy and demonstrating have taken the time to understand the other person is the next step for how to be persuasive at work. Showing you are receptive to them and are interested in their position will make them a lot more receptive to you and your position. A key part of being persuasive skills at work.
Then you can work to create a solution that helps the other person get at least a part of what they want while they are helping you or aligning with what you want. Always look for a win-win solution when persuading others. We all do what is in our own best interests first.
Finally, I cover how to build the trust shortcut which will slash the time and effort you need to put in to convince other. Trust makes how to convince employees a whole lot easier and quicker. In my opinion a very worthwhile investment.
If you have any questions on “4 Actions For Being More Persuasive At Work – How to Convince Colleagues” please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
Why improving self awareness will make you a better leader – leading others is all about relationships. When you have a great and honest relationship with yourself, you are much better placed to have similar relationships with others.
Better relationships increase trust, teamwork, motivation, enjoyment … in a work context the list is long. Increase all these elements and you get significantly increased team performance, and in turn company performance.
There is a lot at stake. We start with what is self awareness? I pose a ton of questions for how to improve your self awareness and get you thinking about what steps you can take today.
Why self awareness is important at work? Becoming a good manager and leader is a personal journey as much as a professional journey. How well we know ourselves and can manage ourselves, in my view, is directly related to how well we can manage other. Being more self aware is an essential step to self improvement and personal development. Become a better leader at work by first leading yourself better.
There has been a lot in the business press in recent years about self awareness and emotional intelligence for very good reason. A lack of self awareness is a huge blocker or barrier to good management of others. Increasing the performance of any team through better management (rather than changing the team members) is an incredibly valuable skillset and delivers hundreds of thousands plus of extra value to companies.
I pose a ton of questions for you to consider answering to yourself about what is self awareness and why is it important in a leadership context.
I then explain why it is so incredibly valuable for you to put in the effort and time to become more self ware, to learn more about who you are, what you want and what makes you tick.
Be a better leader at work. Work on know more about yourself.
If you have any questions on “What Is Self-Awareness And Why Improving It Will Make You A Better Leader”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
A great project business case creates excitement and anticipation within the business for the benefits promises. In addition to the upsides, a project business case should carefully set expectations about the effort, resources and change needed to achieve those benefits.
I share 8 reasons why you should write a business case for a project, 4 damaging mistakes to avoid plus 8 key sections to include.
Project Business Case Checklist – write a more persuasive business case and set your project up for success. https://enhance.training/lm-lp/project-business-case-checklist-ulp027/
Writing a project business case is a key starting point for project planning and what I would consider project management basics. I share 8 really valuable reasons to write a business case for a project.
For example, do you really want to put your reputation on the line with a half thought through project plan. It would not be a good way to start persuading others to allocate resources and staff time ahead of other business opportunities.
Avoid 4 damaging mistakes when writing a business case in project management. Being realistic, doing your research and analysis and thinking through different scenarios and the problems that might arise in each are good project planning and management skills.
Classic mistakes are made by project managers when writing project business cases to try to get the project signed off and started. Inflating the upsides and downplaying costs are two. When you have a good project business case, you should be able to do the opposite and still have the business keen to sign off and start the project.
A key test of project manager skills is setting realistic expectations or even expectations that the project team are happy they will exceed. This sets a project up for success from the start rather than trying to climb a mountain of expectation set with a poor business case.
How to write a great project business case must start with a good summary that covers all the key points - the goals, the benefits for the business, the ROI, the timeline, key project risks and mitigations and the key resources needed.
Learn all about the remaining 7 sections to writing a great project business plan which will allow you to be more persuasive, start your project earlier and set much more realistic expectations across the business.
If you have any questions about “How To Write A Great Project Business Case - 8 Key Sections To Include”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
Coaching is so effective for managers for many reasons and coaching team members is also a very effective skills for team managers to develop.
I share 5 factors that make coaching so effective for managers, plus coaching development tips to maximise the development of your most important team members.
For coaching for you or your team, please get in touch via email support@enhance.training or call +44 203 500 6300 to discuss if coaching with me would be a good fit for you and what you are looking to achieve.
What makes coaching so effective for managers and high performers is focus on developing the person’s character as well as management and leadership skills. How a leader or managers thinks and approaches management is much more important than having the right skills. Just think about your best and worst managers – I bet the difference had little to do with their actual skills and everything to do with how they approached managing.
Leaders and managers make the biggest impact on the business. They make the decisions with the biggest impact and influence the performance and well being of the most people. When leaders and managers do a good job, them most of their team members also do a good job. If you don’t provide leadership development training, then how much are you limiting business success?
Another great reason to use leadership coaching is you are helping the managers develop their own coaching skills - it is coaching training for managers. Building coaching skills expands their management toolkit. They can then use these skills to better develop and motivate their teams. I personally think of a great manager as a coach.
Coaching skills for leaders are so effective to develop talented people because using coaching skills helps them develop their:
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Problem solving skills
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Decision making skills
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People management skills
These are all high value skills that significantly increase business performance when used well across the business.
Develop coaching skills across your business, in my view, is a must do to get more from your staff.
If you have any questions on “5 factors that makes coaching so effective for managers + coaching tips”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
How you manage incompetent employees is essential to improving team performance and reducing the time, effort and hassle you experience in dealing with poor employees.
Use these 4 steps to be fair to yourself, your team and your business
I have put together a booklet to take you through my decision making process on which option to take with a incompetent employee:
- Improve
- Move or
- Remove
Taking the right approach saves you a lot of time and energy and gets the best result for everyone a lot quicker. Down the free booklet here:
https://enhance.training/lp/improve-remove-dt-ulp024/
You might take over a new team with an incompetent person in it, or a person may become incompetent over time with increasing demands of their role and they fail learn and grow.
There are loads of reasons why you might have incompetent people in your team. Incompetent employees are those who perform noticeably below peers – by 20-30%+
Incompetent team members are, unfortunately, toxic to team performance and career progression as a manager. If you want to do a good job, you can’t ignore incompetent people at work.
Always make the time to ask questions and find out what is behind the incompetence. A surprising amount of the time, the issues causing incompetence are very fixable. This is the quickest way to improving team performance and is a good demonstration of your management skills.
The second step for how to deal with incompetent people is assess the potential. Some people have lot, and some don’t. You manage each differently. I go through the factors you should consider.
The third step in how to deal with incompetent employees is to think about what other jobs in the company could I move this person to in which they could do a good job. For the right type of situations, offer to move the incompetent employee.
Finally, when dealing with difficult people and incompetent people and you run out of other practical and sensible options, take steps to remove the employee from your team.
Take action today. You cannot afford to ignore incompetent people in your team.
If you have any questions on “How to Manage Incompetent Employees – 4 Essential steps to Take Today”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
Run great weekly team meetings and staff will want to attend, the team meeting will be useful to everyone, and holding the weekly team meeting will actually improve team performance over time compared to not holding them.
I share what I have found works really well for how to run staff meetings effectively. Get better staff meeting ideas and start improving meetings today.
Running team meetings is not easy. There is so many different ways to run weekly team meetings. Too many managers find themselves the only one really talking during the meeting and staff look bored, looking at their phones or otherwise not really engaged.
Effective meetings are where everyone is clear on the purpose of the meeting, everyone is engaged and participates and at the end of the staff meeting, everyone has actions or next steps to go and do.
Team meetings are super useful in increasing communication, co-ordination, support and teamwork. I view weekly team meetings as part of the core foundation of communication and prioritisation needed to improve team performance over time.
How to have a great staff meeting starts with communicating what the meeting will achieve, and what is expected from everyone who attends. Running effective meetings is also about who attends. If they are not going to participate, they don’t need to be in the meeting.
Aim to keep weekly staff meetings short. You have them each week so wasting time is a no no. Create a clear agenda and circulate prior to having the meeting – a key practice in how to run a team meeting effectively.
Effective meeting management should make the meeting about creating actions and improvements in the work the team does. Ensure that each meeting attendee leaves with an action.
The first agenda item sharing results achieved since the previous weekly meeting. Next, set goals to achieve for the next weekly team meeting. Third share challenges and organise help and lastly, celebrate wins and successes.
I go into detail on how to use each agenda item so you know how to run team meetings effectively. Make the weekly team meeting as useful as possible to everyone attending!
If you have any questions on “Run Great Weekly Team Meetings - How to Run Staff Meetings Effectively”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
How to set OKRs with your team and use them to deliver the right goals quicker and better will make you and your team a lot more successful. Using the OKRs or Objectives and Key Results system helps prioritisation, creates a focus on results rather than activity and aligns everyone’s efforts to deliver the right goals.
I share 6 steps for how to set OKRs with your team and achieve the right goals.
What are OKRs in business? The OKR system is an approach to goal setting that creates visibility, goal alignment and help improve team performance. The objective is the what you want to accomplish. The key results part is 1-5 projects or initiatives that talk to HOW we achieve that objective. That is the OKR basics or OKRs explained.
To set OKRs, the first step is to understand the wider business goals (or your business unit or functional goals). Alignment of goals means everyone is moving and working in the same direction. This is very important to maximise effort towards achieving common goals and in performance management.
Then you can set team OKRs. How to set OKRs for your team starts with considering how your team can best contribute to achieving the wider goals and what areas of responsibility and activity your team covers. I have included OKR examples in the podcast.
Once you have chosen your objectives, you should work with the team to set the key results via a small number of projects. These need to be specific, realistic and the results to be achieved very clear.
Assign who is doing what, starting with the leader of each project. Don’t spread your team too thin otherwise you will not achieve your goals. Focus of effort is really important.
Goals are great but without constant attention, they are quickly forgotten. Create visibility of the OKRs. Keep referring to them, tracking them, talking about progress. Don’t forget to praise great results.
Finally, constantly follow-up with your team and provide help, support and coaching to ensure they achieve the results desired as quickly and painlessly as possible. This is a vital step that too many managers spend too little time on. Work alongside your team to deliver the best results you can as a group!
If you have any questions on “How to Set OKRs With Your Team and Deliver the Right Goals Quicker”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
Key result areas or KRAs are a very useful tool to increase employee understanding and accountability for the results they are being asked to deliver. KRAs help better align employees work to wider goals and make better use of resources. At an employee level KRAs focus individuals on delivering results rather than undertaking activity.
Learn what are key result areas and 5 great ways to use key result areas to improve team performance.
Key result areas for team direction should align to company strategy and the function or business unit KRAs. Alignment is really important to maximise everyone efforts in the business to hitting targets and goals. I have provided some key result areas examples at company and team levels.
For performance management, less KRAs in number increases the focus – which is good for results. When setting goals for individuals, align these directly to the team KRAs.
Next think about the time periods over which you need the results. Set team KRAs that create the most valuable results to enable the wider function or business goals to be achieved.
Then set individual KRAs which relate directly to their roles and aligned into the team goals. This creates good performance management tools both at a team and individual level. Results are usually easier to track than activity. The KRA in performance management terms should has specific and clear measurable output.
Finally, always spend as much time planning the activities, initiatives and projects that will enable the individual to deliver the results set out in their KRAs. The employee is much more likely to deliver results when they have a clear plan or set of plans to enable them to deliver.
I view this final planning step as super important for success in improving team performance.
Creating good key result areas is a very useful tool to focus time and effort into the right areas. As a manager, you then need to work at keeping the KRAs front of mind and influencing what the team focuses their time and effort on. In the modern workplace, there are so many distractions, new initiatives and shiny projects that forgetting about the KRAs is easy to do unless the manager is constantly reminding the team.
Use KRAs to move employee thinking from activity to delivering results which are more aligned to the wider business.
If you have any questions on “5 Great Ways to Use Key Result Areas or KRAs to Improve Team Performance and Ownership”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
Keeping team members happy, motivated, and performing is great for you and great for your team. Better team performance and an great working environment come from a happy team. Keeping staff happy is within your control as a manager and you can implement each of these actions quickly.
I share 7 ways to make your staff happy at work that every manager can implement easily.
Keeping employees engaged and happy starts with communicating openly, honestly and frequently. Employees what to know how their job fits into the bigger picture and understand that what they do is valuable.
Keep team members happy by communicating what is happening in the company, how the company is performing ... in short share the news. Direction makes everyone’s job easier.
Listening to your employees is one of the best way to make your employees happy. You get a ton of valuable insights that really helps you increase team performance. Use the ideas, suggestions and solutions team members come up with. You increase team productivity while keeping everyone that much happier.
Treating your employees how you want to be treated is timeless advice, yet how many mangers really avoid the many common mistakes that damage trust, happiness and appreciation. I share tips to help you get into the right mindset.
Focus on solving employee problems as a manager. It’s a brilliant approach for how to make your employees happy. You also leverage your time and create significantly more value for your business by helping your team members work better, faster and smarter.
Do you praise enough? Research as shown that keeping employees happy requires you to praise them at least 3 times more than criticise or give corrective feedback. This ratio is even higher in high performing teams. Positive reinforcement is a great way to build higher team engagement and better team performance.
Finally, publicly demonstrate that you value your employees, their contribution, their skills and the results that they deliver.
If you have any questions on “Keeping Team Members Happy – 7 Actions Every Manager Can Easily Implement”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
How to focus your team on the KPIs you measure is as hard as choosing the right KPIs in the first place. Greater focus from the team means more time and effort directed at what drives the KPIs, which will increase team performance.
I share 5 key tactics to get your team laser focused on the key performance indicators you measure.
KPIs or key performance indicators are how you measure and track progress against the goals you have set. KPIs are a very useful too in performance management and business management and widely used as a result.
Setting KPIs that change behaviour of your team and align effort and action on the tasks, activities and projects that will best help the team reach the goals set is a critical first step.
Most businesses have information overload. After goal setting, working out which kpis and metrics to track to drive results is not easy.
Once you have chosen your key performance indicators, educating your team to why you have chosen these specific KPIs is the next step. If they don’t understand how the KPIs link to the goals and the why behind them, they will not be nearly as engaged and focused on undertaking activity in the right areas to maximise progress.
Next explaining to the team exactly what they need to do to improve a KPI measure is a must. Don’t expect them to know this or understand everything about what is needed. Explain and educate them. When the team know exactly what to do and how to do it, they are much more likely to deliver what you need.
In our extremely busy and distracting workplaces, it is not enough to talk about KPIs and goals a few times and expect the team to stay focused on delivering against them. You need to constantly remind them. I share 7 ways to do this very effectively.
Finally, to add even more focus on the tasks, activities and projects that will best progress the team to reaching goals, link all the benefit you can into kpi progress and reaching goals. There is a lot of benefit that don’t need budget and of course many that do. Clink a range of both to improving kpis and achieving goals.
If you have any questions on “How to Focus Your Team on the KPIs You Measure to Drive Better Performance”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
What stops you making decisions at work? Work decisions can have big consequences, big impacts or are very public, making deciding on what to do harder.
I share 7 common reasons for not making a decision at work, and 3 practical ways to overcome decision paralysis at work. Improving your decision making skills today.
There are loads of reasons that stop you making decisions at work. Fear of failure is a major reason for struggling to make a decision at work. As we progress our careers, the impact of our decisions become more and more public. Embarrassment, consequences, reputations, job security … stops you making decisions.
When you have confidence decisions are made a lot more easily. When you are struggling to make a decision at work break down the decision into smaller parts and make lots of smaller decisions.
Lack of information is a reason many end up struggling to make a decision. Rarely do decisions makers have all the information than want. Another challenge is focusing on making the right decision. In business there is rarely a binary decision or a right or wrong decision. For how to make decisions focus more on the best outcome rather than right or wrong.
Worrying about what others think stop you making decisions. You cannot please everyone and at work, putting the business and team before individuals when struggling to make decisions is sensible.
For how to make decisions at work reference the company direction and strategy. The more aligned your decisions to wider goals, the easier they are to make. Lack of direction makes it a lot hard for employees to make decisions.
For how to make tough decisions, think about which options will make the company and team better off compared to the other options. This mindset is very useful how to make decisions at work.
Those that make decisions quickly and decisively are very good at reframing and changing their perspective. This helps them overcome their fears and mentally move themselves forward to make a decision. You can use exactly the same techniques to make decisions quickly and decisively
If you have any questions on “What Stops You Making Decisions At Work & What To Do About It”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
Being in middle management is a tough job. Middle managers are also vital to the success of your business, translating the business goals and strategy into day to day activity and performance to reach those goals.
Businesses with their middle managers in the top quartile of performance on average delivered 3 to 21 times more shareholder value than middle managers in the other quartiles. A massive reason to invest to make your middle managers more successful.
I share 4 vital ways to make your middle managers successful, each with practical tips of how to implement and get the best from your middle managers.
How to make middle managers more successful starts with be really clear about what you want from them. Explain very carefully the goals and invest time to ensure your middle managers understand the company strategy and how the company will achieve success.
Make middle managers more effective by working with them to develop the projects and activities needed to implement the strategy of the business. They will appreciate your time and you will know more about what is happening in the business. Clarity of direction is very valuable – a perfect way to invest in the success of your middle managers.
Second, undertake management skills training with your middle managers. They will develop management skills a lot quicker, which means delivering more value quicker. Great news for the business and you. Develop their leadership skills through coaching and mentoring. Management is one of the few professions with little or no training given, yet managers are expected to perform and deliver great results. This is crazy. Getting management skills in business does not happen quickly by osmosis.
Next provide responsibility and flexibility to your middle managers. If you drown you managers in rules, processes, administration and bureaucracy, how can they do a good job. Every person and situation they face will be slightly different. The real value of middle managers is their skills and knowledge and ability to effectively deal with a massive range of people issues – give them the right tools for success. Give them responsibility and flexibility.
Finally, work at measuring success and accountability. Visibility increases accountability on its own. No-one wants to let colleagues and team members down or be bottom of the pile. Creating visibility and measuring success and accountability will give you the confidence to free up middle managers from rules and regulations. Cutting down the bureaucracy is a great way for how to help middle managers set teams up for success.
Successful teams = a successful business. Just what everyone wants!
If you have any questions on “4 Vital Ways To Make Your Middle Managers Successful”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
Learning how to talk effectively to higher ups is a big deal for your confidence and career prospects. Once you understand the elements of communicating effectively with executives and senior management, you will find it easier and easier to effectively communicate with higher ups.
I share 6 tactics to talk effectively to higher ups giving you practical actions to help you improve quickly.
Communicating effectively with higher ups starts with focusing on impacts and benefits. This is what they care about, not the process to achieve these benefits which is your responsibility. When communicating effectively with executives, add numbers and be specific with what you say.
Talk clearly and concisely to upper management because they don’t have time to long winded poorly structured messaging. When talking to higher ups be clear what you want from them and make this easy to understand.
Get straight to the point when talking effectively to higher ups. Then you can provide the context and detail as needed. I share exercises on how to make clear and concise points like a boss.
How to talk to higher ups includes focusing on the top concerns. Frame what you are talking about in terms of benefits to them, not you, when communicating effectively with others. They care about their world so talk to them in terms of how they, their team or the business will be impacted.
A big part of how to communicate with higher management is to work out the flaws before they do. Work out what questions they might ask and have good answers for these. Make time to look at what you are communicating from different perspectives and find the weaker areas or flaws. This gives you time to work out how to avoid them or mitigate them. Taking this step increasing your credibility and standing very quicky with executives and higher ups
Believe in what you are saying. How confidently you talk to managers and leaders will determine the level of challenge and questioning you get. The best way to build confidence is to do your homework, work through likely questions and build good data and insights to back up your position or request.
Finally, be open and honest. Experienced managers have an amazing knack of asking the right questions to expose problems and shortcomings. Be honest in how you answer question. Any dishonestly or trying to hide issues will cause a lot more damage than being open about problems to be resolved.
The more time you spend practicing how to articulate your thoughts clearly, the quicker and easier you will find talking effectively to higher ups. Effective communication is a brilliant way to get noticed and gain the respect and trust of higher ups.
If you have any questions on “6 Tactics To Talk Effectively To Higher Ups” please email me at support@enhance.trainingand I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
Being open minded at work, in my view is a critical career success factor, for any professional or managerial role. Being open minded means you learn faster, are more empathetic, build better relationships faster … in short, open minded people usually do better jobs and are easier to work with.
I share 4 ways to be open minded at work and maintain an open mindset.
How to be more open minded starts with your mindset and attitude. Our brains love patterns which creates a tendency to be closed minded. Feeling that you are right is the enemy of learning because you don’t look any further. The solution or approach you use doesn’t improve.
I share three different techniques to break this pattern – all critical ways to be open minded and keep becoming more open minded. Be more open minded to speed up how quickly and how well you learn.
Great managers work hard to maintain their open mindedness. They know that their teams have a lot to offer so being open minded allows them to maximise how they use the strengths of their team, which in turn leads to significantly better team performance. Use the exercises I share to develop a great attitude and see the best in your team members.
How to be open minded includes learning how to stop, consider, evaluate, and then make up your mind, even when you have an immediate solution. Being open minded is a necessary first step to enable you to constantly get better at what you do. If you are not open to what others offer or to better ways of doing things, how will you improve?
Be open minded by creating the habit of asking and listening. No-one knows everything. Nearly all of us rely on those around us to help us to do our jobs. We receive information, work and ideas from them as much as give these to others. We are a society of specialists working together so the group does better than having lots of generalists. Relationships, communication and relying on others are all critical.
Learn more, do a better job and get on with more people by asking a lot of questions and listening to what you are being told. This is a brilliant way of demonstrating your open mindset to your team and colleagues every day!
If you have any questions on “4 Ways To Be Open Minded At Work – A Critical Career Success Factor”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
Grow your team by coaching employees. There are so many benefits to investing your time to help your team members improve what they do and build new skills. Coaching your team is a great way to help build those trickier skills like people management and decision making.
I share employee coaching techniques for 5 high value skills to your employees that will make your job as a manager a lot easier.
Coaching team members is not about telling employees what to do. Coach employees to get them thinking, to build their confidence, to come up with their own solutions. Coaching employees is a combination of listening, asking questions, challenging, and encouraging. How to coach team members starts with the goal of making them the experts.
Coaching team members good problem skills is amazingly useful to managers, as it takes some of the burden off their shoulders and helps the team work faster and get more done. Coaching team members to think through problems, consider options and create solutions with confidence.
Coaching employees for success must include helping them get comfortable with making increasingly difficult decisions. When coaching employees in the workplace start coaching them through the easy often made decisions and progress them towards difficult decisions where there is no easy choice.
When coaching your team members to improve team performance, gaining good project management skills is super valuable. Improvements and change are usually delivered through projects. Knowing how to organise, plan and manage projects, significantly increases individual effectiveness plus increase what a team can achieve.
I know that coaching team members to improve teamwork and their people management skills is a very effective approach. Telling them what to do is a very good starting point. To build skills you need to practice. Through coaching, the individual is much more likely to learn
Make time for employee coaching and mentoring. Doing so increases the motivation, skills and performance of your team as well as gaining a huge amount of respect and appreciation from them. Coaching your team to higher performance, I have found to be extremely effective in multiple teams in a wide range of companies. Make the time to coach your team.
If you have any questions on “Grow Your Team By Coaching Employees – Build 5 Amazing Skills For Great Team Performance”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
Get more recognition at work by learning how to communicate the benefits your work gives to your boss and colleagues. When you make the value you create clear and memorable, you really stand out at work and get a lot more recognition.
I share 6 ways to get more recognition at work and clearly stand out from the crowd.
How to stand out at work starts with doing the important things really well. You will have more work than you can do (unless you are very lucky). When you put more effort and time into the important tasks, activities and projects and less time into urgent but less important ones, you have a much better chance of standing out at work and getting a lot more recognition.
It is horrible not getting recognition at work, particularly if you are working hard. Hard work is not enough. Rather work hard on the really important areas and communicate your achievements to your bosses.
Second, for how to get recognition at work, it is really important to measure the impact of your work for the team and your boss. If you don’t know how much of an impact you are having, why should anyone else. Use financial numbers to quantify your impact to get more recognition in the workplace.
The third way to get more recognition at work is to link your results to team, function and business goals. Everyone should be focused on achieving these goals (and they are likely to be the more valuable work). Demonstrate how well you are supporting your boss and the team by clearly linking your results and output to moving the team closer to achieving goals.
Fourth, to stand out at work, you must market your work to your busy boss. This is super important. Don’t expect your busy and under pressure manager to be tracking exactly what you do and appreciate the value you are contributing to them and the team. Spell this out for your manager. Make it easy for them to understand your contribution.
Fifth, to get recognition at work, build relationships across the organisation and help others out. Making the time to do this massively helps your ability to do a great job, plus you know more people and are significantly more appreciated and respected. Reciprocity is a powerful group law. We share tips on how to practically build more relationships at work with those you don’t know.
Sixth, for how to stand out at workplace, communicate how you are a team player. Every business wants and needs lots of team players to be successful. Team players help others be more successful as well as being more successful themselves. You get a lot more recognition at work from clearly being at team player. No recognition at work happens to those that only look out for themselves.
If you have any questions on “6 ways to get more recognition at work - clearly stand out at work”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
High performing teams are built not recruited. High performing teams produce amazing results because of how they operate; how team members work together; how they communicate and collaborate and how they support and help each other.
Learn what makes high performing teams at work, what amazing teams do differently and 4 things the manager needs to do differently in building a high performing team.
--- Management Skills Accelerator Course
Becoming a successful manager is difficult enough. When you add little or no training to this tough challenge, you journey gets a lot tougher and takes longer to achieve.
Learn the approach, the behaviours and the skills needed to build high performing teams by visiting enhance.training at https://enhance.training/msa-usp006
There is a lot the manager can do to build high performing teams at work which produce great team performance. What is scary is managers are told the characteristics of high performing teams, yet so few managers are taught HOW to create high performing teams.
Gaining the skills and knowledge to build high-performing teams is not easy – it takes time and work. Gaining these skills is nearly impossible if you don’t know what is needed in creating high performance teams.
Becoming a great manager is a personal journey as much as a professional journey. Being able to manage yourself is pretty important when you are put in charge of managing others.
In this video we go through what makes high performing teams – 8 behaviours and characteristics that you would expect to see displayed in high performance teams. This gives you a starting point for what habits of high performing teams you need to instil your own team. An essential part of that process is for you, the manager, to display the behaviours and characteristics day in day out. Leading from the front is incredibly important.
We then go on to explore what high performing teams do differently. I cover 6 things amazing teams do differently from okay teams. Again as a manager, you need to work to instil these behaviours – critical to what makes high performing teams.
For example, one of the things high performing teams do is communicate and collaborate a lot. There should be the hum of voices, team members at each other’s desks a lot. You can’t communicate and collaborate without some noise.
Then we go on to cover 4 critical approaches the manager needs to take in creating high performance teams. These are fundamental principles rather than day to day tactics.
If you have any questions on “What to do differently to build high performing teams at work” please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
What to get your team working on is super important as a manager. Possibly the most important thing. Choosing valuable team goals is the difference between delivering okay or great team performance.
Learn 4 actions for choosing the right team goals to increase your team’s performance.
Choosing the right team goals at work is super important as goals provide direction, focus, purpose, and a fair way to measure performance. To choose valuable team goals don’t make them financial as few people relate to financial only goals.
Start with the company goals when setting valuable team goals. Alignment to the wider business goals is very important in selecting the most profitable team activities to work on. Goal alignment ensures everyone’s efforts support and compound the impact of everyone else’s effort, creating a stronger overall result. Many managers forget the important of alignment when setting valuable team goals.
Next, in setting the right goals, focus on what you have control and influence over. The more the better. When you have control and influence over the activities needed to reach goals, you and your team will be happier, more motivated and more successful. There is nothing worse than having goals depend heavily on others with different goals to make yours happen. This is poor goal setting. Focus on what you have control over when setting team goals.
Now the harder part – digging to find what is the most valuable work to select valuable team goals. This takes curiosity, open-mindedness and asking a lot of questions. This is joining the dots that others have missed.
The good news – every company has serious value creating opportunities. They come about because the business environment is always changing and a very human habit is falling into patterns of thinking and behaviour. This creates gaps, sometimes very big gaps, and amazing value creating opportunities are in these gaps.
Finally, create different levels of goals. These are good team management skills. Goals should focus on a team level and individual level. Then focus on team and individual priorities (which are not the same as goals). Goals and priorities should be communicated in non-financial terms. Focus on tasks, initiatives, activities and projects and make them easily relatable to each person and the team.
What to get your team working on by choosing valuable goals is one of the most important jobs you can do as a manager. Choosing valuable team goals is a key part of getting the team to focus on work that is more valuable to the team and company.
If you have any questions on “What To Get Your Team Working On - Choosing Valuable Team Goals”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
Delivering bad news to staff is definitely one of the hardest jobs of being a manager. There is nothing nice about delivering bad news to employees and team members
I explain exactly what to do when giving bad news to employees - during and after sharing bad news.
Delivering bad news to your team at work is going to provoke an emotional response from multiple people. Before delivering bad news get your own emotions under control and rehearse how you are going to handle emotional outbursts.
How to deliver bad news starts with what not to do. Don’t go through pleasantries, take time for small talk, or take ages building yourself up to deliver bad news.
Research from the medical profession shows that the number one factor to how your message will be received is the news-giver’s attitude. Focus on making giving bad news to employees all about them not about you.
Exactly how to deliver bad news to employees I explain in the video in three simple steps. A critical part of communication skills is how you manage your tone of voice and body language. To have effective communication skills, you must be aware of these and be able to control them appropriately.
Before you give bad news understand why you are giving the bad news. Then you are able to answer questions effectively, openly, and honestly. All key when having difficult conversations.
Another big part of how to deliver bad news at work is to manage the emotions of the receipts of the bad news. Allow them to vent and show their emotions. Be empathetic by showing your emotions but stay neutral. Don’t allow those you are giving bad news to start debating decisions they can’t change or influence.
Another vital part of giving bad news to staff is what happens after the bad news. Bad news usually creates uncertainty. How are you going to create as much certainty in the situation going forward. What is your vision for future and how are you going to share this.
If you have any questions on “Delivering Bad News To Staff - Make Difficult Conversations Easier”, please eamil me at enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
Good teamwork at work is hugely valuable for both manager and company. Teams significantly outperform groups of individuals, in my experience. Signs of great teamwork point to a good manager leading the team.
I share 6 signs of good teamwork at work and how to improve teamwork in your team.
Teamwork in the workplace is hugely beneficial for the manager who’s personal performance is assessed on the performance of their team. Great teamwork at work is great for the manager because:
- Teamwork enables better problem solving
- Teamwork unlocks potential for innovation and sparks creativity
- People are happier in teams with good teamwork
- Teamwork increases personal and professional growth
- Working in a team lowers stress and the risk of burnout
- Individuals working as a team are a lot more productive
All of these drive higher team performance.
The power of teamwork starts with every team member understanding and believing in the team goals. Goals give the team shared purpose and direction, which is one of the characteristics of great teamwork.
Another of the signs of great teamwork at work is an environment of trust. With trust you don’t have a team, just a collection of individuals. Collaboration and knowing that colleagues will do what they commit to is a sign of great teamwork at work.
The third of the signs you have a great team is that team members will put the team first. All team members know that when the team does well, they individually do well. Good teamwork at work is doing the right thing for the team even if it costs you personally in the short term.
The fourth of the signs of great teamwork at work is each team member will do their part. They will work through lunch, stay late, ask for help … anything they need to do to deliver what they have committed to. They won’t let their teammates down.
The fifth of the characteristics of teamwork is that open, honest and lively communication is the norm. Good teamwork at the workplace is noisy. Good teams are constantly asking for ideas and solutions and giving their own. They are asking for help, debating the best next step - all of which you can’t do in silence.
Lastly, the power of teamwork always shows in how results focused the team is. Team performance is measured on outcomes produced not activity undertaken. Team work makes reaching goals and outcomes a lot easier, quicker and more fun.
Throughout, I share tips and tactics I have used for decades to improve team performance and what I view as critical teamwork skills.
If you have any questions about “Unlock the power of Teamwork! 6 Signs of Good Teamwork At Work”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
Building responsibility in teams increases team performance and makes working in the team much more enjoyable. A win for everyone.
The manager has the biggest influence to encourage employees to take responsibility and knowing what to do makes a massive difference to your effectiveness as a manager.
I share 5 actions for building a culture of responsibility in teams to increase performance.
How to encourage employees to take responsibility starts with how to give them permission. Taking responsibility can be scary as an employee, particularly if there are likely consequences if something goes wrong.
Setting out what employees can do and can’t provides security and confidence, which encourages employee responsibility. Focus on your actions, decisions, and behaviours as much as what you tell your team.
Next, to make employees more responsible visibly and actively ask for and value team member input. Responsible employees will jump at the change to be more involved in the direction of their own work. Everyone will be more motivated when the goals and plan are partly their own rather than just the managers.
To build responsibility in teams stop telling and start coaching. When you tell a person what to do, the responsibility stays with you. When they tell you what they are going to do, the responsibility is theirs. Give team members responsibility by asking questions (coaching) rather than telling.
When you get team members taking responsibility, you also have to protect them from external forces and criticism and ensure you don’t punish errors. Use learning errors to teach and improve, while not accepting errors caused by laziness or lack of attention etc.
Getting the team environment right to build responsibility in teams is a key leadership skill and super important to increase team performance. I share 10 factors to build responsibility and accountability.
If you have any questions on “5 Actions for Building Responsibility in Teams to Increase Performance”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
Learning safe ways to challenge at work can be career defining. Challenging at work is a crucial element of building better ideas and solutions. Being comfortable and skilled enough to challenge your boss without upsetting is one of the secrets to stand out at work.
Learn 5 safe ways to challenge at work and giving feedback to your boss.
How to give feedback to your boss can also be one of those difficult conversations at work. So few managers get useful and constructive feedback from team members. When you are good at giving feedback to your manager – it’s a great for how to stand out at work.
Firstly, try to challenge others at work in service of reaching business goals rather than for personal reasons. Most bosses support those trying to do good for the group and don’t support those challenging to be difficult, to annoy others, to avoid their fears etc.
Secondly when challenging your boss or others avoid being right. Positioning what you are proposing as being right, the best or the right way is very confrontational. You are implying the other person is wrong. Much better is to offer alternatives, improvements, and options. This is even more important when giving feedback to your manager.
Asking questions is a great way to challenge more subtly. Use questions to lead the other person to the problems, to the alternative routes, to better solutions. Using questions is great when safely challenging your manager.
Always seek to provide alternatives and options rather than highlighting only a problem or adding to the problem. This is always received better and also portrays you in a stronger way.
Lastly, seek to raise up rather than put down. Choose your words carefully and always aim to help, improve, build. This is key part of effective communication in the workplace.
If you have any questions on “5 Safe Ways To Challenge At Work And Giving Feedback To Your Boss”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
Managers … put your team before yourself to gain rapid promotion. This may sound a little counter intuitive, yet your performance is judged on your team’s performance.
Learn 4 compelling reasons for why putting your team first will make you a much better manager and help you get rapid promotion. Plus get practical tips on HOW to put team before yourself.
Become a better manager by putting your team first. Management principles of give before you take is a compelling way to rapidly improve your management results which gets you promoted faster.
There are a lot of skills to develop to become an effective manager. Skills alone are not enough. How you use those skills defines great management.
Your attitude towards your team is a crucial starting point. Managers and leaders create the most value through their teams. Their teams are a vital to that manager or leader’s success. View them with the importance they deserve.
Mentally view you team with admiration and respect. Once your attitude and mindset are positive and respectful towards your team, your decisions, actions, and behaviours will communicate your positive attitude very clearly to your team. I view your management attitude a key part of your personal development in a management role.
Using power well is another crucial skill for manager success. One of the most important leadership principles is to use power for the good of others, for the good of the group rather than for your own personal gain. Look at any classic story in any culture for confirmation of this vital leadership principle.
Next, focus on helping your team before pleasing your boss. Doing both is vitally important for getting on the fast track for promotion. Your teams results and output are going to have a biggest impact on your boss’s appraisal of your performance. Put your team first to get promotion quickly.
Using 5 ways to leverage your time effectively is also essential as a manager, to do a great job and to get promoted. Get tips on how to put each of these ways to leverage your time into practice and gain a big jump in your and your team’s performance.
If you have any questions on “Managers Put Your Team Before Yourself & Gain Rapid Promotion”, please email me at support@enhnace.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
What great managers do that okay ones don’t affects us all. Great managers create more than 8 times the value average managers do – that is a huge gap.
Learn 5 key principles or approaches and become a better manager.
--- Management Skills Accelerator Course
Becoming a successful manager is difficult enough. When you add little or no training to this tough challenge, you journey gets a lot tougher and takes longer to achieve.
Learn the approach, the behaviours and the skills needed to build high performing teams by visiting enhance.training at https://enhance.training/msa-usp006
How to be a great manager starts with how you view your job as manager. Managers create the most value through their teams. Your team is critical to enable you to do a great job. Great managers know this and work hard to make their team as good as they can be.
How to be a better manager starts by putting the team before yourself. Working in service to your team is the best way to work in service to yourself as a leader. This is more important than great manager skills.
What makes you a good manager is how much the team trusts you. Without trust there is no team, only a collection of individuals. Teams outperform groups of independent individuals. Working for the team is a brilliant way of building trust.
For how to be a better manager and leader, focus on the environment you are creating. A lot of management skills go into creating a great trusting team environment – most important are what your decisions, actions and behaviours communicate to the team. How to be a good manager is partly about how well you can manager yourself.
How to become a better manager at work – learn to be comfortable with conflict. Every organisation will have a level of conflict. Resources are limited, different teams have different objectives etc, PLUS every person is different. Conflict is guaranteed. How well you manage conflict – both constructive and destructive is essential for team success.
Partnering with and valuing team members is vital for how to be a good manager and leader. Managers depend on their teams. You don’t have a job without a team. Admire each person’s strengths. Support them to develop further. Value what they bring to the team. Your beliefs about the team will be obvious through your actions and behaviours. Get your mental approach right – one of the key manager skills you need.
How to be a good manager at work must include being unfailingly results orientated. Results is what your company need your team to deliver. Team results is what you are personally being assessed on. Great managers always focus their teams of delivering results.
If you have any questions on “What Great Managers Do That Okay Ones Don’t – 5 Secrets To Become A Better Manager”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
Making decisions reality at work or getting a decision implemented by others to achieve a desired result - is far harder than making the decision itself. Improve decision buy-in from your boss, your team, and others, to make the implementation of decisions quicker, easier, and more successful.
I share the steps and tactics I use in persuading others to buy-in to the decisions made and work to make them a reality.
How to Execute and Make Things Happen - Podcast
https://enhance.training/how-to-execute-and-make-things-happen-tm0050/
Being persuasive with team members is essential to be an effective and good manager. There are so many decisions made by others that you have to work with your team to put into practice.
Gaining buy-in at work, particularly with those implementing difficult decisions or complex decisions, is essential to make those decisions effective and get implemented. There are four useful decision making routes I suggest you use when making decisions which help with decision implementation.
These are:
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Unilateral
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Consult and decide
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Build consensus
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Unanimous
I explain exactly how to use each route when making decisions at work. Matching the route to the decision type is a key skill to get decisions implemented quickly and successfully.
To persuade others quickly and effectively, I use a 5 step process to plan how I am going to gain decision buy-in commitment. These steps are:
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Who are the influencers
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Understand their position
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Work out the impact
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Explain the benefits
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Gain the right support level
I go through how I use each step to gain commitment and make decisions a reality at work.
Finally, I use a ReCODE model for communicating decisions and recommendation to get buy-in and the action I need from bosses, team members and other stakeholders.
When making decisions, always think about the quickest route to getting the result you need rather than the quickest way to make a decision.
If you have any questions on “Improve Decision Buy-In - Making Decisions Reality At Work”, please leave them in the comments section and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
Learn how to give an effective performance review and you have a great tool to motivate and develop team members alongside giving them realistic feedback about their performance.
With the right preparation, you won’t feel nervous conducting a performance review. I share 12 vital tips for how to run a performance review meeting really well so your team member get loads out of it.
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The employee appraisal process starts when you set goals and objectives for your team members at the start of the year. How can you run an performance evaluation if you or the employee is not clear about what is good, okay and poor.
The performance appraisal should be a summary of all the feedback conversations that you have already had. There should be no surprises coming out in the employee appraisal.
3 additional preparation steps for the appraisal meeting that I think you should do well in advance are:
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Book out plenty of time to think through what you want to bring up in the performance review
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Write down all the achievements, wins, successes plus add in the misses and what to improve on, so you have a balanced employee evaluation
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Ask peers, bosses, and team stakeholders for their feedback before the employee review
Taking these steps gives you a lot to talk about and share with the team member. Make sure most of what talk about is focus on how they can improve what they are doing, regardless of the current performance level.
How to conduct a performance review meeting starts with working out your agenda for the annual performance review meeting. I suggest using:
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Intros and communicating the Agenda
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Ask the employee to talk through their performance
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Give your specific feedback on performance and invite discussion
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Talk through the employee’s career plans
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Discuss the employee development plan and the opportunities
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Jointly agreed the goals and actions for manager and employee
During performance reviews, go through each of these agenda items. In the video I talk through each agenda item in more detail.
A key part of performance review tips for managers is to make sure that you follow up after the performance review has been finished. There is so much you can do to help your team member get better quicker.
For example, I suggest you book in weekly one-on-one meeting every week or every other week to teach, mentor and coach your direct reports. You have so much knowledge and experience to pass on plus you will learn loads in these meetings. The more you know about what is going on in the team, the better job you will do, and the quicker team performance will improve.
If you have any questions on “How To Give An Effective Performance Review – 12 Vital Tips To Action”, please leave them in the comments below and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
----- Example of Specific Feedback
Rather than saying “you have done a great job - well done”
say
"I have been really impressed at your attention to detail as evidenced by the quality of your work. I and many others I have spoken to continue to be delighted with the skill you have displayed when managing difficult customers and how you leave them feeling listened to and taken seriously. You have been just as good at supporting your team members, taking the time to help them resolve problems. You have done a great j
The more visible to your bosses you are, and the more you make your work visible, the faster you will be promoted and the further your career will progress.
To get promoted you have to be good AND be more visible to your bosses than your competition.
I share six key tactics for you to increase your visibility at work making getting promotion at work easier.
Free ResourcesFor more tips and advice on how to raise your profile and tips on how to market yourself internally in your organisation, I have a free downloadable booklet available:
https://enhance.training/lm-lp/market-internally-booklet/
The six tactics and a ton of tips to make you more visible at work start with finding your authentic voice. To increase your workplace visibility, you must share your ideas, views, and solutions. If you don’t have a considered and thought through view, you won’t be noticed at work.
When you are good at your job, you will have ton of views, ideas, and solutions to share. Be more visible at work by communicating intelligently with your boss, peers, colleagues and stakeholders and sharing the value you are adding to the business.
When you have ideas and solutions, there are so many ways to become more visible, to get noticed at work. Start small. Consistently keep your boss and stakeholders up to date with your progress against goals.
The next of my secrets to increase your visibility at work is to diplomatically stop others taking credit for your work. Don’t talk negatively about colleagues that try to take your credit. I talk though exactly what to do.
Another great way for how to increase your visibility at work is to regularly, and publicly, celebrate your team’s success. This has so many benefits in addition to increasing your visibility.
For getting promoted at work, I suggest you work at helping your colleagues be successful. I know this sounds counter intuitive yet being a team player is so important. You must also communicate what you have done to help and the impact of that help regularly to your boss and stakeholders. This is another great way to stand out at work.
To increase your visibility at work, I suggest you work on becoming your boss’s most valuable supporter. This is much easier than you think and gives you a ton of benefits including raising your profile at work for all the right reasons.
How to increase your visibility at work is a challenge everyone must tackle in today’s workplace. Make sure you know exactly how to get noticed at work and get promoted faster.
If you have any questions on “How To Be More Visible To Your Bosses – Get Promoted Faster & Progress Further”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
It is scary to disagree with someone more powerful than you at work. Learn to disagree respectfully and you are more likely to stand out, create more value and earn faster career progress.
Learn 7 ways to respectfully disagree, 5 thought processes for WHEN disagreeing with your boss is the right thing, and 4 actions to improve how you communicate your disagreement.
How to disagree with your boss is a skill. Voicing your disagreement should only be done after considering the impact of speaking up. If the impact of any change is small, it is probably best to stay quiet. Picking your battles is important.
When disagree respectfully at work make sure there is a clear business reason why you are disagreeing. Do not disagree for purely personal reasons.
Always take into account of the culture, situation and person when you respectfully disagree. All should factor into the risk versus benefit though process before disagreeing.
Before disagreeing with the boss consider the risk of saying nothing. What will be the impact on results and how will staying silent impact you in the future.
The first of the steps to follow when disagreeing with your boss is to agree the guidelines or process for which your boss is okay with your disagreeing.
Next for how to have a respectful disagreement with those more powerful than you, is to ask permission to disagree. This gives them power and puts them into listening mode.
Next when thinking about how to disagree respectfully, restate the other person’s original position, idea, or solution. This confirms your understanding and that you have considered their perspective.
I always think it beneficial to explain the purpose of you disagreeing with them. You can confirm the business goals or reasons behind your disagreement.
Set out your structured argument. When disagree with someone more powerful you want to present yourself as professional and competent. The more compelling your argument, the more likely you will get a change.
The next of the steps to disagree with your colleagues or boss is to invite their input and feedback. This promotes collaboration and teamwork.
Finally, to disagree respectfully with someone more powerful than you, state that the final decision is theirs to make.
There are many ways to disagree politely without upsetting or damaging relationships. How you disagree and how you communicate your disagreement are both very important.
Don’t avoid disagreeing. Do avoid disagreeing badly.
If you have any questions on “How To Disagree With Someone More Powerful – 7 Steps To Respectfully Disagree” please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
Learn the common mistakes managers make that kill team trust, respect, and appreciation of the manager so you can avoid making them. I share 8 typical mistakes managers make, fundamental mistakes, that your really need to avoid.
Each of these 8 typical manager mistakes makes the transition to manager a lot harder and more painful for you and your team. Make these management mistakes and they will have a big negative impact on your team’s performance.
These are common mistakes of new managers and these are also mistakes of managers with a many years’ experience.
The first of these common manager mistakes is not getting to know your team well enough. When managing teams, the value you personally create is through your team. Not knowing your team is like a carpenter not understanding how to use their tools.
The second these 8 mistakes managers make is not communicating expectations clearly. Common new manager mistakes in this area are thinking that telling the team is enough. It is not. There is a lot more to creating very clear expectations.
The third common management mistake is thinking the team rules don’t apply to you. Petty displays of power or giving yourself an ego boost are sure to anger the team and kill your credibility. Team performance will dive. Live the rules you set.
The fourth people management mistake is managing with a one size fits all. Everyone is different and every situation is difference. Flexibility of approach is an incredibly important skill and one of my best new manager tips.
The fifth manager mistake is not truly listening to the team. Each team member is an expert in their area because they are seeing and experiencing the problems and challenges. If you don’t listen, how will you really find out what is happening. Listening also speeds up the employee to manager transition.
The sixth of these leadership mistakes is using an “I know best” approach. Don’t get hung up on being the best or demonstrating that you know everything needed. Good manager skills are identifying which ideas and options are the best rather than needing to come up with all the ideas or solutions.
The seventh typical mistakes managers make is avoiding conflict. Destructive conflict will kill team performance and morale. You must tackle it quickly and in doing so, it is so much easier to resolve.
The eighth common mistakes managers make is not investing in yourself. Learning by trial and error is slow, painful and rarely get you past an okay skill level. Read books, take course, get a mentor or coach. Management is a set of skills. If you are serious about your management career, invest in yourself.
If you have any questions on “8 Common Mistakes Managers Make That Kill Team Performance and Morale”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training
Feeling safe at work or enjoying psychological safety in a team is a very big deal for all of us. I cover what is psychological safety, 4 stages of psychological safety and 7 ways of creating psychological safety in teams.
Feeling safe within a team or having psychological safety at work provides a huge range of benefits including:
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Much more positive working atmosphere
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Better teamwork
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Lower staff attrition rates
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Greater levels of innovation
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Higher team performance and output
Create psychological safety in a team and you, as a manager, get to enjoy all the benefits that come with increasing team performance.
There are loads of ways to make employees feel safe and create psychological safety in the workplace. The first step in my view is creating really clear expectations. When we know exactly what is expected of us we gain psychological safety and certainty.
Next, for getting staff feeling safe and secure be open and honest with what is happening around the team and with what you think, feel and worry about. Being honest and being empathetic increases transparency and reduces fears and insecurities.
Third, to create safety at work proactively ask questions and seek team members views. This is great for how to make employees feel valued.
Fourth, critical for creating safety at workplace for team members is how you manage and control your reactions and responses.
Fifth, for creating psychological safety in teams prove that making some mistakes is okay by treating this as a learning opportunity. By accepting some mistakes, you encourage your team to take calculated risks, to learn and to innovate.
Sixth, to get staff feeling safe at work encourage constructive conflict where ideas, solutions and views shared are open to careful and diplomatic challenge. Celebrate the differences within the team and use these to improve the solutions created and implemented.
Seventh, to encourage feeling safe at work, make it desirable to ask for help within your team. Asking for help quickly and appropriately aids learning, creates psychological safety and improve team performance.
I view creating psychological safety in teams as essential in the journey to increasing team performance and making the team an enjoyable and rewarding place to work for everyone.
Please put to use as many of these ways to make employees feel safe in your team - today and onwards.
If you have any questions on “Feeling Safe at Work – 7 Ways of Creating Psychological Safety in Teams”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training,
Knowing your team as a manager gives you huge advantages to improve team performance. Get the most out of your team by getting to know your team on more than a superficial level.
I share 12 actions to step change team performance through knowing your team a lot better.
When you know your team's strengths and weaknesses, you can play to strengths and avoid weaknesses. Do this consistently and you will increase team performance.
Great managers know their team on a more detailed level that average managers. Everyone on any team is different.
Part of good team management is understanding those differences and combining them to create a team that works well together, relies on each other, and utilises all the strengths and talents in the team to produce great team performance.
When you know your teams strengths and weaknesses, and each individual in the team, you can adapt your approach, your management style and how you communicate so that you improve how you work with the team.
By making the time and effort to get to know your team, you demonstrate you care, your interest and both massively help increase trust and appreciation. This in turn helps you build stronger relationships with the team members. All essential ingredients to step change team performance.
I share 7 specific areas that I look to get to know about each team member such as their energy levels and ambitions as well as the more obvious skills and experiences they have.
Good team performance management is knowing how to utilise the strengths of the team and cover any weaknesses. I share 5 actions that focus on achieving both of these day in day out.
I personally think it is next to impossible to improve team performance in a meaningful way without getting to know your team in depth.
Not taking the step of getting to know your team would be like a carpenter having little clue about the tools they are working with. The outcome is unlikely to be good.
Make the time to get to each of your team members and flex how you approach and work with each person to get the best from them. This creates a great foundation to significantly increase team performance.
If you have any questions on “12 Actions to Step-Change Team Performance Through Knowing Your Team”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess Coles
Enhance.training,
Preventing workplace stress is in everyone’s interests. I cover four fundamental major causes of stress in the workplace and share tips on how to deal with stress at work.
Stress at work costs the UK economy £28bn per year with 23.3m sick days taken.
As a manager, you should be thing how to deal with stress at work for yourself personally and just as importantly, for your team. If team members are not at work because of workplace stress, they can’t do great work to hit team targets.
I am covering the 4 big causes of stress at work based on my experience - rather than giving you lots of tips on personal stress management - to help you when dealing with stress at work.
In my view, the first place to start with how to manage stress at work is to manage your workload. The more overworked you are, you more stressed you will be. It is that simple. One of the best ways to handle stress at work is to practice saying no.
Learning when to say no and how to say no are vital to handle stress at work. As a manager, to reduce employee stress in the workplace, learn to say no effectively on behalf of your team. Overwork is one of the biggest causes of stress at workplace I know.
The next biggest cause of stress at work is having poor relationships with your boss or teammates. When thinking about how to deal with stress at work, think about your relationships and what you can do to improve them.
Focus on your relationship with your boss first. There are lots of actions you can proactively take to improve this relationship professionally and personally. Better relationships are great for handling stress in the workplace.
Another of causes of stress at workplace, is not getting the right help and support. Trying to deliver and learn at the same time is very stressful. Learning takes time, which you are not likely to have enough of. Get the best help you can from inside or outside of work – this is a workplace stress solution you must use!
Organisational conflicts cause a lot of workplace stress, particularly because they are outside many people control to fix. You can contribute to a solution and take steps to resolve these conflicts, even if you are the most junior person in the office. Proactively manage this stress at workplace.
If you have any questions on “Preventing Workplace Stress – 4 Major Causes of Stress & What To Do”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess
Enhance.training
Everyone comes under pressure to perform at work. How we handle the pressure to perform at work is a big part of our personal success as well as how much we enjoy being at work. I share 6 actions to handle the pressure to perform at work.
Pressure in the workplace increases as you enter the management ranks and progress though them.
Dealing with pressure at work at times can get overwhelming. Dealing with pressure is a mental state of mind with physical implications. Staying calm under pressure reduces the physical responses and helps us handle pressure at work.
When we are under pressure at work our hearts beat faster, we have shallower breaths and our bodies release adrenaline and hormones which impact our ability to manger our emotions and memory. To manage pressure at work we need to manage our physical responses.
How to overcome pressure at work starts with our mental game, which influences our physical responses.
Performing under pressure is a lot easier when you employ four mental actions. Reframing problems into opportunities is a great way to deal with pressure at work. The pressure of work seems a lot higher when you think in terms of problems.
Next, for how to deal with pressure at work, replace the feeling of I feel nervous with I feel excited. This is a great mental approach to cultivate to manage pressure at work and explain why in the video.
How to deal with pressure at work should absolutely include breaking down big problems into lots of smaller problems. Physiologically, small is easier to manager and overcome than big.
How to handle pressure at work is also about cultivating a positive state of mind. I share tips on how to stay positive even when everything seems against you.
Pressure in work also arises when we tackle all the urgent tasks first rather than focusing on the important tasks first. In practice this is much harder to do as it involves saying no and potentially disappointing people.
How to manage pressure in workplace is much easier when we make sure we finish each task without allowing ourselves to get distracted. Easy to say, hard to do in practice, yet it is essential to learn how to minimise distractions.
There is a lot of actions you can take to proactively handle the pressure to perform at work. Start taking action today!
If you have any questions on “6 Actions to Handle the Pressure to Perform at Work”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess
Enhance.training
Learning how to play office politics to your advantage is a crucial part of any management job. Workplace politics happen because of conflicts, differences and scarcity. Navigating office politics is a key part of building personal influence within the organisation in which you work.
Learn 6 Crucial Ways to Successfully Navigate Workplace Politics.
How to manage office politics starts with ensuring you are aware of the politics at work. Ask questions to those in your network to find out what is happening around the business and who is pushing what.
Company politics, in my opinion, covers the skills and actions you take to build influence within the business.
When thinking about how to handle office politics don’t chose to ignore it. You will be handicapping your career progress and ability to do your job as a manager effectively.
Influence is power. How to handle office politics is also about using the influence or power you gain to do the best you can for the company and group as a whole. Influence is given to you by others. If you are self-serving, unpleasant, unhelpful etc, you will lose influence and be shut out of meetings and decisions.
Working in the best interests of others significantly increases your influence and is a great approach for how to win at office politics. This doesn’t mean you are a charity. Do favours for others and they will feel obliged to return those favours.
A key tool in dealing with office politics is mapping out who you need to get to know and build relationships with. The larger more complex the organisation, the more important this step is.
Another important part of how to handle politics at work is to build bridges and allies. Both happen when you build trust and relationships with others.
Finally, when planning how to handle workplace politics, work on building a positive reputation. A good reputation will mean navigating the politics, building trust and relationships will be a lot easier. Proactively work on building your reputation.
Throughout all sections I share how to deal with office politics tips,
If you have any questions on “Office politics – 6 Crucial Ways to Successfully Navigate Workplace Politics” please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess
Enhance.training
Learn 7 ways to use 1:1 meetings to develop employees and improve performance of the team. One-on-one meetings with employees are the most value able of my week and it is incredible what you can achieve through them.
One on one meetings are super useful in setting goals and expectations and more importantly revising progresses towards goals and maintaining expectations. One-to-one should be held in private.
Setting really clear goals in one on one meetings should be a priority for every manager. Too many don’t put enough time into creating clear goals, leading to confusion and lack of direction. Improve performance by being clear.
Next, use 1-2-1 meetings to prioritise what your team members work on. Explain how they can create more value for the team and focus more of their work on these higher value activities and say no to the lower value ones. This makes a big difference to team performance.
In one-on-one meetings, I love asking questions of my direct reports and listening to find out key blockers and problems team members are facing. You can develop employees by getting them thinking and providing solutions. The more your team are thinking, the more you build a higher performing team.
When developing employees, provide praise to positively reinforce the good stuff and corrective feedback so they know what to improve and how to do this. Whenever you are giving feedback, always give feedback in service of developing staff.
Really effective one on one meetings should include time to coaching and developing employees. When thinking about how to develop employees, think about all the skill you have because you are a manager and share these.
How to coach and develop employees should include problem solving. In 1:1 meetings, this is fun to do and really helps build their problem solving skills, which in turn helps reduce the pressure and burden on you.
Finally, when developing your employees focus on improving their decision making during your one on one meetings. These are vital skills to build to progress their career into the management ranks.
One-to-one meetings are a great tool to build high performing teams.
If you have any questions on “7 Ways to Use 1:1 Meetings to Develop Employees & Improve Performance”, please lemail me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess
Enhance.training
Self-awareness for managers is an essential skill to lead and manage others better. Most people think they are self-aware, yet research has shown only 10-15% of people are truly self-aware.
Take 5 actions to improve your self-awareness and make it easier to manage teams.
Developing self-awareness as a manager is essential to success. If you can’t manage yourself, how can you manage others successfully?
Firstly, lets cover “What is self-awareness?” It is your ability to perceive and understand what makes you an individual.
Increasing self-awareness at work will give you a huge range of benefits. Research has show those with good self awareness build better relationships, communicate more effectively, are more confident and creative and make better decisions.
Growing self-awareness takes a little bit of work, yet the rewards personally and professionally are brilliant. Learn 5 steps to increase your self-awareness.
From my experience, increasing self-awareness to manage others better is an invaluable process and it makes you more comfortable with who you are and helps you manage more authentically, honestly, and effectively.
Increase your self-awareness and you will become better at managing how you display your emotions which is essential to build trust, confidence and credibility as a manager.
How to improve your self-awareness is an important question. The 5 actions for becoming more self-aware including:
1.How to get and use honest useful feedback
2.Ask What instead of Why
3.Understand and use your values
4.Be confident using strengths and managing weaknesses
5.Learn what drives strong emotions in you
Developing self-awareness as quickly and as easily as possible is super useful for all managers and all stages of their career. After 25 years of managing teams, I am still working on improving both the two types of self awareness.
If you have any questions on “Self Awareness for Managers – 5 Actions to Improve Your Self-Awareness”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess
Enhance.training
Articulate yourself better! I share 8 powerful ways to be more articulate. When you can articulate your thoughts clearly and confidently to others, you gain a lot of confidence, feel more valued and be more effective at work.
What does it mean to be more articulate? Being articulate means being clearer in what you say – the words, sentences etc used and also being better at how you communicate – using your voice, body language, emphasis etc.
There are so many benefits from being able to articulate yourself well. Firstly you can save yourself and others a lot of time when you can articulate your thoughts well.
When you clearly articulate your thoughts, you are likely to enjoy more success professionally as you increase teamwork, your impact and influence within the business.
The benefits of being more articulate also include stronger relationships with colleagues and friends as you present yourself more authentically.
Being able to speak more clearly, helps you build a better and bigger network to support you personally and your career growth.
Finally, when you can better articulate your thoughts, you will be better at public speaking which many see as a pre-requisite for promotion into management and leadership positions.
How to become more articulate is the next logical question. I share 8 powerful ways for how to be more articulate. This includes how to become more articulate when speaking to small groups as well as giving presentations to large audiences.
Each of the ways to become more articulate includes practical suggestions and tips of what to put into practice and how to build your articulation skills through practicing.
If you have any questions on “Articulate Yourself Better – 8 Powerful Ways To Be More Articulate”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess
Enhance.training
Why consistency is key to success in improving team performance is because consistency creates confidence, trust, belief, safety and ensures team members understand exactly what is expected.
I share 5 steps to master consistency in people management.
Success is all about consistency. The same is true when managing teams. The majority of team members need structure, clears goals and consistent expectations to enable them to consistently perform well and to enjoy their job.
Why consistency is key at work – consistent actions create clear expectations, certainty, and trust. The power of consistency helps team members get better at their roles and delivers higher team performance as everyone know what to expect and how to deliver against those expectations.
When the manager’s actions behaviours and decisions are aligned with the key goals of the team, the manager reinforces expectations and the importance of the team direction. This is how consistency builds confidence in a team.
Master the art of consistency in people management with 5 steps I try to use when increasing team performance and building higher performing teams.
The first step is using your values as reference points to harness the power of consistency in leadership. Doing so keeps your decisions, actions and behaviours in line with the goals you have agreed with the team.
Second, communicate a clear vision and repeatedly communicate it. The messaging consistency is key.
Third, for how to be consistent, always check alignment between your actions and decisions and the direction of the team and its goals.
Fourth, the power of being consistent with your behaviour as a manager is huge and helps team performance significantly.
Finally, to improve your people management skills, keep practicing, adjusting what you do and repeating. Practice will consistently improve your skills. That is why consistency is key in building strong management skills just like any skill.
If you have any questions on “People Management - Why Consistency is Key to Success & 5 Steps to Achieve Consistency”, please leave them in the comments section below and I will get back to you.
Jess
Enhance.training
Gaining employee trust - working out how to build trust with a team – is a key step to building and improving team performance. Without trust, delivering on all the other responsibilities of a manager become so much harder. I share 7 actions for how to build trust with your team.
Winning team trust is most easily done while being genuine, while doing your best to help and support team members reach team goals. Start by understanding there are two types of trust most people look for. The steps to gain the trust of your team should keep both in mind.
Winning employee trust should start with listening. Ask for the team’s input, ideas and solutions. When you get them, choose the appropriate ones and act – put them into practice. Taking action is a great start to gaining staff trust.
Encourage trust with your team by empowering them. Let them do their jobs. Extent trust to earn trust back.
Winning the teams trust at work by being open and transparent. This holds you accountable in the same way as they are being held accountable. Plus it gives the employees more opportunity to be autonomous and contribute to solutions.
Gain the trust of a team by demonstrating consistency of action. This create psychological safety with employees – they know what to expect from you in a range of situations.
Lead by example when building trust in a team. Live the same rules that you are asking your team to live by. Show the team how to behave and what you expect of them.
There is no better way to winning the teams trust – that I know – than working hard in service of the team. Help, support, coach, remove problems - anything that will fairly help the team reach its goals and support team members.
Build trust with employees is easy when you have a trustworthy mindset and management approach. Look after your team, protect your team and develop your team. Work to make it as easy as possible for them to do a great job.
If you have any questions on “Gaining Employee Trust – how to build trust with a team”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess
Enhance.training
Leaders should care about bullying on their teams and within their companies because the negative impact on performance and costs is big. I share 5 reasons managers should care about bullying and 7 suggestions for how to stop bullying in the workplace.
The impact of bullying on teams is big. 33% report they have seen colleagues being bullied. If managers don’t appear to take action, then team trust heads downwards quickly.
If managers are bullying staff and the leaders in the business ignore it or don’t take action, the cost of bullying to companies jumps – in lower performance, higher staff turnover, inability to recruit good staff with sensible wages, increased litigation and a drain on management time.
The immediate cost of bullying in the workplace is damaged trust. In my view, if you don’t have trust, you don’t have a team. A team outperforms a group of individuals day in day out. Without trust, ideas, solutions, motivation and performance all get weaker - throughout the team.
How bullying impacts team performance starts with the individual being bullied. They spend lots of time and energy dealing with the bullying which means their personal performance falls. Their colleagues observing the bullying and management not taking action start worrying about when its their turn. Those phone calls from recruiters become more appealing. The better team members leave and performance really starts dropping.
With team performance dropping, think about how bullying impacts the manager bonus.
The impact of bullying in the workplace when trying to recruit results in fewer top candidates being recruited and having to pay everyone more to join. Glassdoor and similar review websites make is easy to find out about the culture before joining.
Why managers should care about bullying includes increased legal risk of lawsuits that cost a lot and take up huge amounts of management time.
I go through 7 suggestions for preventing and managing bullying in the workplace. Workplace bullying stops high performing teams being created so anything managers and leaders can do to stop workplace bullying is hugely important.
If you have any questions on “5 Reasons Leaders Should Care About Bullying & 7 Ways to Stop Bullying”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess
Enhance.training
Success is getting your employees thinking. For any manager, the more your employees can help you do your job, the better off you will be, the company will be, and your employees will be.
I share why you should get your employees thinking, 3 key ways to get your team members thinking and when to assign problems not tasks at work.
Success is getting your employees thinking because when you are using your team’s problem solving capability, you are encouraging your team to improve its performance and you are making your life as a manager a lot easier.
There are so many reasons why you should get your employees thinking. You get a more motivated team; a team that is more engaged and takes more ownership; and a team with increasing problem solving skills and confidence, all of which lead to better team performance. There are a lot of benefits for you personally as the manager too.
When giving work to the team, consider how to get your employees thinking. One of my favourite ways is to assign problems not tasks to team members. There are lots of reasons to assign problems not tasks, particularly to the higher performing team members.
When delegating and organising others, inevitably you will have team members asking you to make decisions or solve problems on their behalf. Do you best to avoid giving them the answers before they have provided their opinions and solutions. This is a key part of team performance management or building the capabilities of the team.
Additionally, for the difficult problems that have not been encountered before, using a small group of team members often produces a much better solution than a single individual on their own. Consider this approach when problem solving.
High performing team use as much of the team capability as possible. Getting employees thinking is a key way of using the team’s collective brainpower and to generate ideas.
If you have any questions on “Success is Getting Your Employees Thinking – Problem Solving & Team Development”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess
Enhance.training
Managers should have opinions and express them. Too many of us view expressing an opinion at work as a potentially dangerous move. Learn why speaking up is so important, how to speak up at work and when to express your opinion at work plus 10+ tips to make speaking up easier.
Expressing an opinion at work is a key way to be noticed AND more importantly giving your opinion is a key way you can add a lot of value at work. You are an expert in your area so your opinion is very important.
By creating value through giving your opinion, your are increasing your chances of promotion, you are increasing the respect and appreciation your get, you are also creating and controlling your brand. All super valuable.
4 tips for speaking up at work include do your homework, be diplomatic, speak confidently, and align your opinions to team and company objectives. I include more on how to put each into practice.
When to express your opinion at work is as important as giving your opinion without offending. I go through 4 common times to share your opinion, such as in meetings.
Another key concern – 70% of employees – is about expressing your opinion at work is experiencing repercussions. When your opinion is expressed and positioned in service of getting the best outcome for the team and business, you minimise repercussions. I share additional tips on giving your opinion and safe ways to challenge at work.
How to have an opinion or giving useful opinions using data, insights and facts to back up your opinion makes your opinion particularly valuable and thus will be listened to more often.
In my view, managers should express opinions – it is part of your job AND even more importantly, should strive to ensure team members feel safe expressing their opinions. This is 110% in your best interests because then you have a much bigger range of ideas and solutions to choose from.
If you have any questions on “Managers Should Have Opinions – Why Speaking Up is so Important”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess
Enhance.training
Deliver great customer services and you will be liked and appreciated. As a manager or a business owner, knowing practical steps to deliver great customer service is super important.
When thinking about ways to deliver better customer service, we usually think about external customers or clients. Great customer service is just as important internally. As managers, our teams work with many colleagues within the business, each of which should be considered for as part of providing great customer service.
Deliver great customer service, and our external customers are much more likely to want to use our products and services. Deliver better customer service and our colleagues will want to work with us and not let us down.
In this podcast, we are discussing 4 Practical Steps to Deliver Great Customer Service with customer services expert Pierre Bauzee from Beyond Satisfaction.
For more help use the free resources available:
https://enhance.training/team-and-business-management-resources/
https://beyondstatisfaction.co.uk
If you have any questions on “4 Practical Steps to Deliver Great Customer Service” please email me at support@enhance.training
Jess
Enhance.training
Stop tolerating poor employees. No matter how you feel or the problems with taking action, not taking action is a lot worse for you personally, the team and the business. I am covering 4 critical reasons why you really want to take action quickly.
Reliably transform problem people impacting team performance. Don't procrastinate as people problems nearly always grow and they will impact team performance. To help you take action I have a course taking you through every step needed. https://enhance.training/lp/manage-difficult-people-csp30/
The team impact of bad employees is big, really big and a lot of it is not obvious. The impact of bad employees builds so you can easily miss it getting worse and worse. Managers - stop tolerating poor employees!
The manager’s main purpose is to improve team performance. Poor team members have a big impact on their colleague’s standards and output as well as having a shortfall in their own. The impact of bad employees on manager careers, without action being taken, is sidelining or removal.
Poor employees are anchors – the impact on team of bad employees stops the team improving and makes it very hard for the manager to encourage improvement.
How one bad employee can corrupt the whole team – we have all seen it. Harvard Business Review carried out research to the actual impact of the corruption effect. The peer impact grows over time and the longer it is left, the harder it is to correct. I have known several managers who lost their jobs as a result of not taking action. Stop tolerating bad employees today!
Bad employees - the cost of ignoring is a breakdown in trust – of nearly everyone else in you. The impact of bad team members spreads through the team surprisingly quickly. Vicious spirals can develop which often lead to the manager being changed – not what you want.
The manager impact of bad employees is big – your career being sidelined is what is at stake. Stop tolerating poor employees
If you have any questions on “Stop Tolerating Poor Employees - The Team Impact of Bad Employees” please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess
Enhance.training
How to gain respect from your boss is a top priority for pretty much everyone. I have 7 actions to share with you to proactively gain respect from your manager and then deepen that respect to become a trusted partner to your manager.
Gain respect from your boss by helping them personally and helping the team. Focusing on both will create a lot of goodwill towards you and fundamental in how to get respect at work from both your boss and team members.
When planning how to gain respect from your manager start by consciously working out all the areas you admire and appreciate in your manager. You can then show respect towards your manager to get respect from your manager.
Align your work to your manager’s pressures and challenges is a great way of gaining respect from your boss. Anything you can do to reduce the pressure your boss is facing will result in your boss respecting you.
Adapting your communication style in another key step in how to gain respect from boss. A good relationship is more important to you and you have less relationships to manage so adapt to what your manager prefers in terms of being kept in the loop.
Proving solutions is another great action so your boss respects you. This is one of my favourites, so my manager respects me. When you spot problems, work through at least one practical solution before speaking to your manager – a great way to get respect from the boss.
Another key action in how to gain respect at work is to have your own opinion. Build a considered opinion, grounded in experience, data and insights. I have found this a great way to get respect from my boss.
Finally, don’t be scared to educate your boss. You know a lot compared to your boss about your area of expertise, your pressures and to-do list. We a manager can rely on you to be the expert in your area – it is another way for how to gain respect at work.
If you have any questions on “How to Gain Respect from Your Boss or Manager”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Jess
Enhance.training
Work smarter before working harder is about targeting higher value work or making improvements to create more value for the business in which you work. I share 5 essential approaches to increase the value your efforts create.
To be more successful and to progress your career quicker, work smarter before working harder to get ahead at work.
What does working smarter mean – simply creating more value in the same time or with the same effort. Even small improvements add up over time.
Is working smarter possible in my role – you can save time in nearly every role. The more complex the role - needing more problem solving – the easier it is to find opportunities to work smarter.
Why working smarter before working harder is needed. We only have so much time in the day. You simply can’t keep working harder and harder – nor should you. Work out what is valuable to the team, function, and company – and then work harder on those areas.
To be successful in any career, in my experience, you need to work smarter and work hard. Working smarter not harder is the first step. Working hard is also needed.
How do I work smarter? I share 5 essential approaches on how to work smarter, to find what areas of your role are more valuable so you can focus on these.
Targeting the bigger picture is a great what of working smarter not just harder. This gives you are very valuable starting point and focus to work smarter.
Maximising automation is another key way of creating value at work. Look for all sensible ways to automate repetitive tasks.
Leverage your team and their efforts. This is vital job of any manager and a core way in which managers create value. Focus on results rather than activity in working smarter not just harder.
Finally, focus as much of possible of your efforts to deliver 8 commercial benefits. This keeps you and your team focused on the higher value work.
To be successful in any role work smarter and work harder!
If you have any questions about “Work Smarter Before Working Harder to Get Ahead at Work”, pleaseemail me at support@enhance.training.
Jess
Enhance.training
Working out what actions to manage your peers after promotion is a real challenge. The transition from peer to manager is tough for both parties.
I share 7 actions to manage your peers after promotion to make the transition easier and quicker.
Managing former peers takes courage and confidence. Use these 7 actions to learn how to manage your peers after a promotion. You will a lot happier and more confident and so will your team!
The first action to manage your peers after promotion is to promote yourself. This may sound obvious yet so many managers don’t proactively take steps to promotion themselves. The first part is changing the dynamic of the relationships you have with former peers. The second part is changing the actual work that you do to reflect your new role and its responsibilities.
A big part of how to manage your peers after a promotion is to focus on helping the team rather than using the power of your new position. Focus on making a visible difference to your team rather than displaying your new authority. You will gain respect and admiration a lot quicker.
Next, when you start managing former peers book in a one-on-one meeting with each of them. During this meeting share your vision and plans but also discuss the change in relationships. Spend more time listening than talking.
Part of the challenge of leading your former peers is setting clear expectations and ground rules. This helps transition from peer to manager quicker and makes it easier for both parties. Don’t forget to live the rules you set out if you want them followed.
Another key action in how to manager your former peers is to empower your people and play to their strengths. You are in a great position to know and understand former peers’ strengths. Use this to your advantage. Give them plenty of space to demonstrate you are not going to be a controlling micromanaging boss.
When transitioning from peer to manager you are going to have to deal with and overcome resistance. Tackle this head on. Don’t ignore it. Book in a meeting with those pushing back and ask them how to overcome the issues they are having with your promotion.
Finally, when moving from peer to manager, don’t forget to ask your manager for advice and help. It is in your manager’s interest for you to succeed too.
Managing peers after promotion is a challenge. Use these actions to make it as quick, easy and painless as possible.
If you have any questions on “7 Actions to Manage Your Peers After Promotion – Transitioning from Peer to Manager”, please drop me an email at support@enhance.training
Jess
Enhance.training
We can all learn a lot from how great managers handle criticism. Dealing with criticism at work is not easy and as you climb the ranks, you are guaranteed to get more criticism.
Take these 5 key actions to handle criticism at work.
It is really easy to get defensive or dismiss criticism without thinking about what is behind the criticism. How you handle criticism at work in part will determine how far your career progresses.
The better you get at dealing with criticism and in particular reframing criticism into learning opportunities, the more useful you will find feedback, the more comfortable colleagues will feel providing feedback and the quicker you will learn. All great building blocks for a successful career.
The first action in how effective leaders handle criticism is to listen carefully and acknowledge the criticism. Working to understand what is behind the criticism gives you great insights into problems, attitudes and thinking. How to deal with criticism positively should always start with listening carefully.
The second action in how to deal with criticism is to ask questions to get the specifics. Most people criticise others in general terms. By asking questions, you can guide them to giving you very specific feedback, which then become useful to you.
The third action for how to handle criticism is to find the kernels of truth. “What is behind the criticism?” “Should I do something about it?” and “What can I do about it?” are all questions to ask to find the kernels of truth behind the criticism. Dealing with criticism is part of the job description of any manager and leader.
The fourth action for how to handle criticism at work is to create an action plan. There is not better way to deal with criticism than to take positive action to address the criticism. Work out what, if any, actions you are going to take to address criticism.
The fifth action for dealing with negative criticism is to practice receiving feedback. The better you get at managing your emotions and reactions when receiving criticism, the more likely you will get good at handling criticism in a very positive way, which will benefit you, your team and the business.
Don’t take criticism personally where at all possible. Look to learn as much as you can from the criticism, regardless if it is justified or fair or not.
If you have any questions on “How Great Managers Handle Criticism – 5 Key Actions to Take”, please email me at support@enhance.training
Jess
Enhance.training
Building rapport with colleagues and connecting with work colleagues is so important in creating a great team to work in and for improving team performance.
I am sharing 5 ways to build rapport and connect with work colleagues. These are tried and tested approaches that all absolutely work.
Building rapport is a critical step in building trust and stronger positive relationships, which in turn create better teamworking, more engagement, more loyalty and better team performance.
When connecting with work colleagues, I think it is very important to be yourself. You will be working with these people for a long time so start the relationship with honesty.
When building rapport in the workplace, think about all the different facets you have to your life and interests. The more you are interested in, the more opportunity you have to genuinely build rapport with others.
A little research goes a long way when building rapport with coworkers. LinkedIn or google searches should give you areas on which to prepare questions on areas you know the other person is interested in. How to build rapport includes revealing stories and interests that you have in common.
Be very conscious of your body language when building rapport with employees. Demonstrate your interest in them and what they are saying when building rapport at work. Mirroring and matching are two techniques you already do to some extent. Both speed up creating rapport so be conscious of how you use your non-verbal communication.
A big part of how to build rapport at work effectively is making the conversation about them. Choose areas that they are interested in. Ask questions and listen attentively. Share your relevant stories to get them talking about their stories.
The power of notes is huge in how to build rapport at work. I feel amazing when another person remembers what we talked about in the previous conversation. Remembering demonstrates the importance of me and our conversation. Use this. When you have multiple conversations with multiple people, keeping all the key points in your head and getting them right is challenging. Write notes and review. Update your CRM system – whatever works best for you.
Enjoy building relationships and connecting with more coworkers.
Jess
Enhance.training
Managing upwards well is so important. Having a good relationship with your boss improves your happiness at work, your engagement, increases what you learn and speeds up your career progress. Who doesn’t want all these outcomes?
Learn 6 critical tips for managing upwards brilliantly during your one-on-one meetings with your manager.
Your one-on-one meetings with your boss are your most important meetings for your happiness at work and your career progress. I am sharing tips to help you get better at managing upwards at work and make better use of your one on one meetings with your manager.
First you have to encourage your boss to want to have one-to-one meetings with you. Always position the meetings in terms of how what you share helps your manager hit their goals (and/or the team goals). I share 8 key outcomes that every manager and business want so you can link your work to these when in your 121 meetings.
Managing upwards brilliantly starts with managing your boss expectations. Ask questions to find out exactly what your manager expects from you. You need to understand what deliverables you need to produce and the context of these too. I share examples of questions you can ask to help you achieve this.
Next when managing upwards at work, focus on building a strong and productive relationship with your boss. Focus on the personal side of the relationship as much as the professional side in you 1:1 meetings. We help and support people we like more than those we don’t.
When managing your boss, you have to work at getting your proactive communication right. Work out how your manager likes to be communicated to. Be direct, concise and get to the heart of the matter quickly – your boss is time poor.
When thinking about how to manage your boss effectively always bring a least one viable solution with every problem you spot. This is huge in terms of helping your manager, winning serious appreciation and one of my key managing upwards tips.
Finally, to keep your boss really happy with you, talk about the positives. Every manager wants to get positive feedback. Use this to actively look for opportunities to genuinely and honestly praise your manager. You can influence behaviour very effectively with positive reinforcement.
Managing upwards at work, managing your manager and building strong relationships is an art. These tips will help you manage upwards brilliantly.
Jess
Enhance.training
Instilling team direction and consistently keeping team members pointed in the same direction is a lot harder than most managers anticipate.
Learn 6 actions for successfully instilling team direction, and thus making reaching team goals a lot easier.
Consistently communicating team direction is needed with the pressures and demands placed on everyone. It is so easy to be distracted and to forget about team direction.
Building confidence in team direction is a first step and there is not better way to do this than having the team involved in setting team direction and planning the steps to reaching team goals. The goals become their goals too, and ownership increases performance.
I share 6 steps to successfully communicate team direction, that will instil team direction so it won’t be forgotten and the team direction will influence the decisions you and your team make.
Addressing challenges and overcoming resistance are both important in building belief in team direction. If you don’t work through sensible objections with the team, they won’t be nearly as confident.
Always explain the why. Why is this direction for the team important for the function, business unit or company. Explain the why in the team’s language and link what they do in their day to day roles all the way through to the company strategy. Demonstrate why their jobs are valuable for the business and important.
When setting team objectives always communicate these in multiple formats. Talk about them in team meetings and in one-on-one meeting. Write then down and circulate. Create games around them. When setting team expectations, make sure everyone understands exactly what is expected of them.
Once you have a clear team direction, everything you do should be focused on aligning with your team’s direction. Repeat, repeat, repeat until the team get bored of you talking about the team direction. Without constantly repeating team direction, people will forget or get distracted by the latest urgent task or project.
If you the leader don’t constantly champion team direction, no-one else will.
If you have any questions on “6 Actions For Successfully Instilling Team Direction & Hitting Goals”, please email me at support@enhance.training
Jess
enhance.training
https://enhance.training
An employee who can’t take criticism or who won’t accept feedback can be very difficult to manage. Learn 7 Steps to make your job a lot easier and managing them more effective.
When you have to manage an employee who can’t take criticism it is tempting to not give them any feedback or take the very safe option of providing positive or bland feedback. This route doesn’t help anyone, especially you the manager.
Giving useful, practical, and well thought out feedback is a job requirement of any manager that wants to improve their team. When an employee doesn't take feedback, using a different approach makes a big difference.
These 7 steps to manage an employee who can’t take criticism, in my experience, are very effective. I have used them for years with employees who get very emotional when receiving criticism through to those who just won't accept feedback.
Giving feedback when employees can't handle it is about getting the person to reach realistic views on their own performance, choices, and behaviour and understand the consequences of this without you directly telling them.
Before speaking to an employee who can’t take criticism, I have found it super useful to go through these steps:
Firstly, to work out exactly what the issues are. This helps me formulate questions to lead the employee to areas I want them to talk about.
Next, if you want someone to change, there needs to be a negative impact of not changing. Work out what this. When an employee won't accept feedback, getting them to understand impacts by asking the right questions is so useful.
Before I speak to an employee who won't accept feedback, I make sure I am really clear about the outcomes I want. If I am clear, I have a much better chance of getting the employee to this place.
Then use all the questions you are prepared to lead the employee who won’t take criticism to talk through the issues and the impact and aim to get them to agree to the outcome you want – all through asking questions.
Another useful tactic is to ask an employee who won’t accept feedback to communicate the best way to overcome their problem with feedback and criticism. i.e. get them to solve the problem.
Finally, being patient is important in the trust building process. Employees will talk to you when they trust you. Work hard to earn their trust.
Jess
Enhance.training
What is a team ownership mindset and more importantly how do I go about increasing ownership within a team? 9 Characteristics, 9 Benefits and 10 proven ways to create team ownership mindsets.
10 Factors In Creating Team Accountability can be found here:
https://enhance.training/10-factors-in-creating-team-accountability-tm0154/
Getting team members to take ownership is a really important challenge to tackle as a manager. You get so many benefits personally from achieving a team ownership mindset and the business really benefit too.
Let’s cover what an ownership mindset at work actually is. An ownership mindset is where employees think and tack actions like an owner of the business. They do what is best for the business and the team, not necessarily for them in the short term.
I take you through 9 characteristics of teams taking ownership at work.
Creating ownership thinking in your team takes time and effort so I would want to know the benefits you, your team and business get from the investment. I share 9 key benefits from building team ownership mindsets.
How to get your team to take ownership is the next question many ask. You as a manager can impact 90% of what is needed to encourage team ownership mindsets, with the last 10% the choice of the individual and team.
There is a lot you can do as a leader and manager to hold team members accountable, to work at managing expectations at work and to create a positive environment where team members feel comfortable in taking ownership of their areas and the output they produce.
I share 10 proven ways to build a team ownership mindset at work with any team. When team members take ownership, team performance improves considerably, it becomes a joy to manage the team and the team has more energy, is more collaborative and more confident.
Building a team ownership mindset can happen within weeks with the right behaviours, actions and decisions on the part of the manager. Good levels of trust are essential.
Enjoy working with a team with that takes ownership.
Jess
Enhance.training
Being able to handle difficult experience and challenges at work (and in life) is a very important ability to succeed, to become good at any skill or job.
Learn 7 reasons to build emotional resilience at work plus 7 critical ways to build emotional resilience.
Building resilience, in my view, is incredibly useful in life and definitely useful at work. Managers need emotional resilience to do their jobs well.
There are so many challenges, pressures and events that occur everyday in business and when managing teams that without emotional resilience and some mental toughness, you would become swamped.
Resilient people have been trough tough patches and know they will come out the other side when faced with a new challenge.
How do you get through your first big challenge at work?
To build and develop emotional resilience, you need to learn about yourself, to build self-awareness. When you know what bothers you, what annoys you, what increases the sense of pressure … with awareness you can start working out how to reduce the issues or deal with them in a better way.
Why managers need emotional resilience is that they are asked to solve the tougher challenges, turn groups of individuals into teams and improve the outcomes those team deliver. The list of challenges to overcome in doing these is long.
Emotional resilience and mental toughness is a key ability to get good at any skill or job. You will have setback, days where things don’t go well. Resilience is needed to keep going at the challenge again and again until you succeed and improve.
Maintaining a positive mindset and learning how to reframe situations so you are constantly looking to learn and improve what you do is a key ingredient in building emotional resilience at work.
Developing your inner drive gives you strong reasons to stay the course, to overcome hurdles and obstacles to reach your goals. Having goals that matter to you will help you build emotional resilience at work.
Finally, don’t forget to celebrate all the little successes along the way, so that you keep yourself going and give yourself the opportunity to celebrate the big success.
Jess
Enhance.training
There are many signs of a bad employee – learn 12 of them. 4 warning signs of a problem employee give you a much better chance of catching problems early and avoiding difficult and time consuming actions later on.
A stitch in time saves nine really does apply.
One of the key warning signs of poor employees is a lack of openness. Problem employees nearly always try to hide the problems they are creating. When taking on a new team and looking for bad employees, work out who is the least open with what they are doing and start there.
Another of the key signs of a bad team member is a lack of self-honesty and self-awareness. The worst bad staff member thinks they are good and nothing is wrong. If you are not honest with yourself, then how are you going to learn?
The next of the key signs of a bad team member is a refusal to accept corrective feedback. This is like saying – I am not willing to learn or change. It is very hard to have a person like this in your team.
Another of the warning signs of a problem employee is poor communication. Communication is so important in teamwork and driving team performance overall. If they struggle to communicate, they will struggle in their jobs (as a general rule).
I also share a further 8 common signs of a bad employee towards the end so do stay for these.
Don’t ignore the warning signs of bad employees – it is the worst thing you can do. When you see any of the signs, make the time to find out what is happening. Ask questions, listen and understand the situation. Then you can make an informed decision on the best course of action.
Good luck,
Jess
Enhance.training
Networking skills for managers become increasingly important as we climb the ranks. I share 4 keys ways to improve your networking both internally within your company and externally.
There are a lot of elements that go into networking skills for professionals and I am covering the 4 key ones that are at the core of being successful at professional networking for managers.
Don’t start networking just focused on getting a sale or getting a new job. Getting results from networking does take time as both parties have to get to know each other, decide they like each other and finally trust each other before the benefits start.
To improve your networking skills plan to build long term friendships as a result of networking. Taking this approach will make you a better person to network with and you will be more successful.
Many people start networking within your company with a mindset focused on what they want and need. While know what you want is important, focusing on giving before asking is much more important. Help others and they will feel obliged to help you – a key part of business networking skills.
Another key networking tips for managers is to plan to follow-up and nurture relationships. This is what so many don’t do enough of. Diarise time each month or week to make phone calls, book in meetings and be helpful to your contacts.
Finally, I give you tips for networking in your company and external to it focused on how to overcome making that first approach to complete strangers. This can be one of the most intimidating parts of networking and with a few simple tips, approaching complete strangers becomes a small step rather than a big deal.
Jess
Enhance.training
Making mistakes at work is something everyone does. To reduce the mistakes you make and to increase the speed of your learning, we are going through 6 practical ways for how to handle making mistakes at work.
“Should I admit to my mistakes at work?” is a question many ask themselves. Rather than avoiding admitting mistakes at work, take immediate responsibility for mistakes that you have made. Taking this mental approach gives you many benefits including fostering trust and speeding up your learning. Always take responsibility for making mistakes if you are asked.
When you make a mistake at work, if you can rectify it quickly, do so. Then you have the option of admitting to your mistake or keeping quiet.
When you make a mistake at work, always work out the root causes of the mistake. Taking this step is vital for you to learn how to prevent making the same mistake again and to increase your learning following the mistake.
How to get over making a mistake at work starts with taking action. Create a multi-pronged action plan to rectify your mistake. Rectify your mistake and then plan out how you are going to avoid making similar mistakes.
Communicate with stakeholders as soon as you have plan of how to rectify your mistake. Having a plan means you are bring a solution with the problem.
How to recover from mistakes at work should include seeing guidance and support from your manager, team members and experts in the business. Getting help often leads to a better solution to rectifying the mistake.
Making mistakes should be an opportunity to learn. Do your best to approach making mistakes at work with a growth mindset – how can I maximise my learning. Mistakes and failures are the stepping stones to success!
Jess
Enhance.training
Creating a great professional brand at work gives you many advantages in a very competitive workplace. Consciously building your personal branding at work gives you more progress and more control over your reputation.
I share 6 factors Create a Great Professional Brand at Work
The first step in actively creating a good professional brand is to define your brand. When you are clear about the brand you want, you will communicate your professional brand more consistently and clearly. Thinking about your values is a great starting point in creating a positive personal brand at work.
Build a reputation for excellence when building a great professional brand. Being good at what you do gives you options and opportunities. You will be in demand by managers in the business. Marketing your worth internally is important to get full recognition for what you do and to create a strong professional brand at work.
How well you communicate is at the core creating a great professional brand. Managers and leaders need to know about and understand the value you create for the business and how you can help them. Work to strengthen your communication skills to strengthen your personal brand at work
Another important factor when creating a great professional brand at work is to network. Managers and leaders provide the best opportunities to the staff members they know, like and trust. Build your network of supporters – I share practical tips of how to do this.
When planning how to build your brand at work look for opportunities to showcase your expertise. The best opportunities are usually the ones you go looking for. Ask lots of questions and be interested in what is happening around you. Great opportunities will come up and you need to be there to take them.
Finally, when building your professional brand at work, commit to continuous learning. Little stays still for long in business. How are you going to adapt to the changes in your company and industry?
Jess
Enhance.training
Actively market your worth to management and you will get ahead quicker than those that don’t market their worth.
I am sharing 5 reasons to market your worth to management allowing you to get a lot further ahead quicker
Initially, I found the need to advertise your worth at work more than a little daunting. It didn’t take long before I become comfortable after a little practice.
There are so many benefits of communicating your worth at work. Most of us start by communicating our worth to our manager. This is essential. As we progress our careers, it becomes more important to market your worth to managers more generally.
The first benefit when you communicate your worth at work is that you increase your confidence and your ability to focus on what is important in your job. Just the process of working out your own worth in terms of how you increase value at work helps you focus.
When you market your worth at work it is important to make it easy for others to understand the value you create. We are all busy so it is easy for others to miss what we do or forget quickly the great work we do.
When you market your skills at work you are much more likely to gain better experience and be asked to join the better projects. Managers and colleagues understand the value you add and know you more.
When you market your worth to leaders you tend to get paid more. Companies pay more to those that create higher value for the company. The more you market your value at work the higher you are likely to be paid vs your peer group.
Communicating your worth is an essential part of getting promoted. There is a lot that goes into winning promotion. Working hard alone is a starting point - not more.
As you progress through the management ranks building a positive professional brand is a vital part of maintain career momentum and being considered for the increasingly scarce senior positions.
I touch on how you need to change how you market your worth as your career progresses.
Jess
Enhance.training
Every manager hates having bad staff members in their team. I am sharing 5 actions for bad staff members at work to build trust, not fear.
Maintaining team trust is super important to keep team motivation and performance high.
Taking any action with problem employees is difficult enough. Even worse is the action you take is going to impact your teams trust, motivation, and performance – hopefully positively rather than negatively.
Many managers when facing a bad team member take actions that negatively impact trust, motivation and performance of their teams.
Problem team members could be underperforming employees, disruptive employees, negative team members … you must take action to limit the impact of a bad employee on the team.
Make the action you take to tackle a problematic employee fair and reasonable and escalate step by step. This gives bad team members plenty of chance to improve.
How to manage problematic employee must start with you being clear on why you are taking action. Take action to help the team overall and the business. Don’t take action is your mindset in on retaliation, revenge, using your position to control etc. The time will find out and trust will be seriously damaged.
With problem employees in the workplace, you must make it easy to them to improve. Make the time to coach and mentor them and show they how they can improve. This makes the corrective action you take a lot fairer.
I have found coaching underperforming employees a great way to encourage the majority of bad employees to improve and become productive happy team members. This is great to build trust with the team members watching what is happening.
It is rare that you can take staffing decisions on your own. Being fair towards problematic employees makes it a lot easier to build support with your manager, HR and other stakeholders. This in turn makes it a lot easier for you to take effective action with the bad staff member.
Lastly, any action you take must mean the team wins overall. If you are putting in a lot of time and effort, you want the team to be better off afterwards. This helps everyone and it helps you.
Good luck and remember, be fair and reasonable without be “too nice”.
Jess
Enhance.training
How managers build trust in teams matters. Being able to build trust quickly is more than a skill. Building trust starts with your approach to the team, what you believe in and how you display this to your team as much as what you do and say.
I am taking you through 5 key principles for how managers build trust in teams.
How to build trust in teams starts with what you think and what you believe. Both influence your decisions, your actions and your behaviours which is what the team see day in day out.
Creating trust at work is driven by the messages your decisions, your actions and your behaviours communicate about who you are and more importantly how you are going to treat the team.
As a manager, building team trust is so much easier if everything you do is focused on helping the team do their best. Contrast to how hard it would be winning team trust if your decisions and actions focused on helping you personally rather than the team.
Adopt the mindset that your job as a manager is to help and support the team to do their best and you will find gaining trust at work from your team a lot quicker and easier.
The principles I share in this video build trust in teams, because they are honest and follow timeless social rules such as reciprocity. You can tell you team what you are doing and the result will be the same – trust will be built with the team.
The first principle for how leaders build trust in teams is to practice what you ask for. If you want the team to tell you the truth and be realistic, then you much tell them the truth and be realistic. Do you best to live the rules you set within the team. Team pay a lot more attention to your decisions, actions and behaviours than what you say.
The second principle to get your team to trust you is to tell it how it is. This is being trustworthy yourself and ensuring that everyone in the team knows where they stand. This is super powerful in building trust in teams when combined with diplomacy, tact, and empathy.
The third principle for how to build trust in your team is to build personal connections. Create the conditions that make it easy for the other person to trust you as a person. Demonstrate consistently that you have their back for example. This is a different level of trust than the team trusting in your professional competence (which is also important).
The fourth principle for how to build team trust is to champion transparency and openness. Being open is incredibly powerful when building trust within your team and between teams. There are no suspicions about being used, about fear of being hoodwinked etc. The facts and data show that what the team is being told is the truth.
When you have an open style in terms of your communication, you build trust in the team much more easily.
The fifth principle for how to build trust in a team is to listen and action on what your team provides. Your team members have a lot of knowledge that you don’t. They are likely to be closer to the action that you, which means they will spot problems you won’t . They will have great ideas about how to solve those problems. You won’t find any of this out without listening to them carefully. This approach is amazing for building trust at work.
Jess
Enhance.training
How to gain respect from your team is on the mind of every manager taking on a new team. I share 10 practical tried and tested approaches making gaining respect from your team a lot easier.
I am sure you want to be respected by your team. I certainly did. I learnt early in my management career that team respect managers that help them. Help them a lot and they respect you a lot.
When thinking about how to earn your team’s respect, don’t focus on underhand techniques or quick fixes. They rarely work and certainly don’t work for long.
The 10 ways to make your team respect you I am taking you through work quickly – in weeks – and then will be working just as well in 5 years with the same team. You can tell them exactly what you are doing, and it will not harm your efforts in how to get your team’s respect.
Core to a manager role is their work to help team member do better. Work smarter, learn new relevant skills, deliver more impressive results etc. How to gain the respect of your team is tied directly with how well you help the team. Help them a lot and you get a lot of respect in return.
How to get respect from your team is also directly linked to how well you build your respect for your team members. They will have something that you can genuinely respect and admire.
For managers, being friendly but not necessarily friends, will you to get respect at work.
Another great approach to make your team respect you is to match your actions and decisions with what you ask of the team.
One of the best approaches for how to win your team’s respect is to listen to their ideas and solutions and implement the best ones. Give them the credit due and they will be delighted with you.
Another approach for how to earn respect as a leader is to be prepared to change your mind. This demonstrates your respect for them and your pursuit of what is best for the team.
You can absolutely implement any and all of these approaches. You will have most, if not all, the skills needed already. Put in some work and effort. Implement one approach until you are comfortable it is working well and then add the next one.
It won’t be long before you gain respect from your team and quickly gain the respect of any future team you manage.
If you have any questions about “How to Gain Respect from Your Team – 10 Tried & Tested Approaches”, please email me at support@enhance.training
Jess
Enhance.training
Persuading others at work to help you, to provide you information, to join a meeting is probably an everyday event for you.
I take you through 8 winning approaches for persuading others at work and include practical tips so you can implement each.
Nearly every job will involve using persuasion skills at work. Those that learn how to be more persuasive save a huge amount of their time each day and get what they want more often.
You start to convince people to agree with you from an early age. Yet not many people stop and consciously analyse and reflect exactly what they are doing and not doing when they are using their influencing and persuading skills.
Take the time to think about each of these 8 approaches for how to be more persuasive at work compared to what you are doing now. Improve the areas which are not as strong.
When you are persuading your manager or even persuading groups, do your homework and put yourself in their shoes. Think through their pressures, their desires and what they want and need. The better you understand the other person, the more persuasive you will become.
When thinking about how to convince others try to answer what is in it for them. If you can position what you want in terms of how it helps them, they are much more likely to agree.
Show your confidence when persuading a manager or persuading your boss. If you believe, then they are much more likely to. I share tips of how to build your confidence to enable you do show confidence.
Use facts more than opinion – a key tactic in how to convince the boss or anyone else. Everyone has an opinion. Few have a reasoned argument backed up by data and facts.
Do you best to prepare counters to objections when planning how to persuade someone.
More advanced tactics to convince people include introducing scarcity and exclusivity.
Finally, what medium you use when convincing other matters. Face to face is a lot more effective than using just the phone. Email, chat and texts are great for conveying information but poor when trying to persuade others at work.
If you have any question on “8 Winning Approaches for Persuading Others at Work”, please leave them in the comments section below and I will get back to you.
Jess
Enhance.training
What should you do when you get treated unfairly at work? Explore 3 key options including “Is it worth fighting unfair treatment at work?”
I also include 4 key tactics to improve your success in fighting unfair treatment at work from colleagues and unfair managers.
There will be many occasions where you feel you are being treated unfairly at work. Most of the times these will be minor or un-intended mistakes made by colleagues or managers that are not repeated regularly.
There are lots of sensible ways of handle unfair treatment at work when it is fairly minor.
In this podcast, I am covering unfair treatment in the workplace which is intentional and repeated regularly, or bullying, or similar tactics intended to control and put you down in some way.
Having to handle an unfair manager or deal with significant unfair treatment at work is not fun or easy.
Being unfairly treated at work over a period of time leaves you with three main choices:
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Continue ignoring the unfair treatment or do little in response
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Leave and get a job in another company
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Fight the unfair treatment
Who is treating your unfairly is pretty huge. How does their influence within the business compare to yours. The bigger this difference is, the harder it will be to change their unfair treatment.
Finding a new job in another company is a hassle and it does take time and effort. This is a common response and often is the easiest, particularly if you can move jobs easily. If you have a bad boss, this is probably your easiest choice.
Doing nothing or little in response as a way to handle unfair treatment at work can be a good choice. If the unfair treatment is for a short period of time and you know it will end. This will avoid the risk of creating waves or being labelled as a problem employee.
If doing nothing is impacting your ability to your work, or your health, then look at other options.
Fighting unfair treatment at work will take time and energy. There are steps that you should take that will make any action you take more successful which I cover in the video.
Is it worth fighting unfair boss depends on what is at stake and the difference in influence both parties have within the business.
I also share my experience to deal with unfair treatment at work. I have tried doing nothing, leaving and fighting, each with pros and cons for me personally.
If you have any questions on “Is it Worth Fighting Unfair Treatment At Work?” please email me at support@enhance.training
Jess
Enhance.training
Receiving negative feedback at work can be a devasting blow for some or an amazing opportunity for others.
I share 6 positive ways to manage negative feedback at work so you can transform all feedback into a valuable learning opportunity.
If you have worked hard, getting negative feedback from your manager or getting negative feedback from a colleague can be a painful blow. It hurts.
Don’t assume the worst. Most managers make negative comments at work to correct or improve what you are doing rather than to try to put you down.
Learning how to deal with negative feedback at work in a constructive and positive way will help your confidence and how quickly you learn and thus improve.
When you are dealing with negative feedback at work ask clarifying questions. Ask questions until you understand why the negative comments have been made and what you can do to ensure positive comments next time. Don’t assume that managers or colleagues will give you great useful feedback from the start. Ask questions.
When you have to deal with negative comments at work made to try to put you down, asking clarifying questions can be a great and professional way to counter it and reduce these comments.
A key part of how to accept feedback from your boss or anyone is to be appreciative of the feedback. Thank them for taking the time to give you feedback even if you don’t agree with the feedback. This ensures you will carry on getting feedback which is a massive help to you.
When you respond to negative feedback always think – “What can I learn from this?” This is a great way to stay mentally positive and turn negative feedback into a useful learning opportunity.
A great way to manage negative feedback at work is to take positive action following receiving negative feedback. This helps you and demonstrates that you will make changes following receiving negative feedback.
Finally, ask for feedback regularly, particularly if you are a manager. The more senior you get, the less useful feedback you get so make the effort to try to get as much as possible.
Jess
Enhance.training
Create a team vision that your team understands and relates to, that explains the purpose of their work and how it creates value for the company, and you give them direction and context – both very motivational.
You will learn 7 ways to create a team vision - linking company strategy to your team.
When you link company strategy to team objectives you work in the same direction as the rest of the business plus have better co-ordination of activities. This keeps your bosses happy and increases the likelihood of company success.
When you understand your team’s contribution to company strategy, you are in a much better position for explaining the purpose of your team. With this in mind, how to create your team vision is easier.
I find it useful to think about what problems your team is really solving and once you have these clear, the how to create a team vision in relatable language for the team is a lot easier.
Communicating strategy to your team is easier when you have a clear team vision and you can tie this into what each of the team does day to day.
A team vision becomes even more useful when you can identify the tasks and activities the team needs to do to achieve the team vision. Get the team to work out the inputs needed to achieve the vision and help assign what each individual team member will be accountable for.
Finally, create milestones and measurements so everyone is really clear on how far the team is progressing against each objective and towards to overall team vision and their part of the company strategy.
Enjoy crafting your team vision.
Jess
Enhance.training
Practice diplomacy at work and you will go further in your career, be liked and appreciated by more people, build better relationships and be seen as more professional.
I share 7 Actions to improve diplomacy in the workplace and avoid offending colleagues plus three compelling benefits of being diplomatic at work.
Being diplomatic at work and expressing opinion without offending are incredibly important skills for the workplace. The manager benefits of not offending others is even greater as they have to get on with a wider range of people.
Being able to communicate with diplomacy significantly improves your communication skills. One half of communicating relies on the other person and people who are annoyed, insulted or angry simply don’t listen.
I have included examples of being diplomatic at work within the video.
All of us rely on others within the workplace to do our own jobs well. Nearly everyone is part of a team. To build good relationships avoid offending others at work.
Some of the benefits of not offending others include being able to be more honest and direct with feedback, which increases the improve their performance, plus you build trust a lot quicker. Higher levels of trust mean deeper, stronger relationships with co-workers. So practice diplomacy to avoid offending co-workers.
Managers often have more contact with suppliers, customers and internal stakeholders therefore the manager benefits of diplomacy multiply considerably.
I take you through 7 actions to practice diplomacy at work. Each is practical and useful in any position and particularly in management. Being diplomatic at work is a skill which needs practice to get good.
Enjoy being more influential and getting your way more often!
enhance.training
Working out how to motivate your best employees can be quite intimidating and challenging as a manager. The top 5% deliver 400% more than the average employee. Motivating your top performers matters!
You will learn 5 factors that motivate all team members plus 8 ways to motivate your best employees.
Get more from team members by creating the right environment that keeps them motivated. How to motivate your best team members takes a slightly different approach than motivating your average team member.
Implementing the 5 ways to motivate your employees will make a big difference in getting the best from team members. When employees are working because they want to rather because you told them to, they produce better and more output. Make the time to motivate your team through consistently treating everyone equally and fairly.
Keeping your best employees is harder because they are in demand and can move much more easily. The best employees produce an outsized contribution to your team so getting the best from team members makes an even bigger difference.
High performers want challenge, development and to be using and improving their skills. If you are able to consistently provide this, you have made a great start in how to retain your best employees.
Another way to improve employee motivation is spend time listening to your team members. Act on the good ideas and suggestions they have. Demonstrate that they are able to change your mind.
Spending part of each week removing problems will help you get more for all employees and in particular your best performers.
Enjoy implementing these different methods to motivate employees.
Enhance.training
Saying No at work is massively important for the quality of your work, for your ability to properly support your team and the wider business and for your health and happiness at work.
I share 8 key benefits – what saying no at work give you and how to say no at work without annoying or upsetting the person asking for your time and help.
Having the courage to say no at work when colleagues, bosses or others are asking will make a massive difference to you work life. I am not suggesting you are going to be difficult or disruptive by saying no. Learning the art of saying no at work when there is a good business reasons behind your no, will open a lot more doors for you.
When you say no at work you will be under less pressure and experience less stress. Of course you will be working hard but not overworking and risking burnout.
Learn how to say no at work and you will be able to deliver much better quality work on what you do focus on. You won’t be spread too thin.
Become comfortable with the ways of saying no at work and you enhance your reputation and standing in the business.
And there are 4 additional reasons why you absolutely should learn and practice how to say no – what saying no at work gives you!
Learn to say no at work before you become overworked, over stretched and too stressed to do you best work.
The first step in how to say no at work is to assess the request being made of you. Make the time to think it through and put yourself in their shoes before you make a decision. Ask questions so you understand the context and the impact of saying no or yes - for you and for them.
When saying no at work, always explain why you are saying no. Be empathetic and straightforward. You want to give the other person as much chance to plan alternative routes to getting their work done. Be helpful towards them – after all you are working for the same team.
Make sure you practice saying no – the steps and factors described above and the additional ones shared in the podcast.
Enhance.training
4 ways to leverage time as a manager gives you more control, more mental space, more influence in your business and a path to achieving more – personally and for your team.
Most time management tips are about prioritising or delegating – use these approaches to truly get more done in the time you and your team have.
What you do with the time you have and the impact you make is the difference between great and poor. How we manager time as a manager is what we can change, not time itself.
A critical way to create time as a manager and for our teams is saying no. No to requests that are less important than the work you are currently doing, no to meetings in which you are not going to contribute much.
You can save time as a manager, a lot of time, by focusing on the activities, tasks, decisions, problems and projects that really move the team towards their goals. How to create time as a manager to say not to all the tasks and activities that do not align with your goals.
The second critical way to leverage time – your time and your team’s time – is to focus on removing problems. If you spend an hour solving a problem that you team are experiencing which creates 10 hours of time for your team, this is a great way of leveraging your time.
Proactively removing problems is also a great way increase your time as a manager.
Another way to leverage time as a manager is to leverage the time of others. I share 3 key ways of doing this – each practical and implementable. As a manager, you work through others, rather than contributing directly. This makes leveraging the time of others more important and a key focus in how to get more done at work.
When thinking about how to manage your time, the forth way to leverage time is to invest in automation. IT systems are an obvious route. These can be complex and involve business cases and budget allocations to enable them to happen. There are a lot of smaller “automations” that you can target that have less impact on their own, but when added together become very meaningful to your team.
Leveraging time is more than employing a number of time management tips or time management strategies which tend to focus on prioritising or delegating work – both of which shift work and time rather than increasing the time the team as a whole has.
Use these ways to leverage time as a manager and you will create time for yourself and your team, you will be able to focus more of the time available on the tasks, problems and projects that really matter to the team reaching their goals.
Learning how to manager time better is really how to manage what work you do and what you don’t do.
Enhance.training
The mindset of the best managers is the starting point in how they create success, in how they motivate their team, in how they gain such admiration and respect for what they do and what they deliver.
I take you through 6 principles that guide the behaviours and actions of all great managers.
All great managers get the best from those they manage, through how they behave and the actions and decisions they take.
What great managers do is move from focusing on themselves to focusing on their team members. Great managers work through, and deliver through, their team rather working directly as they did when they were a team contributor. This is one of the key principles of effective management.
Another principle of the best managers is to leverage time. We all have a fixed amount of time every day. It is what the manager and more importantly the team does with its time each day that really matters. How to be a better manager always includes making better use of time to create value for the business.
Being results focused is always in the mindset of the best managers. Businesses need to deliver results and the outcome their customer want otherwise they would not stay in business. Therefore all the teams in the business also need to deliver results. What to focus the team’s time and energy on is always in the mindset of great managers.
Another key mindset of a great manager is being focused on team development. Helping the team create great results is partly about getting the team working at the top of their capabilities. Getting great results is also about expanding the capabilities of the team so they can deliver more. Development also has a long list of benefits for the manager, the team and the company.
Developing teams is a key way managers answer the “how do managers create value?” question.
How to improve communication and connections is also in the mindset that make the best managers. Teamwork is about co-ordination and understanding. Communication and connections create teamwork.
“How to become the best manager?” you might ask. Building self-awareness and awareness of their teams is certainly the mindset of a manager. If you are not able to manage yourself, they how can you manage other effectively.
Self-awareness is definitely what's in the mindset of a great manager. Conscious knowledge and awareness of your own reactions and emotions across all situations helps you control and direct those reactions and emotions constructively to help the team achieve its goals.
Great management starts with your mindset and attitude. Use this podcast on “The Mindset of The Best Managers – 6 Principles For Great Management” to check that you are working on each principle or mindset to improve how you manage.
Sharing 7 steps to improve your decision making to give you more time and space to focus on the decisions that really matter. It is so easy to get over-loaded with all the decisions we need to make each day.
Improve your decision making skills so you reduce time spent on decisions with little impact and focus on making decisions that matter.
The process to improve your decision making should start with being clear on your goals and your team’s and company’s goals. By aligning goals more carefully, you can cut down the time spent on a lot of decisions, reducing that feeling of being over-loaded.
One of the key methods to improve your decision making is to think about the impact of the decision you need to make before doing starting the core decision making process. This allows you to categorise the decision and the time you allocate to it.
Another step to improve your decision making at work is to look at the downsides of each decision and remove those that have large downside from consideration.
When decision making in management, avoiding making key decision in a rush is vital. Make full use of the timeframes available by creating decision making space.
Keeping an open mind during the decision making process in business is such an important tip and has been massively helpful to me over the years.
Using data to check other people’s opinions during the decision making process helps remove others biases and preconceptions from clouding your own judgement. Understanding the situation clearly upon which you are making a decision gives you a better chance of making a good choice.
Finally it is decision time. Making a decision is important. Procrastinating results in people being let down, opportunities missed or problems that get bigger. Don’t delay when you have got to the point where you can make a decision.
enhance.training
Effective listening skills for managers is one half of your communication. Using active listening skills increases your influence on colleagues and team members, which in turn helps you do a better job.
I share 5 ways for how to be a good listener at work and further tips on improving your effectively listening skills.
Effective listening skills at work are underrated and underused by far too many people trying to get their own messaging heard. Learn and practice how to listen effectively, and others will be a lot more prepared to listen to you.
Improving listening skills is about how to improve your communication skills , vital in any role and particularly so in management roles.
How to effectively listen to others is about how you provide feedback to the speaker to demonstrate you are listening attentively to what they are saying. Providing the right non-verbal feedback is very important which is trusted more than verbal feedback.
Verbal feedback to the speak also demonstrates you are effective listening.
Having great active listening skills will not help unless you also have an open mind and are willing to take in and consider what the other person is saying. Keep an open mind and show this to the speaker.
How to listen effectively in communication also includes remaining conscious of the speakers non-verbal communication and what this means for the message being delivered. Always take action and follow up – which could be simply remembering the key points and replaying them, or it might be providing help and support.
Finally I give additional tips on how to improve listening skills at the end of the video.
Improving your effective listening skills, particularly as a manager, is one of the best time investments I can suggest you make.
Enjoy learning more from those around you.
Enhance.training
Improving your problem solving skills at work is critical to improving your career prospects. Every business needs and loves good problem solvers.
To help you develop good problem solving skills and to help you practice those skills, we are going through these 7 steps to improve your problem solving skills at work.
The first of seven steps for problem solving at work is to really understand the problem that you are trying to solve. Too many people rush through this step, miss vital information and insights and end up solving the wrong problem. Then they wonder why the issues haven’t gone away.
The first step in any method to solve problems is to understand your underlying problem.
The next of the steps to solve a problem at work is to find the cause of the problem. Don’t rely on opinions and speculation. Dig into the details and the facts to find the causes. There may be one or many.
The next of the steps for problem solving is to create multiple solutions. Make the time and effort you put into this step proportional to the benefits gained. For important problems with large impacts you should create multiple solutions. This gives you options and you can compare the pros and cons.
Of the many ways to solve problems or the solutions you have, choose a preferred option.
The next of the steps to solve problems is to choose who is responsible for implementing the solution. Choose one person only. The person responsible does not need to do all the work, just make sure the solution is implemented correctly and the implementation is finished.
For the more complex solutions with a lot of moving parts, build reporting to track progress of the implementation. Visibility of progress is a key tool in the methods for problem solving and allows you to spot problems and know when to jump in to help.
Finally, the last step to improve your problem solving skills at work is to ensure the solution is implemented and the implementation finished correctly.
These steps will allow you to solve any problem and improve the solution to that problem.
Enhance.training
How to give a great presentation at work is a key skill to learn for any manager. I will be sharing 9 presentation tips to help you improve your presentation skills, and 3 tips to practice presenting so you can learn how to present like a pro at work.
You will be giving presentations regularly – informally to small groups of your team through to much more formal presentations to larger audiences. Per a Forbes survey, 70% of managers say presentation skills are critical for career success.
When you need to use your presentation skills at work, there are three main areas to consider:
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The purpose of your presentation
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How to manage your emotions before and during the presentation
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Our body language and use of voice while presenting at work
The first presentation tip is to really think about your audience and what they want from your presentation. Address what they want as clearly as possible. Or this might be educating your audience on what they need but don’t know about yet.
When giving a presentation at work, it is very useful to know what the purpose is behind giving the presentation. This helps you structure your presentation to fulfil its purpose.
When thinking about how to do presentation at work, particularly when you are using slides, limit the number of key messages you are giving otherwise the audience will forget half of them. We also have a lot more tips on structuring so you know how to present like a pro.
Managing your own emotions, fears and anxieties before and during giving a presentation at work is also key, particularly if you have not had presentation skills training. I share times on how to manage your voice and body language.
Then to end, I share tips on how to practice a presentation. There is lots that you can do to prepare and practice your presentation so that it comes across much more naturally and you are a lot more confident when presenting.
Presenting at work is a vital skill to progress your career (70% confirmed this in a Forbes survey) so do that the time to improve your skills.
Enhance.training
Being more conscious of our audience’s communication style enables us to flex our communication style, which improves our ability to communicate effectively. Improve 4 verbal communication styles at work, plus tips on improving critical factors affecting your communication effectiveness.
Ineffective communication at work is common and
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Wastes a lot of everyone’s time
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Wates a lot of everyone’s energy
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Damages relationships through misunderstandings
Effective face to face communication skills is a lot more than just talking well. You audience has to receive what you are telling them and then understand it too. A great place to start improving face to face communication is spending time actively listening to your audience.
Flex your face to face communication styles to help your audience take in and understand what you are communicating to them.
Consciously understanding different communication styles and looking out for which styles your audience find easiest gives you a lot more control over how well you communicate. Taking this step will help significantly in improving face to face communication.
There are many models helping you understand different aspects of communication styles at work. We touch on the key indicators of
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Analytical
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Personal
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Intuitive
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Functional
Communicators and how to adjust your style to best help them receive and understand what you are communicating.
Work hard on your verbal communication styles, while always trying to make your messaging as simple as possible to understand. Keep irrelevant information out of your communication so your audience will not be distracted or confused.
Simple messaging saves everyone time and energy while communicating face to face.
Finally, I touch on three huge influences on how well your audience receives and understands what you are trying to tell them. These will literally make or break your communication at work.
enhance.training
Getting a bigger pay rise is an ordeal that most people hate going through. I share 8 ways of getting a salary raise that will make the preparation and conversations with your manager much easier.
Many people don’t do the right preparation before asking for a salary increase. We think in terms of ourselves – why we need get a bigger salary because we want to go on that holiday, get a new car etc.
This is the wrong approach. Our preparation should be thinking about the company and all the benefits they have got from employing, all the value you have created for them.
Taking this approach to getting a bigger salary is much more likely to be successful – you are subtly highlighting to the company what they would lose if you got a job elsewhere and look, the cost of the pay rise you are asking for is small in comparison.
Work out why you deserve to get a bigger pay rise in terms of the value you provide to the company.
Next, look at the external factors that would support getting a bigger salary. Take a look at what other companies are paying for your role. Gather these adverts and use them to support getting a bigger pay raise.
When thinking about how to negotiate a salary increase, you should be realistic. Ask for a sensible figure and your manager will need to consider it. Ask for too high a figure and you lose trust and credibility with your boss.
The next step in getting a bigger salary is to document your achievements, arguments, and evidence. This helps build your case and acts as a useful reference point for your manager.
When planning how to ask for a raise at work always give your boss warning that you want to talk about salary. Ask for a pay rise in private, never in public. Ask for a meeting to specifically talk about getting a raise at work.
If you ask for pay raise and your manager immediately says “yes”, you have asked for too little. Expect some negotiation. I share salary negotiation tips which will give you plenty of options.
If you get a no to a salary increase or only a small increase way below your expectations, have a plan B (and C). Steps to take include negotiating on areas other than your salary which will benefit you. Getting job offers from other companies paying more should also be considered.
A final step in how to get a good salary must include helping your manager overcome objections from HR or those higher up in the company. Find out what the objections are and work out how to overcome or counter them.
There is a lot you can do stack the odds in your favour when in salary increase negotiations. Take these steps and get a bigger salary!
Good luck.
Enhance.training
Negotiate effectively at work and you make your life a lot easier. I share 7 actions to negotiate effectively at work – all which make a big difference as a manager. Better negotiation skills will help you every single day at work.
As a manager, you are negotiating with your team, your manager, your stakeholders, your customers and suppliers. It is a long list and you spend quite a big part of your week using negotiation skills so it really does pay to learn how to negotiate well.
Learn 7 steps to negotiate effectively at work, each packed with negotiation tips.
When learning how to improve negotiation skills, the most important area to concentrate is defining what you want and then preparing. This probably remains the most important stage even when you are seasoned negotiator. Spend time thinking about what the other party might want from the negotiations.
The next action to negotiate effectively at work is to establish trust. Being open during negotiations is a powerful way to establish and maintain trust. Don’t put all your cards on the table straight away.
Key to negotiation skills in the workplace is active listening. Be ware of the assumptions you make in planning and test this during the negotiations by questioning the other party. Most negotiation tactics require you to learn about what the other party wants.
Tips for negotiating well include making the first offer. This does anchor negotiations or start negotiations from a point of your choosing. Making the first offer can also upset, frustrate, and derail negotiations – why is covered in this video.
How to negotiate effectively includes knowing how to deal with bullies or overly aggressive negotiators. I cover two proven techniques to stop aggressive negotiation tactics.
Dealing well with price during negotiations – an area many dread – will be much easier with the right preparations and a few negotiation tips. Never give away price without getting something back in return.
Finally, successful negotiation is about getting to a win-win position. This is doubly important at work as you are likely to work with the other party into the future. Maintaining good relationships is absolutely in your interests.
Enjoy being much more effective when negotiating.
Developing your team is a key enabler of many benefits you get back when you invest in training and development for your team – I take you through 6 valuable benefits plus share 7 development options.
I know the investment you make in developing your team members will be paid back many times over.
What you get from developing your team includes improved team dynamics. Everyone likes a manager that is keen to improve everyone’s skills and career prospects.
Another benefit you get from developing your team is better leadership, problem solving and decision making skills. This is great for higher performers and reduces these burdens on the manager. This gives everyone more opportunity to develop their skills and careers.
What developing your team gives you includes increased team motivation and staff retention. The effort you put into developing your team you get back in goodwill and higher levels of effort – a very fair exchange. And when employees see their career moving forward, they are less likely to look elsewhere hence higher staff retention.
Develop your team and you will be able to attract higher performing employees. Most skilled employees want development opportunities. Demonstrate that you provide these and higher performing staff will want to work in your team.
Another benefit you get from developing your team is increased volume and quality of output. The better your skills and confidence, the less time is takes to do task and activities and make decisions. Everything speeds up, which allows you to produce more.
What investing in training your team does for you, in additional to all the above, is give you much better promotion prospects. Creating great performance in a positive way is going to be noticed and rewarded with more staff to manage. Enjoy the promotions!
As you can see there are a lot of benefits of developing your team. Do take advantage of them. What investing in training your team does for you far outweighs the time and effort you invest. That has certainly been my experience over 25 years of managing teams.
Invest in your team and have a nicer atmosphere to work in and everyone enjoys great success!
IF you have any question on “6 Benefits You Get from Developing Your Team”, please leave them in the comments section below and I will get back to you.
Enhance.training
There are absolutely times when you should quit your job – for your happiness, for your health and for your career progress. Learn 5 signs you should quit your job.
When you should quit your job is an assessment of the pros and cons of your current situation versus the benefits of moving to another job with a new team and new manager plus the effort of making that move.
There is a lot of emotion when thinking “should I quit my job?” You have friendships and a group that you will be leaving. Joining a new group, getting to know everyone alongside a new job is exciting and tiring.
Yet when to leave your job should be seriously considered when you have any of these signs occurring:
Firstly, you should think about when to leave your job when your career is stalling. If your rate of learning has really dropped; you are doing the same tasks and projects without any new challenges, then when to quit your job and get one with better development prospects is an important option.
Secondly, when you have a bad boss, you should definitely be considering quitting your job. Your manager has a massive impact on your career and happiness at work. Don’t let a bad manager ruin both.
Third, when you and your work are not appreciated is another good indicator of when its time to leave your job. If what you do is not valued, then how are you going to get career building opportunities and promotions. They will go to those who are appreciated.
Fourth, another of the signs you need to quit your job is when your salary stays below market rates. You can earn more money elsewhere for the same effort put in. This is also an indication that the company does not value you and what you do.
Fifth, if you consistently have too much work you must think should you quit your job. Too much work leads to increased stress and anxiety, which in turns leads to physical and mental health issues. Leave your job and work for a company that looks after the health of their staff.
At the end of the podcast, there are 8 questions you should ask yourself before you quit your job. These will help you frame why you are leaving, what you want from your next job and when is best to quit.
Enhance.training
Managing teams working from home is harder than managing teams working in the office. To help you with managing remote employees, we are going through 8 actions for managing teams working from home.
When leading a remote team it is super important to set crystal clear expectations. If team members are not sure what is needed from them and when, when working from home, it become even harder to meet expectations.
When planning how to manage remote employees, establishing clear team rules and practices is another important step. Team members can watch your actions and decisions; thus it is hard to understand all the unwritten rules they are expected to follow.
Managing a team while working from home means you have to work harder at communicating with your team. Being more organised and using multiple communication methods helps massively. I share 6 ways to “over”-communicate.
When managing remote teams effectively focus on delivering against goals, rather than tracking activity. This is much easier to do when working remotely, much more motivational for team members and demonstrates trust.
Managing remote team members should be done in a flexible way. Being able to organise your own time is a big perk of remote working AND a big attraction and retention tool for companies. Be flexible in your approach to when employees do their work.
When managing remote team members mentor more than manage. Focus on what you can do to help them complete their tasks and activities quicker and better.
When working remotely, you are more likely to struggle with burnout – there are far fewer barriers between work and relaxing. When managing a remote team keep an eye on team members’ workload and pressures. Ask them regularly in one-on-one meetings to talk to you about their workload, pressures, and deadlines. Take supportive action quickly when needed.
The last action for managing teams working from home is to encourage social interaction between team members and within the wider business. I share 10 tips to help you do this towards the end of the video.
Enjoy managing your remote team more effectively!
enhance.training
How to deal with conflicts at work is pretty scary if you don’t know what steps to take and what to look out for. Conflicts usually have anger, frustration, annoyance and other emotions flying between two or more parties and stepping into the middle of this takes some courage.
As a manager it is vital that you manage conflicts at work carefully. Positive conflict can easily and quickly descend into disruptive, damaging, negative conflict if you are not able to manage conflicts within the team appropriately.
I share 5 ways to deal with conflict at work, and take you through 5 steps to resolve conflicts in the workplace that are disruptive and emotionally charged.
In my view, not all conflict is bad. Heated discussions, constructive challenge, differences of opinion and airing different ideas and solutions can all be very productive – vital even for great team performance - if managed carefully. Know where the line is and constantly look out for individuals or teams crossing into negative conflict and take action immediately.
As a manager you have an important role as an impartial mediator to deal with conflicts within the team. You set the tone and behaviours in the team through your own actions and decisions.
Many conflicts at work come about because individual or teams are competing for resources or have overlaps of responsibilities and goals. Managers and leaders can resolve conflicts at work before they even happen by taking action to remove overlaps and change operation or processes to minimise and remove reasons for conflict.
Conflicts at work often come about through behavioural problems or incompetent staff. Both increase the pressure and workload on others and/or make being at work less enjoyable. Resentment, anger and annoyance can quickly be created between individuals and teams, leading to open conflict. Tackle these areas to deal with conflicts in the workplace.
A key part of conflict management is to promote understanding between parties. Our emotions often get in the way of taking the time to look at the situation from the other party’s point of view. Understanding often removes the assumption that the other person is being difficult or creating conflict for personal reasons. Promoting understanding is a great way to deal with conflict in the workplace.
When you have negative, disruptive conflict in a team or at work, there are 5 practical steps that you can take to resolve 95%+ of the conflict fairly quickly. Towards the end of the video, I take you through exactly what these steps are.
Take action quickly to resolve conflict at work.
Creating team accountability makes your job as a manager as lot easier. Creating team member accountability reduces the time and energy you spend in decision making, solutioning and planning out the steps to implement solutions.
There are many factors that go into creating accountability at work. The first of 10 factors in creating team accountability which we are covering are setting crystal clear expectations. If don’t know what is expected of you, how can a manager be holding employees accountable or how can you deliver against expectations.
The second factor for team accountability is show the team the how. Goals are great. If you don’t know or are not sure how to achieve your goals it is pretty hard to deliver. To ensure accountability at work, make sure each team member knows how to achieve the goals they have been set.
Thirdly when creating a culture of accountability, creating visibility is essential. This is like creating a scoreboard for a sports game – everyone is so much clearer how each team is doing and what progress looks like.
When driving team accountability, creating psychological safety is a must. Without safety, team members will find it a lot harder to take ownership and take the small risks involved with accountability.
The fifth factor in creating team accountability is to delegate problems as well as tasks. Delegating problems and providing coaching and mentoring support in tandem allows you to develop a whole host of skills in your team that make you life a lot easier.
Sixth, when creating accountability, encourage team level planning. Using the team to problem solve, plan the execution of solutions and spot problems gives all team members a chance to improve relationships and learn about each other. Great to create team accountability.
Seventh, always follow up to improve employee accountability. Focus on helping and supporting first which also allows you to check up on progress ad spot issues and challenges that may need intervention.
Eighth, leading by example and holding yourself accountable is a great way for creating accountability in a team.
Another key factor for developing ownership and accountability at work is to resolve conflicts within the team quickly. There will always be some level of conflict. How you manage conflict within the team is crucial.
Finally, when creating accountability in a team, celebrate successes together. Everyone likes compliments, praise for work well done and rewards for success. Taking ownership and accountability involves taking some risk. It seems sensible to increase the upside to encourage a bit of risk taking – and praise and celebrating success is one way to increase the upside.
Enjoy creating a more accountable team.
Being bullied at work is horrible. Bullying saps confidence, your focus on work, your time, and your motivation. Even worse is not doing anything. This give a bully free reign which is likely to mean the bullying continues or gets worse. This will not help your happiness, nor your motivation nor performance at work.
You will learn 7 steps to tackle bullying at work, to give you confidence and knowledge of what steps you can and should take.
Just check that you are the victim of workplace bullying rather than honest mistakes. Bullying at work is the repeated behaviour intended to hurt or control you. If you are being bullied the actions to stop bullying at work include:
The first step to tackle bullying at work is to check your company policy so you know what processes the company should follow and what protections you are entitled to.
The second set of actions to tackle bullying at work is to gather examples and evidence. This is crucial to how to stop bullying in the workplace. Bullying behaviour is usually subtle (68% of cases) so being able to demonstrate a clear pattern of bullying behaviour is super important.
The next step in how to deal with a bully at work is to have an informal conversation. Book a meeting room and invite the bully to meet with you. Showing a bully that you are not going to accept the bullying tactics is a good way to get them to stop.
The fourth step to tackle bullying at work is to speak to your manager. Your manager should be a great source of help and support, plus they have greater power and influence within the business and can bring this to bear in stopping bullying in the workplace.
Fifth, in how to deal with a bully at work – find allies. Those at or above the level of the bully can be very useful allies. Multiple people pressurising a bully to stop has more impact that one.
If these steps have not yet worked, escalate the bullying situation to HR and to Senior Management. This takes how to deal with a bully at work to a much more formal setting, increasing the pressure on the bully to stop.
Finally, you can escalate the bullying at work externally to lawyers and tribunals. This is usually a final stage and can be needed if your manager is the bully.
If a manager is the bully, which accounts for more than half the bullying cases in the workplace, then these steps still work. Build stronger evidence and work harder at finding allies to help negate a manager’s great influence and power within an organisation.
Good luck!
Knowing how to spot bullying on your team as a manager is super useful. Bullying is very damaging to team motivation and performance.
Bullying is very tough for those on the receiving end of being bullying behaviour. Not doing anything about bullying – through ignorance, not knowing what to do or being unwilling to act – is very damaging to your reputation and standing as a manager.
Many signs of a bully at work are subtle and therefore hard to spot. This makes the job of spotting bullying in the workplace a lot harder. Identifying workplace bullying is even harder because may other issues can produce similar symptoms in employees being bullied.
How to spot bullying as a manager is a crucial first step. To help you, this video takes you through 5 symptom behaviours of employees being bullied, and 17 tactics used by those bullying at work.
One of the most critical things to do for how to spot bullying in the workplace is to make the time to observe what is happening around you and check to make sure there are no signs of workplace bullying.
Once you have spotted signs of bullying at work and investigated, then knowing how to deal with bullying at work is the next step. It is super important to take action as quickly as possible.
At the end of this video, I take you through a few tips on how to tackle bullying in the workplace.
Bullying is a horrible thing to have to suffer at any point in your life. Make it as hard as possible for bullies to successfully bully other team members.
Unfortunately, many bullies at work are managers. Managers hold positions of responsibility and have more power and influence within the business as a result. It is easier for them to overstep the mark and engage in bullying behaviour.
Keep an eye on your team members to make sure that they are not being bullied by other managers in the business. Having regularly one-on-one meetings gives you a great platform to discuss these types of issues and demonstrate your support for them.
Do your best to stop bullying in the workplace.
When you manage older team members it can be pretty nerve racking and intimidating especially if there is a large age gap. You might be a new manager or have a new team to manage when you first manage older workers.
Your confidence in yourself and your ability to treat older employees in exactly the same way as you treat younger team members is really important. Confidence makes a huge difference to you and to older team members.
When managing anyone – younger or older – relationships matter. When the age gap is large, building trusting relationships is harder so you have to put a little more effort in.
Get to know your older workers. Find out what they like, what challenges they have with their job, what their ambitions are – just like you would with all the other team members. Build good trusting relationships.
Secondly, it is so important to treat everyone equally. Make consistent decisions and take consistent actions. Do this and the older team members won’t worry that they are being treated differently or worse.
Third, when leading older employees, remind yourself of the value you bring to the team. Managing older employees is great because they have depth and possible breadth of experience that you can draw on. Don’t forget that you have different skills and experience that they do. You are manager of the team for a reason. Demonstrate what you bring in a natural and relaxed way. Be confident of the value you bring.
Fourth, keep an open mind and respect the differences. Don’t assume when managing older employees that they don’t have good energy levels or they don’t have a desire to learn. Find out what each individual wants by asking lots of questions and paying attention to what they tell you. Keep an open mind.
Also be respectful that everyone is at a different point in their lives, with different ambitions, interests, and motivations. Work with the team members you have so that you can get the best out of the team.
Fifth, when you manage older employees than you, look to leverage older team members’ experience and knowledge. They should have depth and / or breadth to their experience. The old employees should have seen plenty – what has been tried and not worked for instance. Use this knowledge and experience in how to manage older employees.
The workforce is continuing to age. The fastest growing age group in the workplace is the over 65s. When you manage older team members you have access to great knowledge and experience – make the absolute best use of this.
Enjoy having older team members in your team!
Working out how to manage lazy team members and taking the right action to reduce or remove the issue is a challenge most managers’ dread.
If you ignore lazy employees at work, laziness has a way of spreading into the rest of the team. Taking action quickly is a must.
I am sharing 6 tried and tested ways to deal with lazy employees so you can deal with lazy team members effectively and fairly.
When you are managing lazy employees, the first action is not to ignore the lazy behaviour. If you do, you are sending a message to the lazy team member and the rest of your team that being lazy is okay. Then laziness starts spreading through the team, and your management ability starts being questioned.
The second action to manage lazy team members is to find out why the employee is being lazy. There are lots of reasons, and once you understand why, then you can work out how to deal with lazy team members much more easily and successfully. Your approach should be tailored to the employee and the situation.
When motivating lazy employees, setting expectations is really important. Add clear goals to be achieved, ideally agreed with lazy team member, so that both parties know when expectations have been met or exceeded.
Next when working out how to manage lazy employees in the workplace, listen to all their excuses as to why they are not delivering. Note them down and then go away and go your homework. Demonstrate that all the spurious excuses are not valid and work to remove the valid ones with training, resources, and mentoring.
When managing lazy staff, providing honest feedback is very helpful to them and reinforces your expectations with them. To manage lazy employees monitor their improvements through tracking their measurable output.
Finally, after going through these ways to manage lazy team members and you are seeing limited or no improvement, take formal action with the lazy employee. Put them on a Performance Improvement Plan, involve HR and finally use the disciplinary process of your company.
Don’t let lazy team members carry on being lazy. Take fair and corrective action quickly.
Good luck!
Time management for managers is a real challenge. The demands on your time and workload only seem to increase. Time always seems to be against you.
I have 5 ways for managers to gain more time plus share 8 time management techniques for managers.
As a manager you never have enough time and always want to get more done.
So the first action to gain more time for managers is ruthlessly prioritise. Prioritise for you and your team members. Everyone tells you to prioritise. How to prioritise is the real challenge.
I share 8 different ways to prioritise covering how to manage your time and get more done. These time management techniques are specifically aimed at managers, though can be used by all.
The second time management technique is to delegate problems not tasks. Delegating problems means that you are asking others to do the solutioning and planning parts, rather than just asking them to do the tasks or activities to implement the plan. This saves you time and more importantly develops the problem solving and planning skills of your team.
The third of five time management skills is to make meeting valuable or bin them. Everyone spends a lot of time in meetings, and managers particularly so. Per Forbes, around 50% of time spent in meetings is not used well. Therefore, make the meetings you control and influence as valuable as possible and I share ways of doing this.
The fourth of my time management tips is to encourage decision making across the team. Everyone makes decisions every day. Provide the right frameworks, confidence and support to ensure your team are making decisions (within their remit) rather than coming to you for you to make the decision. This will save you a lot of time and develop your team.
The fifth of my ways to gain more time as a manager is to create more leaders in your team. Every team member can act as a leader, can practice leadership skills, regardless of their job title. Creating more leadership skills in the team through mentoring and coaching reduces the pressure and burden on you as their leader. It also saves you a lot of time and gives you great succession planning.
Be Proactive. Take action to give yourself more time at work!
How useful is Myers Briggs personality test? 2m people each year take the Myers Briggs test, usually as part of a team exercise. Do Myers Briggs really tell you anything useful?
The personality test will be useful for some and a lot less useful for others depending on your own self-awareness.
A bit on Myers Briggs explained – the test has been around from the 1940’s, uses 90+ forces questions to give you a Myers Briggs personality type – one of 16 personality types. Each of the Myers Briggs types has associated characteristics.
In my view, the output is too high level to be very useful for personal development. It is still useful. Personality tests are a form of feedback. Most feedback is useful. The personality types are not that useful in themselves. The most useful is understanding how strong your preference pairs are.
Using Myers Briggs type indicator test with your team helps you understand each individual person’s preferences. You also can see how balanced or not your team is, and what the mix of preference is. All can be useful in getting to know your team quicker and helping you adapt your management style to best suit your team and the individuals in your team.
If you are asking “What’s my personality type?”, Myers Briggs will give you an indication through this test specific lenses.
Towards the end, I explain a bit about each of the Myers Briggs preference pairs which gives you the four letter label you often hear people quoting. Knowing how strong each of your preference pairs are will give you some insights into your preferences (or reconfirm what you are already aware of).
I think that Myers Briggs and other personality tests are useful to surface preferences and characteristics of yourself or your team that you were not fully aware of. This brings them into your conscious thought, which helps you adjust your communication and management style to best suit your audience.
I hope you get some insights from taking Myers Briggs.
Enhance.training
The impact of manager skill on team performance is huge in my view. I have been managed by some amazing managers and some terrible ones.
My motivation, my ability to get things done, my understanding of direction and host of other areas was massively different with the best skilled managers compared to the worst.
Think about the cost to the business of lower manager skill – low motivation, lower output, lower trust, increased conflict, high turnover of staff … the list goes on. For a ten of 10, the costs of poor management skills can quickly pass 100,000. The cost of management training or coaching programmes is a fraction of the costs of doing nothing.
Setting and maintaining direction and focus on goals is widely accepted as essential practice. Consider the difference between one manager communicating the direction and goals and then forgetting about them versus another manager constantly reminding the team and keeping them focused so they achieve the goals. Different levels of management skills - hugely different results.
The impact of manager skill is felt with different management styles employed by managers. The highly skilled manager flex their management styles correctly. The less skilled managers use one or so in most situations. What is that style was micro-management, and they were managing highly skilled and ambitious team members?
How quickly a manager deals with or removes blockages – poor processes, conflict, difficult team members etc is another key impact of manager skills. Manager skills development should include building skills and confidence in how to deal with all the people aspects of blockages. These are the trickiest and most stressful challenges for most managers. Formal training in this area is a must for developing management skills for new managers.
The next impact of manager skill is on motivating and engaging employees. Both have a big impact on measurable performance of the team as many stats show. Improving management skills in this area pays gives you and the business large benefits and many techniques can start to work quickly.
Finally, if you improve management skills around being able to protect the team and manage the impact of politics on what you are team works on, this will help you and the team hit your main goals.
The impact of management skills on team performance is huge. Invest the time and effort to keep improving your management skills.
enhance.training
Having good questioning skills as a manager gives you a massive advantage in doing your job so I am explaining 6 ways to improve your questioning skills as a manager.
Improving your questioning skills leads to so many benefits for you personally. You gain a better understanding of the problems you face, get to know your team members better, find out a whole lot more about what is really going on to name a few.
So the first way to improve your question techniques is to know your purpose before asking questions. You will then be able to structure your questions a lot better and use the different question types to achieve your aims.
Second, when developing questioning skills, think carefully about your audience. The art of asking the right questions for a given situation always includes thought about who you are asking questions to. Use their language, take into action their knowledge, skills and interests.
The way to improve your questioning skills is to manage your voice and body language carefully. 93% of how words are interpreted come from the non-verbal communication you are projecting. Pay careful attention to what you are communicating.
Fourth, to improve your questioning skills, suspend your judgement for as long as possible. Keep an open mind and really listen to what you are being told in answer to your question. This increases the effort of the other person and increases your understanding and appreciation of their position.
Fifth, when questioning others, get comfortable with and learn to use silence. Giving the other person enough thinking time without interrupting is essential to getting good answers. Plus silence encourages the other person to answer.
When thinking about how to ask better questions, use active listening and aim for action. Active listening will give you a host of non-verbal clues about the other person and you can adapt your questioning based on these. Good questions, generally initiate action – either getting the other person thinking or acting.
I also take you through 7 different types of questions giving you examples and brief explanations of when to use each question.
Having to deal with a manager who undermines you is an extra tough situation to resolve. Managers have more authority and influence with the company through their position than you are likely to have so dealing with this situation requires extra care and slightly different approach.
I am taking your through the signs of undermining behaviour to look out for and 5 steps for how to deal with a manager who undermines you at work.
It is a horrible feeling to have when you discover a manager undermining you in the business. I am sharing 7 signs to look out for. If you can spot a boss who undermines you quickly, you can take action quickly which should stop the undermining actions in their tracks.
When you have spotted the undermining actions, you can then work through the five actions to take when managers undermine you. Knowing what to do when managers undermine you really does help.
Firstly, collect examples of the undermining behaviour. This is an absolute must. You are looking to demonstrate a pattern of undermining behaviour rather than a few isolated mistakes.
Next speak to your manager about the manager undermining you (assuming it is NOT your line manager). Your line manager is a key source of support and help.
You might be thinking this manager undermining me is more senior – this is why it is very good to find allies at the manage in questions level or more senior. Allies to support your manager and you.
Fourth, ask your manager and/or allies to confront the undermining manager on your behalf. This will be more effective than if you confront the manager who is undermining you.
Fifth, if these actions are not sufficient to stop the undermining behaviour, then you can escalate to HR and or Senior Management. This is a last resort and should be undertaken with care.
So there you have five steps to take when managers undermine you.
I also cover what options you have if your manager is the one undermining you. This is very hard to deal with effectively.
At the end of the video, I take you through 6 tips for how to market yourself internally in the business to counteract the impact of the undermining. Marketing yourself professionally is a great habit to get into anyway and even more useful when faced with a manager or colleague undermining you.
Good luck!
Jess
Enhance.training
7 methods to motivate your team gives you practical actionable methods to motivate a team which work with all teams.
Knowing how to motivate a team is a great skill for any manager to have and everyone can learn how to motivate. Engaged and motivated teams perform a lot better and are much nicer places to work – great for everyone.
So the first method to motivate a team is to share your vision with your team. Explain the direction and goals you want to achieve. Explain how this fits in with the company goals and why each team member has an important role to play.
The second way to motivate your team is to understand the goals of each team member. Everyone is different and have different hopes and dreams. Take each person through how achieving the company and team goals can also help the individual achieve some of their goals.
Leading by example is another way for motivating your team at work. I always found it very motivational being in a team with a hardworking successful manager who lives by the same rules they set for everyone. Leading by example is great for how to motivate and inspire employees.
How to motivate team members as a leader includes actively developing team members. There are so many ways to develop team members without needing a large budget. Plan out what you can do to move each person in your team forward and keep them learning.
When thinking to ways to motivate your team, praising regularly should feature highly. We all want praise for work well done and as a manager, look for opportunities to praise employees. Positive reinforcement really does work.
The sixth method to motivate a team is to proactively remove blockers. Having to fight against blockers is painful and demotivating. Look at your processes. Deal with conflict and underperformers. Deal with disruptive staff. Take action.
Seventh, for how to motivate employees – practice a positive management style. There are many behaviours and actions that go into a positive management style – some we have covered already. Additional ones include promoting open communication, being consistent and spending time listening to your team members. These are all great actions to motivate your team
Put into practice at least one of the methods outlined in “7 methods to Motivate your team”. Once you have this up and running, put into action the next one. It won’t be long before you have them all running, and you will quickly see the impact on team motivation.
Enjoy working with a more motivated team!
How to improve team communication remains a top challenge for pretty much every business, and with it a challenge for all managers.
Being able to communicate is super important to ensure:
1. Everyone understands the direction of travel expected
2. Activities are better co-ordinate within the business
3. Each person is better able to do their job
To help you do this effectively , I am sharing 7 methods to Improve Team Communication.
The first method to improve team communication is to encourage engagement from all team members. You can help by organising problem solving workshops, planning meetings or brainstorming sessions. Facilitate these meetings and ask questions to get attendees communicating.
The second of seven team communication strategies is to be open and honest. If you are open and honest with the team , then they are likely to be so in return. These are great behaviours to improve team communication.
The third way to build effective team communication is to over communicate. This means passing on relevant information you learn to your team and team members so they can do their jobs more effectively. Hold information sharing meetings or sent out a weekly team newsletter – whatever works best for you and your team.
The fourth method to improve team communication is to resolve conflict quickly. Even in the best teams, conflicts arise, and they can be big blockers to team communication. Resolving conflict one of several key steps to improve team communication.
Fifth, when improving team communication skills is to use one-on-one meetings to cascade important information. Having a chance to discuss and ask questions means the information is taken in a lot more easily. Use one-on-one meetings as one method to improve team communication.
Sixth, create clear agenda for meeting held within your team. This communicate what exactly the meeting is for and reduces wasted time going to non-relevant meetings.
Seventh, provide useful and consistent feedback to team members. This is super useful in building improved team communication. Feedback also builds trust (when given in the right way) and improve performance.
As a manger, there is loads that you can do to improve team communication. Use these 7 methods with your team and enjoy better communication within your team!
All managers aiming to build great team performance are helping their team, themselves, and the business. If your team is performing well and appears happy and motivated, then chances are you will be asked to manage more people. This is a great way to increase your influence and impact on the business and win promotions.
How do you build great team performance is the key question. We go through 5 methods to build great team performance no matter where your team is today. These methods work year in year out and with all teams.
The first method to build great team performance is to set clear expectations with the team. Two options to do this is to tell the team your expectations or to ask the team to define the expectations with you. Both are useful at different times as ways to build team performance.
The second of five steps to build team performance is create visibility and measurement. Ideally get visibility down to individual level where possible or to sub-team. Track progress against goals agreed and share this regularly with the team. This is a great way to engage peer pressure and drive accountability.
The third way to build team performance is to provide support and development for each team member. Create a team development plan, work out the gaps and work to fill those gaps through training and mentoring.
The fourth method to build great team performance is to tack action with those underperforming or being difficult. Reducing the distractions and blockers for the rest of the team is critical. Plus if you don’t take action, the expectations set and your credibility as a manager will both be blown.
The fifth method to develop team performance is use recruitment to raise the skill level of the team overall. When individuals leave, recruit those with more energy, a better level of skills and the personality to help you drive improvements in the team performance.
There is a huge amount you can do to build great team performance through the actions you take as a manager. Consistency of your actions and decisions will reinforce the expectations that you have set with the team.
Use these methods to build team performance and your team will be happier, you will get promotions quicker and achieve more.
Knowing how to help an unhappy employee recover their motivation and positive outlook is a great skill for a manager to have.
Unhappy employees:
1. Tend to be less motivated and produce less
2. They can become disgruntled employees causing all sorts of issues.
3. Unhappy employees make your job of managing the team much harder
4. They are much more likely to leave, with all the disruption and costs this brings
None of these outcomes is good for you, the team, or the business. The good news is many unhappy employees can be moved to a much more positive place with a little work from you.
Before we dive into the 5 actions to help an unhappy employee, it is really useful to know typical signs of an unhappy employee so you can spot an unhappy employee as quickly as possible. I cover 9 key signs of an unhappy employee.
Once you have spotted the signs of an unmotivated employee, then know what actions to take to improve the situation is very helpful.
The first action to help an unhappy employee is to find out the reasons for the unhappiness. It is very hard if not impossible to find a resolution for the employee’s unhappiness unless you know what the issues are. Ask the unhappy employee and listen to what they say.
The second action in how to deal with an unhappy employee is to listen and be empathetic. Your most important job is to actively listen to what the employee is telling you. Don’t rush to provide a solution or get defensive about decisions or actions made. Just listen.
The third action to help an unhappy employee is address the issue you can quickly. Managers are often in the best place to help an unhappy employee. Once you understand what the issues are, address the issues you can as quickly as possible. A number of events and decisions are outside of your control. In this case explain clearly why those decisions or actions were taken and see what you can do to compensate with the employee.
The fourth action to deal with unhappy employees is to be persistent in finding a resolution. It is really easy to give up at a partial resolution or after the employee has vented their anger and frustration. Keep exploring options until you find a good resolution that the employee is happy with.
The fifth action to help an unhappy employee is to keep records. Note down the main points of the conversation and when and where the meeting took place. Most of the time, these notes are not needed. If the employee become disgruntled or problematic, then your notes will be invaluable if you need to run a performance improvement plan or take more formal action.
There is a lot you can do to help and unhappy employee as a manager. Putting in a little time and effort will massive help the unhappy individual AND show the rest of the team you care and will be supportive when needed.
Dealing with negative employees quickly is important to stop negativity spreading. Managing a negative team member can be difficult, managing a negative team is disastrous.
As a manager, taking action to reduce or removing the negativity is a must. There is a lot you can do quickly.
I’m taking your through 6 tried and tested steps for dealing with negative employees quickly and fairly.
The first critical step in managing negative employees is not to ignore the problem. It may seem scary or the idea of having potentially confrontational conversations a big stumbling block. Dealing with negative team members is okay when you follow a fair and supportive process while not letting them off the hook. Don’t ignore the problem.
Second, when taking negative employees in the workplace is to gather examples and evidence (if possible) of their actions and behaviour. Write does in as much detail as possible what they said and did. This moves the conversation away from your opinion of them and actions that have happened are much harder to dismiss.
Third, when you are managing a negative staff member, find out why they are being negative. Don’t make assumption. First outline what the issue is, the impact of their actions or behaviour and then ask them to explain what is causing them to be negative. There could be a whole range of reasons from actions or decisions made at work or events in their personal life. Ask to find out what the nitty gritty details are.
Fourth, when managing negative team members, set out your expectations. You are the manager and you set the rules. Be clear what you are asking of them, explain why it is important and ask them to meet your expectations.
Fifth, with dealing with negative employees, is to give them a chance to change. No-one finds change easy. Emphasise the impact of not changing on them and the team. Coach, mentor and support them to change.
Finally, when dealing with negative employees and after you have gone through the above five steps and they are not willing to make a change, take formal action.
Formal action is the last resort. If the negative employee is still not meeting your expectations, and their actions are being detrimental to the team and you, then you need to decide if it is worth keeping them in the team or asking them to leave. Start with a Performance Improvement Plan and then move into a formal disciplinary process if needed. Don’t let negative employees cause you or the team problems.
How to develop key performance indicators is very important process to learn as a manager as you are creating a tool to help you effectively manage more people, bigger projects, and more complexity without being overwhelmed.
How you use KPIs will help you drive the right behaviours and activities which in turns drives better results.
Many managers have not been taught how to develop relevant, targeted KPIs which support your efforts to encourage and drive results with the team. I am sharing the six steps that I use in how to develop KPIs to help manage and work out what actions to take to improve performance of a project, department or business.
Firstly, when developing key performance indicators, start with the goals of the business (Strategy), or the goals of the function or team you work in. The key performance indicators must align with and support these goals.
Using KPIs creates focus the team’s effort of the actions and activity that drives the KPIs you develop. It is really important that their behaviour and focus work towards the goals rather than create confusion and wasted effort.
Secondly, when planning how to develop key performance indicators, try to define the questions that you need answering. Once you have your goal agreed, written down and circulated, plan how you are going to reach that goal(s). What is going to make the most difference to the success and failure of the project? Identifying these activities helps hugely in selecting the best key performance indicators (kpis).
Third, working out what data you need to capture and collate to track the KPIs you have selected is very important. Ideally the data needs to be quick and easy to put together and preferably automated. Data remains a very practical consideration in how to develop KPIs for a business or how to develop kpis for a project.
Fourth, Create ownership of the KPIs. Unless you want to be putting all the KPIs together (not recommended) you will need to ask team members to own each KPI and report on them. Plus you want those people to be championing the actions to improve those KPIs. Create ownership to do this.
Fifth, build lots of visibility around the key performance indicators. Team performance tracking, measuring employee performance and similar measures need visibility of the KPIs to drive accountability in individuals and teams. Make the time to discuss KPIs in the team. Plan the steps to take to improve the results the KPIs are showing.
Sixth, when using KPIs interpreting the results those KPIs are telling you and taking the right action to improve those results is critical to make having the KPIs valuable.
Work through each of these steps and you will have very useful relevant KPIs that drive into the heart of the activity you need to undertake for success.
Learn 8 actions to take for employees not hitting targets and you will reduce your frustration and problems.
Doing nothing and hoping that employees start hitting targets at work is the worst plan – doing the same thing very rarely gives you a different result.
Take action for employees missing targets.
The first action to take for employees not hitting targets is to understand what the problems are. If you don’t understand the cause of team members not hitting targets, then you are not going to being to choose the best solution to fix the issue(s).
The second action to take for an employee missing goals is to assess if the targets are unrealistic. Targets are set with the best of intentions, using a set of assumptions about what will happen in the future. In reality, a number of the assumptions made will be wrong. Check if these differences mean the targets are now unrealistic.
The third action to take for employees not meeting expectations is check they have the right tools and resources. If there are problems in this area, what can you do to fix them quickly?
The fourth action to take for employees not hitting targets is to review if the employee has the right training. Training is the classic excuse to knock this on the head quickly.
Fifth, make sure the individual or team has enough support. They may not always tell you they are struggling so keep asking and keep checking what you are told against actual progress. Provide the support they need, and you are much more likely to hit team targets.
The sixth action to take for employees not hitting targets is to check if they are being pulled off the task or project by urgent tasks, or if they are helping team members. If this is the case, protect them more and make clear your expectations.
The seventh action, after checking the first six areas, is to start a performance improvement plan. This is a structure process to provide extra support to the individual and keep close track of their progress.
Finally, the eighth action, when all else fails, is to Formal Action. If the individual cannot or will not improve their performance for whatever reasons, then they are better off in another role. Taking formal action will help everyone.
When you have employees not hitting targets, you must take action to change the outcomes. Doing nothing is not an option. Make sure the action you do take is supportive and fair without letting the individual (or team) off the hook.
When to say No at work is a critical as how you say no at work.
You don’t want to offend others, or appear to be unreasonable or difficult. Even more important, you don’t want to let others down, be a walk over or overload yourself.
Getting good at how to say no is a key skill to develop as early as possible. If you go into the management ranks without being good at saying no, your problems will only multiply.
So when should we say no in the workplace?
We go through 5 reasons you should say no at work. Then we go through how to say no professionally at work.
Firstly, learn to say no at work when you are maxed out. If you have little or no spare capacity, then you must say no. Letting people down is much worse than saying no up front.
Secondly, say no at work when you are not the right person. Explain you don’t have the right skills, the right experience or enough time or the key reason why you are not the right person. This is key in how to say no without feeling guilty.
Thirdly, Say no at work when doing the work will prevent you from delivering your own goals or objectives. Your formal objectives should be the most important goals to achieve. Say no when additional work conflicts with these or prevents you achieving them.
Fourth, say no at work when you can deliver what is required. This might be due to workload, capability, or any number of reasons. If you are not sure you can deliver, say no and suggest someone who can.
The fifth reason for when to say no at work is when the task or project creates a big conflict with your values. These situations do occur, and you have to balance your personal comfort and happiness with potential negative impacts to your reputation.
How to say no at work is super important. Always provide a reason why you are saying no. Ideally this reason should be one of the five reasons we have covered.
How to say no to boss at work is exactly the same. Explain why you are saying no and say no. If you can explain that doing this extra task/project with endanger the completion of another task/project your boss has asked you to do – even better.
When planning how to say no, be considerate of the other persons situation and feelings. Be diplomatic and be firm.
Active listening skills for managers can make a massive different to how well you do job as a manager. To manage a team effectively and well, learning about each individual and what is going on in the team is essential and active listening skills are a key part of your management skills to achieve this.
We spend around 45% of our day listening to others, yet only 2% of professionals have received formal training on understanding and improving their listening skills.
Using actively listening gives you lots of benefits as a manager. Some include:
1. Showing you care
2. Conveying empathy and understanding
3. Encouraging the other to reveal more
4. Builds trust in your
5. Gives you many insights into the other person emotional state and thought process.
The importance of active listening in the workplace , particularly if you are a manager, is very high in my opinion.
I take you through 7 active listening techniques which give you a list of how to improve listening skills. Anyone can learn and improve their active listening skills.
The first skill for active listening in the office is to keep your mind in the present – to concentrate and stay focused on what the other person is communicating to you.
The second skill of active listening skills for managers is to maintain eye contact to demonstrate your attention and interest in the other person.
The third skill of active listening skills in the workplace is to manage your own body language to show your interest.
The fourth skill of active listening and communication skills is to use paraphrasing and summaries to prove to the other person that you are taking in what they are saying.
The fifth active listening techniques in the workplace is to keep an open mind. You will not take in what is being communicated to you if you have already made up your mind.
The sixth active listening skill is not to interrupt the other person. Make sure they have truly finished speaking before saying anything in return.
The seventh skill of active listening is to ask open ended questions to probe for more depth or a better understanding of the points being made.
I then take you through 10 signs to look out for what you are putting these active listening skills into practice. These will help you in your role of manager to support and help your team members.
Finally, I take you through how to use these active listening skills to build awareness of the group dynamics and what is happening around at work. This awareness will make your job as a manager a lot easier.
Enjoy learning a lot more with your active listening skills!
How to create a project plan that you manager will sign off is not as hard as you might think.
It doesn’t matter if the project is big or small, include 8 these eight project plan components, and you will be set up to successfully deliver your project and have everything to needed to convince your manager and other stakeholders to sign off your project plan.
When thinking about how to write a project plan THE critical starting point is to decide on the project goals and scope. The scope and deliverables need to be written down, shared and agreed before you do anything else. So many projects come unstuck because of vague goals or changing goals.
When creating a project plan, explain why the project is going to help the business, the department, and the team. Explain why the project supports at least one of the company objectives. Detail the benefits of completing the project from the company’s point of view. This helps sell the project and overcome vested interests and the status quo.
Within how to make a project plan, you must outline the timeframes. Most projects are time critical within companies, so clear deadlines and milestones are important to in in the project plan and important to achieve.
The next step that I always find useful in how to plan a project is to map out all the people involved in the project and who will be affected by the project. How will support your project and who will oppose it and why? What can you do reduce any opposition?
Once you have these steps completed, the next step in how to create a project plan is planning and securing the resources. Key is getting the right people and skills at the right time to ensure your project is successful. You will also need to think about funding, management support and other experts that will need to input into the project.
Once you have your project team – get them involved in planning the steps, activities and tasks needed to reach the project goals. Your team are the experts and you want them engaged and owning the project alongside you. Ask them to work through the project planning steps to create a clear roadmap of how the project team is going to deliver the results.
When you know the goals, the timing, the resources and the steps you want to follow, you are able to create a project budget and check it is withing your overall total spend allocated to the project. Change the activities, resources and timings until you are within your project spend total.
You have everything in place and a strong project plan to get final project signoff. A strong project plan creates confidence in the team’s ability to deliver the results promised.
Finally, after creating a project management plan you can start implementing your plan – the project execution phase. Work your plan!
Enjoy the less stress and more successful projects!
There are lots of reasons why employees leave their jobs. I am sharing the top reasons employees quit their jobs backed up by multiple employee surveys. The first three of these reasons are always in the top 5, no matter when the survey was carried out.
Why good employees leave is useful to know from the managers point of view because they you can work to delay the person leaving as long as possible. This gives you the benefit of there work for longer.
One of the top reasons why good employees quit is lack of career development or lack of development. For good employees, skills and career development is usually a very important factor in retaining them. Reduce your employee turnover by ensuring you are developing all your staff.
Another very common reason for why employees leave is that they have a bad boss. This doesn’t mean their manager is a bad person. They may not set direction clearly, they may not provide feedback, then may not support their team much – there are lots of factors that can make a manager bad for their team members and lead to reasons why good employees quit. Management skills training, mentoring, and coaching are all effective at improving management skills and approaches.
Another common reason for why employees quit is that they don’t get any appreciation. This is so easy for managers to fix and makes a massive difference to why employees quit their jobs. Look for opportunities to praise your team members for good work, for good behaviour and for good choices. Expect what you praise to continue and improve. A win for both sides and a great way to reduce staff turnover.
Another reason why employees leave companies is low pay. Currently low pay is a key reason why great employees quit – everyone is under increasing financial pressure. In better times, pay falls down the rankings as other factors become more important.
One of the 6 top reasons why employees leave their jobs is overwork or burnout. We all have a lot of pressure on us to delivery more with less. Cost pressures grow a lot stronger in tougher times. A staff member leaving can easily cost their annual salary to replace – in recruitment cost and time and in training cost and time. Therefore paying a little more and removing a reason why employees leave their jobs is a sensible investment.
Finally, in our 6 top reasons why employees leave their jobs is lack of job flexibility. Job flexibility following lock downs and a lot more working from home has become a key requirement to attract and keep staff. I suspect this will reduce in the future to some extent – but it is a key reason why good employees quit their jobs.
Understand why employees leave their jobs and take action to reduce the impact of each of these 6 top reasons. You will have a happier team and you will save a lot of cost.
A win for everyone!
Giving negative feedback to employees is one of the most feared tasks of managers. 43% of 2,700 leaders surveyed found giving corrective feedback is a “stressful and difficult experience” and hence the majority of managers don’t give negative feedback.
In an Officevibe survey from thousands of companies, 83% of employees really appreciate feedback, regardless of whether its positive or negative. And a Gallup Poll found that employees receiving negative feedback were 20 times more likely to be engaged that those receiving no feedback at all.
Employees need and want feedback so they can learn and improve. I am sharing 7 actions for giving negative feedback to employees. These will help drive corrective actions while keeping the employee happy. Take these actions and it is must less likely the employee will be upset or cause problems.
When thinking about how to give negative feedback to employees, the first action is to always give negative feedback in private. You wouldn’t want other broadcasting your negative points.
How to give feedback at work definitely includes giving feedback quickly. The value of feedback decreases with time – we forget, other things come up etc. When giving negative feedback, give it quickly.
The next action for negative feedback is super important – tailor your feedback style to each person. A direct style will be appreciated by one person might be offence for another. Know your team and adapt your style of communication.
When thinking about how to give negative feedback to employees, it is really useful to explain the impact of what they are doing or not doing. This puts their actions or choices into context and will add weight to your feedback. When giving negative feedback, you are essentially asking the other person to change. Explaining the impact helps the other person put in the effort to change.
When giving negative feedback to employees it is vital that it teaches and improves them. You must not give negative feedback to express your anger, annoyance, or other emotions. Give negative feedback to help the other person learn and improve. This action alone will help you avoid most of the negative consequences associated with giving negative feedback.
When giving negative feedback at work, take the time to listen to what your team member tells you. You can learn a lot by actively listening. For example, many negative behaviours at work are symptoms of other problems. If you don’t listen, you would never know what these are.
Finally, to give negative feedback to employees and make sure it has a useful outcome, plan actions together after giving the negative feedback. It is really important that the other person comes up with the actions – this will mean they are a lot more likely to own them and put them into action.
Good luck giving negative feedback to employees.
Pressure at work is next to impossible to avoid, not matter what job you do. Therefore learning how to deal with pressure at work is a pretty sensible skill set to develop.
Your ability to productively manage pressure at work is as important to your career progress as developing many other more obvious skills. I take you through 6 tactics to deal with pressure at work, which will help you with managing stress in the workplace.
The first tactic in learning how to manager pressure at work is to know your pressure threshold. This is the point at which healthy pressure and stress – which gets you motivated and productive – starts turning to unhealthy pressure and stress – which leads to exhaustion and worse.
The second tactic in how to deal with pressure at work is to prioritise ruthlessly. You only have so much time, so making the most of your time to do the most important tasks makes sense. Ruthlessly prioritise and I share a couple of tools to help. This helps manage too much pressure at work.
A great method when thinking how to work under pressure at work is to turn big tasks into small tasks. We have all faces what seems a huge daunting task. We don’t know how we are going to complete it. When faced with this at work, think about the first small step to take on the journey to completing this task. Then the next and so on. This is great in how to handle stress at work.
Setting boundaries between work and home is another good tactic in how to cope with pressure at work. Getting very clear with what the expectations on you are, is also very important in how to manage work pressure. Uncertainty and vague expectations are a source of stress and pressure in themselves.
Working out how and when to ask for help is also essential in how to deal with stress at work. There are lot of people you can ask for help in and out of work. I share my tips with you.
To give you concreate actions on how to cope with pressure at work I go through 9 practical pressure management techniques that I have used very successfully for years.
Feeling under pressure at work and not know how to reduce the stress and anxiety that comes with this is a horrible feeling. I have unfortunately been there at work.
Having sensible tactics to deal with pressure at work is extremely useful to stop yourself getting exhausted and everything getting too much.
How to Write a CV For Professionals to consistently get interviews for the jobs you really want demands a slightly different approach. Updating your CV and hoping this will get you to interview is not enough.
When you write your CV, you are giving the reader an example of your work. The CV writing skills you demonstrate are another area you can compete on - in addition to what you have done – which give the reader an indication of your likely work skills and approach.
How you write your CV for professional roles gives the hiring manager personal experience with quite a few of your skills - which will trump anything you write down on your CV.
People going for professional roles have had to study hard and gain specific qualifications. They get paid well and professional jobs have great career development opportunities. These factors make them very competitive as a lot of people want these great jobs.
On top of that, professionals have good written communication skills and can effectively articulate their skills to a hiring manager. These skills and the fact that they are hard-working and are good at learning, means developing strong CV Writing skills is even more important.
When thinking about How to write a cv for professionals there are 7 skills that you can and should demonstrate when you write a cv for professionals.
Each of these skills are desirable, and being able to demonstrate them on you CV will put you ahead of those who just state them on their CV.
I cover cv writing tips for experienced professionals, so you send positive hidden messages to the reader of your CV. Your CV is an example of your work, so the look, the professionalism, the structure of your CV plus your written communication skills, the persuasion used, the proof you offer etc all combine to provide a strong impression of you.
The assumption is that the skills used (or lack of them) in writing your CV will translate directly and be used while doing the job being applied for.
So when thinking how to how to write a good resume, you must think about the impression the example of your work will give.
CV Writing for professionals covers a number of preparation steps you should take before you even start writing your CV. Omit these and you will almost guarantee yourself an average CV at best.
How to write a resume that will get you hired need to start with going through all your experience with a fine tooth comb and building lots of credible examples so you can demonstrate or prove the skills you claim you have.
Next when thinking about how to write a cv for experienced professionals is that you must choose a target role before writing your CV. You need to be specific. Marketing Manager is not enough. In what sort of company? With what development opportunities? B2C or B2B? Products or Services?
Get as specific as possible. Then you are in a good position to work out the problems that this role will have to overcome. When you understand the problems, you can write a CV focused on demonstrating you can solve those problems.
Watch the video to find out more about these steps and 8 other crucial steps plus other cv tips for experienced professionals.
Give yourself the best chance of getting to interview again and again for exactly the job you want!
My manager doesn’t like me is a horrible feeling to have. The good news is I have 5 tactics for you to use to change this quickly.
Having a good relationships or at least a professional relationships with your manager is so important for your career and it makes going to work each day much more enjoyable.
I share 10 signs your boss doesn’t like you. If your manager doesn’t like you, you will be in the receiving end of at least some of these signs and your team members won’t have the same treatment. If everyone gets treated badly then the manager may be difficult or even toxic.
When you are thinking “My boss doesn’t like me” focus on building a professional relationship first. Ensure you are doing at least and average job, you are positive towards your manager and team members and you visibly support your manager. Do all these well and there are very few managers that won’t like you on a professional level.
If you feel “my manage doesnt like me” a must do to change this is to do a good job. If you are doing a below average job, you are causing problems for your manager. Deliver good quality work, on time and in the right way. I have 8 actions you can take to be good at what you do.
Another how to make your boss like you action is to ensure you are not the problem. I have included a checklist of 9 actions which you should make sure you are NOT doing. Do any of them and it won’t be a surprise you feel my manager doesnt like me!
The next action to if your boss doesn’t like you is to help your manager be successful. Very few people dislike those that help them be successful. Take a look at the team goals and ask your manager what theirs are. Work to help deliver these objectives or help your team members deliver them. Make sure you boss knows about your efforts.
When your manage doesnt like you become a problem solver. This is another way to directly help your manager. Look out for problems and think through at least one practical solution before speaking to you manager about both. Manager love having problem solvers on their team – it makes their life a lot easier.
It does take some confidence to start implementing each of these actions. Please start with at least one, work hard to put it into practice and then add a second to this. Keep going until you are doing all 5 tactics.
I have used these tactics for over 20 years with a huge range of personalities. Each tactic absolutely works.
Enjoy the feeling that you manager is starting to like you!
Mentoring skills for managers is about HOW you teach and transfer knowledge and skills to your team members.
Using mentoring skills in the workplace can be a great way to leverage your time and skills as a manager by upskilling your team so they can do more.
I take you through how mentoring helps you, 4 essential mentoring skills and touch on 10 key skills that will help you be a better mentor.
So why should you use mentoring in the workplace? Firstly using mentoring at work is a great way to upskill your team. Mentoring helps your team members to improved performance, feeding into improved team performance. You also have better stronger relationships with team members and a host of other benefits that drive overall team performance.
Good team performance is good for the manager – in recognition, better bonuses, promotion, and satisfaction.
To successfully mentor team members you need to put in time. Mentoring employees in the workplace is a time intensive (and results intensive) upskilling approach.
When using mentoring skills for leaders, decide on the goals to be achieved with the mentoring programme with the person you are mentoring. When you have agreed goals, then plan out how you are going to help the team member achieve those goals.
Your mentoring sessions should be structured and have purpose if you are going to drive results with your team member.
When involved in mentoring programs in the workplace, it is critical that encourage, praise and compliment good actions and choices made by the team member you are mentoring. Positive reinforcement drives behaviour.
Being a mentor also means you have to give useful feedback to steer and teach. You can’t afford to beat around the bush or give vague or watered down feedback. Learning how to be direct as well as kind and considerate with you feedback is an art. I give you tips on how to do this.
And finally, when thinking about how to be a mentor at work, 10 key skills that will help you develop stronger mentoring skills are listed and explained.
Mentoring skills for managers are so useful to develop and very personally rewarding.
Do enjoy mentoring your team!
Coaching skills for leaders and managers are super useful to drive the accountability and performance of team members.
I share 5 coaching skills for leaders and managers to help you get more from your team and make your team members happier in the process.
Coaching skills in the workplace are quite different from the more traditional training skills and mentoring skills. Coaching skills give you another very effective way to manage and develop team members.
One of the best outcomes of using coaching skills for managers is that you leverage your time even further. This helps you and the team deliver more and deliver smarter.
To develop coaching skills for leaders, developing your own self-awareness is vital. If you are not aware of your beliefs, your strengths, your limitations, your values, your emotions, and your reactions then how can you help others discover these very same things.
Next, I take you through 4 behaviours take support the effective use of coaching skills in the workplace. These are behaviours that good managers will already demonstrating day in day out. Trust and a good relationship with your team members is needed for using manager coaching skills effectively.
At the heart of coaching skills for leaders and managers is asking the right questions. Questions get the other person thinking while keeping responsibility for solutions and decision making firmly with the coachee. Accountability is massively improved as the solution is their idea not yours.
Learn about the different types of questions and I share lots of examples.
Another vital coaching skill is active listening. I view listening as an underrated secret weapon for manager and leaders as you can learn so much by effective active listening. Learn what active listening is and what it is not and how to start building your active listening skills.
Finally, I take you through the GROW Model, which is a very useful framework to structure your coaching sessions with team members. The GROW model is focused on defining goals and then working towards achieving those goals – very useful in coaching for performance.
When to use training, mentoring and coaching at work is important as each of these staff development approaches are different. These terms are used interchangeably at work by most so it is easy to be unsure of the differences between training mentoring and coaching.
I hope everyone has experienced training as it is widely used in most business as the go to method of staff development. Training is the cheapest method of development mainly as it is short in duration (hours to a few days) and can be given to many people at once.
Mentoring and coaching are both different to training in many respects and usually occur on a one-on-one basis. Mentoring is an expert giving tailored advice and help to a less experience person. Mentoring is a form of training on a personalised basis.
Coaching is facilitating a person’s learning. The coach does not need to an expert which is required by training and mentoring. The person being coach creates the solution, driving much higher ownership of the solution and retention of the learning.
Coaching vs mentoring is quite different, though as you might expect, both mentoring and coaching can be used in the same development session.
So how to use training mentoring and coaching at work. Which development method you choose depends on several factors:
1. How many people you need to develop
2. What the skills and attitudes are of those being developed
3. The skills and knowledge you need to improve
4. The importance of the learning being retained
5. The time you have available to develop others
6. The budget you have available
These 6 factors help you decide on training vs mentoring vs coaching.
Mentoring and coaching are both time intensive, are highly personalised forms of development and give you significantly better results in terms of skills, solutions, and knowledge retention.
How to drive team performance depends a lot of assessing what skills gaps can be closed by each development method. Identifying and then coming up with a clear plan of how to close the gaps and why these will give you increased team performance.
How you go about managing high performing employees is every bit as important as having high performers on your team. High performing team members add that secret sauce to the team, help drive the rest of the team further, and are a key part of the team delivering great results.
I take you through 7 actions I have found to be super important in managing high performing team members.
When thinking about managing high performers, setting expectations and goals together is a great starting point. Getting their input drives ownership of their goals, which in turns improve performance against those goals.
High performers at work also need to be constantly developed to make sure you can keep them in your team for as long as possible. So constantly work on development. This is the best way for how to retain high performing employees. A great example is innocent drinks which have 70%+ of the HR team focused on staff development.
What managing a high performing employee, delegate problems not tasks. Problems require the high performer to think, plan, make decisions and implement solutions. Delegating tasks alone doesn’t require them to think, plan and make decisions which is a waste of talent and your time, plus does not development the high performing team member in the same way.
Next, it is important to what out for high performers burnout. High performing employees are the most like to burn out in my experience. As their manager you have to tread the line between keeping them challenged and learning and guard against overloading them with work or pressure.
Investing time coaching and mentoring high performing team members (and all team members) is the best way I know to increase performance of the individuals and the team. You will get back your investment many times over. Plus you can stay close to what they are working on without risk of micromanagement and build better relationships with them.
High performing employees want to be rewarded for what they deliver. Praise, compliments, prizes, and many other forms of reward which are easier to provide than money should be considered.
And finally, you do need to pay high performers well otherwise they will leave. There is high demand for high performing employees so another company will be happy to meet their expectations if you don’t.
High performing employees are a pleasure to work with. They do take every bit as much effort and through to keep them happy as other staff and it is twice as important that you take the time to keep them developing and staying within your company.
Enjoy managing your high performing team members!
I share 7 secrets to progress your career quickly.
You probably know many people that work really hard, do a good job yet don’t seem to get promoted. Getting promoted is like playing a game – once you know the rules, playing the games gets a lot easier and you get promoted.
Advancing your career does take hard work, yet hard work alone is not enough. You have to work smartly too and work out what skills and experience are needed for the next level up and proactively seek out this experience.
Progressing your career is helped a lot if you have a clear career goal. You are putting your efforts into areas that matter in getting to a single goal rather than not making the best use of your efforts because you are not sure where you are heading.
To progress you career, you need to do a good job. Doing a good job is the entry point to getting promoted. How you do your job and meeting or exceed your objectives is equally important and I give you a list of = behaviours that help.
Drive your career progress forward by ensuring that everyone’s perception of you fits in with the level you are trying to get promoted into. Fitting in is crucial.
Your career progress is influenced heavily by your manager. With a strong relationship with you manager, your career will progress much quicker. A poor relationship and you will be lucky to see any progress. Proactively build a good relationship with your manager.
When thinking about how to get promoted at work, the strength of your relationships with your manager’s peer and their managers is also important. This group will be deciding who get promoted. If they know and like you, your chances of promotion at work are a lot higher.
Finally, choosing the play the game takes effort and a willingness to push yourself out of your comfort zone, learn and adapt. Getting promoted also means giving things up that have a personal impact. Continuing to learn and adapt requires drive, ambition, and motivation. How are you going to increase these for the right reasons?
Proactively manage your career progress by working to give yourself the best chance of promotion at work.
Setting employee goals are at the heart of successful performance management. Goals align the efforts of everyone in the business, helping drive company level success. Setting clear realistic goals provide direction for employees, helps motivate employees and improves overall performance.
I take you through 8 actions to set employee goals that get results. Use these actions to set employee goals and you will have clear, realistic goals, that the employees feel they own alongside you.
Goal alignment – individual goals supporting team goals which in turn support company goals – is so important to maximise the effort everyone put in and to maximise performance.
To get employee ownership during goal setting, it is important that the employees set their own goals or at least significantly input into their goals. Ask them to work out their goals to enable the team goals to be met.
Make sure all the goals are SMART goals, so it is clear to everyone what the goals are and when they have been achieved.
When thinking of how to set goals, make sure you plan how to measure progress against the goals set. It is largely pointless having goals without any way of measuring performance against those goals.
A really important part of setting goals is working out how to achieve them. Build the plan of how to achieve the goals set with your employees. This will take the pressure off individual and mean the goals are much more likely to be achieved.
Use carrots and sticks – rewards for achieving the goals and support those that are behind their plan to achieve their goals. Deal with any problem team members quickly.
When setting goals, always keep the main thing the main thing. It is so easy to get distracted by the latest idea or project, which makes achieving the original goals a lot harder.
Finally, in business change is always constant. So set aside the time to review goals set periodically – every quarter works well – and adapt your employee’s goals as needed.
Take these 8 actions to set employee goals and enjoy better results and performance!
Giving good useful feedback to employees is not easy. Confidence and working out what to say are both big barriers. I hope the advice in this podcast will make giving useful feedback to employees a lot easier for you.
Giving feedback to team members starts with describing What Exactly Happened – what did they do to make you want to give them feedback. Giving general feedback – good or bad – doesn’t help – it needs to be specific with examples and facts.
Giving feedback effectively should also include taking the person through the impact of their actions. How did they affect the team and the business?
Next, in how to give employee feedback, you should cover why their actions were good or bad. The why provides great context and help the learning process.
And finally, when giving feedback at work, cover how they could improve their actions in the future to get better results. After all, you are giving feedback to employees so that you get improved results. Walk them through how they can improve.
So this covers the 4 things you should include when giving employee feedback.
How to give feedback – the way in which you deliver it – also counts for a lot. Delivered well and the employees will take in what you said and put it into action. Delivered badly, and they will ignore what you say.
Whenever you give useful feedback to team members, always approach with a mindset of how to help them become better. Have an “always educating” mindset.
Next, when thinking about how to give feedback, make your feedback to the individual or team timely. Feedback loses value over time, so give feedback soon after the event driving the feedback.
I always think your feedback should be honest. Tell it how it is. Don’t sugar coat it, dilute the message etc. Saying that, remain as diplomatic and consider as possible without diluting your message.
Feedback should always be specific for it to be useful feedback. General feedback does little to improve performance.
And finally, the feedback you give should be focused as much as possible on actions rather than giving opinions about the other person.
Make the effort to give useful feedback to your employees and team members. This is a must if you want to improve performance and it comes with many other benefits too.
How to empower employees to make decisions is one of the hardest tasks many managers face. After all, you have been promoted to the management ranks in part because you are a good decision maker, yet your time each day to make decisions is limited.
I take you through 7 actions to take to empower employees to make decisions with confidence.
4 great reasons to empower employees to make decisions:
1. So you gain more time back in your day
2. For you to focus on more value adding activities
3. To increase employee engagement by up to three times
4. To increase the work ethic and results ownership of your team
Employee empowerment is very useful for you personally as a manager, especially as your team grows and your confidence as a manager increases. Plus many of your employees are closer to the coal face than you, so it makes sense to delegate decision making where there is low impact on the business and these decisions are routine.
Before you empower team members and start building their decision making skills, it makes a lot of sense to embed the goals of the team with each person making decisions so the overall team continues to move in the same direction towards achieving common goals.
Defining which decisions will be made by whom is also important to manage the risk of decision making appropriately. By creating a framework for decision making in the team you are also giving authority to team members to make specific types of decision.
To enable better decision making, key ways to empower employees are to share information relevant to the decisions they are making. Data and insights give them the tools to make better decisions.
Don’t throw your employees in at the deep end. Start delegating the decisions that have a small impact on the business or are simpler to make a good decision, and as their decision making skills improve, move them on to more difficult decisions. This progressive approach will build their confidence and decision making skills and manage business risk.
One of the toughest parts of empowering employees in the workplace is resisting the temptation to make the decision on behalf of the employee. There will be times when the employee will in effect ask you to make the decision – this is easier and less scary for them – don’t fall into this trap.
And finally, make the time to coach employees through their decision making. This provides vital support and guidance for them during the process AND keeps you informed of each step allowing you to avert poor decisions. Coaching allows you to do this WITHOUT taking the responsibility away from the employee to make the decision.
Make the time and effort to empower employees to make decisions and you will be able to significantly leverage your time and skills freeing you up to move your career forward!
What makes an effective manager? Learn about 10 skills all effective managers have that make them successful, effective and respected. Included are tips, frameworks, and where to get additional information.
There are so many skills need to be an effective manager – those managers that get a lot done through their teams, keep their teams motivated through thick and thin, create the right environment for individual and team success, develop the skills of their team members so they can do more, manages all the people relationships and deals calmly with the pressures involved.
Unsurprisingly these effective managers are the ones that get noticed and are consistently promoted.
One of the most important skills of an effective manager is self-awareness. If you don’t know what your strengths and weaknesses are, how your beliefs impact decisions and actions, it makes it much harder to learn and improve how you deal with other people.
Another vital skill all effective managers have is building and maintaining relationships. Managing relationships are at the core of management.
How to be a great manager absolutely includes setting clear expectations with all team members, stakeholders, and your manager. If you don’t know what is expected, how can you or your team members deliver against it.
How to be an effective manager also includes having great communication skills. Being able to get your message across, persuade, deal with emotionally charged situations calmly and being able to read other peoples non-verbal clues are all essential communication skills.
Highly effective managers all spend a lot of their time educating their team members and passing on the skills they have accumulated. This helps their team become more and more effective and be able to deliver increasingly impressive results.
The qualities of an effective manager very much include great delegation skills. There is a lot more to delegation that many people think. It is not enough just to tell someone to do a task or project. You have to support them, check up on them, get them the right resources and so on.
Planning ahead is another key characteristics of an effective manager. There are nearly always so many moving parts in managing a team, a set of projects, tasks, requests and so that good planning skills is a must.
Problem solving is a daily occurrence for an effective manager. They solve problems personally AND help their team members solve problems.
And finally, effective decision making is another key skill, particularly being able to adapt their decisions making style to different situations and problems.
How to welcome a new employee is a big deal. After all, you have spent time, effort and money finding a great person to join your team and help solve some of the problems you are wrestling with. You want them to be excited, get off to a great start and be happy working in the team so they stay and do the best work they can.
There is a lot you can proactively do that doesn’t take that much time to make sure your new joiner receives a great first impression of you, the team and the company.
I share 10 tried and tested actions you can take to make your new team member feels welcome and valued and help them make the best start they can, so they are fully up and running as quickly as possible. What better way for you to demonstrate to the business you made the right hire.
When planning how to welcome a new team member, send them pre-reads so they feel they are part of the team before they join. Introducing them within the company so the current team knows who they are and what they have joined to do is also really useful for everyone.
Getting all the IT setup before a new joiner starts is also needed. As a new employee, there is nothing worse than turning up on the first day and having to spend most of it chasing a list of people to get your computer working.
On the first day, get your new employee to start late, keep your diary free so you can greet them in person and introduce them to the team. Give them a bit of time to settle in and then take them through the induction plan you have prepared. Focus the induction plan on helping your new joiner build relationships within the business.
Book time in with your new employee to train them on how to use the systems they need, what the rules and expectations are so they can get up to speed as quickly as possible.
When planning how to welcome a new employee, I suggest you book in lunches with team members and coffees with all the stakeholders that your new team member will need to build good professional relationships with.
Next, giving your new employee a mini-project which they can own and start adding value to the company quickly.
Lastly, booking in a social evening with the team and your new joiner will help them all start to build relationships - both personal and professional – in a more informal setting.
What to put into a career development plan to really engage employees, motivate them and keep them doing the best job they can. Learn about 6 actions to drive retention, motivation, and performance.
Creating a career development plan takes some thought and putting the career plan into action takes effort. Career planning is good for you, the team and the individual.
Career development proactively helps the employee to learn new skills and gain new experience which helps them deliver more for the company in which they work. Retaining staff makes all the investments you have made in the staff even more worthwhile, and you get the benefits of their increased skills for longer.
Writing an effective career plan requires at least 6 actions. The first is helping the team member decide on where they want to take their career. i.e. What is their professional goal. Without a goal, it is hard to work out where their career is heading and therefore how to help them.
Once they have chosen a goal, the next step is working out all the steps between where they are now and where they want to get to. Create a career map to capture all the career development roles available on the route.
I recommend choosing to focus on the next two role along your prepared career route so that you have a career development plan covering the next 5 years.
Fourth, Get the team member to spend time researching the skills, experience and qualifications needed for the next two roles. I suggest several effective ways of doing this.
Then look at the gap between where they are now and the skills etc they need to progress to the next role for their career development. Look at the specific gaps and the scale of those gaps.
Finally, you are in a position to assign projects, tasks, activities i.e. the actions that will help the employee develop their career towards their career goals. I take you briefly through 11 different ways of helping your employee build their skills and experience.
You will know what to put in a career development plan, have plenty of tips on how to put it into practice and hopefully more committed and motivated employees with building skills to help the company be even more successful.
Get the right people doing the right job and you are halfway to your next managerial promotion. Getting this right is crucial for every manager yet it remains a tough challenge even for experienced managers.
I share 5 steps to get the right people doing the right job, to make overcoming this challenge easier.
The first step is to work out what the right job actually is. This sounds obvious and probably straight forward. In practice this can be quite hard to put down on paper. I share 10 questions to get you thinking more clearly about what the role is really about and what is needed.
Once you have the right job defined, working out what the right people are is the next challenge. It is always tempting to get those you like and get on with into the role BUT are they really the right people to overcome the challenges to job demands of them. Do they have the right skills, are in the right point in their career etc. I share 7 areas to think about to work out who the right people for the job are.
Once you have the right job and the right people worked out, then finding them is the next big challenge. The first step is to look internally at the talent pool. The bigger the company, the more likely you will find the right person. Getting them into the role and team can be hard and I share tips on how to do this.
If you draw a blank on the current talent pool, hiring the right people is the next step. There are a lot of factors in selecting the right people. Every manager has a tendency to hire in their own image. How do you overcome this to recruit those best suited for the role. I share more tips on how to do this.
Getting the right people doing the right job is the next challenge. Create the best conditions for the right people doing right job. I share 5 areas to work on plus links to further videos to expand your skills in each area.
Getting the best out of your team, when you have the right people doing the right job gives you a massive sense of achievement. It always did for me. Good team performance and atmosphere are usually good outcomes of getting the right people in the right jobs.
Enjoy the personal benefits of getting the right people in the right jobs!
5 steps to manage conflict between team members gives you practical steps that you can implement to reduce and remove conflict between individuals and teams.
How to handle conflict between team members is not easy. It can be tough to know where to start. Don’t put off taking action to resolve workplace conflict. If you don’t then chances are that is will only get worse, causing you and your team even more problems.
The first step when thinking about how to manage conflict between employees is to be proactive. Ask the individuals what is causing the conflict. Ask the team members around them, their direct reports. Get as many viewpoints as sensible. Understanding what is going on gives you a solid starting point to resolving the conflict.
Next, if difficult or incompetent people are the cause of the conflict, deal with these people professionally and effectively. You can’t let an individual disrupt the team with their behaviour even if it is unintentional.
Once you have discarded individual behaviour and competence as the cause of the conflict, dig under the surface. There are lots of organisational reasons that push individuals into conflict. For instance if goals are not aligned or worse are in direct conflict with each other across teams. Did under the surface to find the causes of the conflict.
The next step in managing conflict is to work on the communication. A lot of conflict comes from differences, a lack of understanding, fear or perceived threat. I share 5 tips to handle conflict between employees to break down these barriers. Communication can significantly reduce conflict when it drives understanding on both sides.
Finally, when planning how to manage conflict between employees, you need to help implement change. Those involved in conflict are likely to need help to change the situation. Change what is in your control to resolve the conflict and build support and find allies to implement change within the wider business.
Conflict does not help anyone at work. Take steps to handle conflict between employees as soon as you become aware of the conflict. There is a lot you can do!
Having to manage team members always off sick is painful. It is hard enough that you and the team have to cover their work. It is even worse if you suspect they are not really ill.
Learn 6 ways to manage team members always off sick which will help you reduce the amount of time employees who are not really sick spend away from work.
The 6 ways to handle team members off sick all the time are also very useful when you have to handle team members who are genuinely off sick. It is important to understand what you and the business can do to help them recover and get back to work as quickly as possible.
The first step when having to deal with employees off sick is to think about the causes of the sickness and see if there is anything that you or the company can do to prevent or reduce sick leave. This could be helping employees live healthier lives, putting on yoga classes at lunch or creating a small gym.
The day here and day there off sick, in my opinion, are much more of a management issue that two weeks off because of something more serious – because nearly all employees are genuinely ill if they are taking longer period off work sick.
When thinking about how to reduce team members off sick, it is very worth taking an honest look in the mirror. Is there anything that you are doing that is making the environment at work stressful, are the team members overloaded with work, under supported and so on.
Changing your approach or providing more support, reducing stress on particular team members can all have a very positive impact on the team, and the results they produce.
A vital tool to handle team members always off sick is a written sickness policy. This sets out the expectations for the employees and gives you a set of guidelines to help you manage the situation positively.
Keeping records of when employees are off sick moves the conversation from a opinion led to a factually led conversations when you have to deal with employees off sick.
When you manage team members always off sick, make sure you always book in a return to work meeting. This is a fact finding meeting. If the sick leave is bogus, always having this meeting makes it much harder to take a day off without being ill.
When you have to manage employees off sick, take action. Don’t delay or procrastinate. There is a lot that you can do to reduce the pressure on you and the team and ensure employees don’t take a lot of time off sick without good reason.
Take action quickly, confidently and with consideration.
Giving direction to team members and then seeing them take action and deliver the results you want takes skill. It is not easy which is why I am share 7 steps for giving direction to team members that will make your job easier and the team more successful.
The first step is to know your team –which members, after agreeing the goals to achieve, will just get it done compared to those who need a lot more support and help to reach those same goals. Work out who is best for which goal and give direction accordingly
When giving direction to employees it is important to be specific. Having a clear goal helps everyone understand what the goal is, and when it has been reached. Specific goals and direction also help plan how to achieve the goal.
Providing the why to when giving direction to team members helps them make decisions when working towards the goal, reducing their reliance on you, and increasing their motivation and chances of success.
When giving direction to employees, ask the team to plan the route. There are so many benefits to doing this rather than you take this step and tell the team what they are going to do.
Business environments are always changing so when giving direction build in allowances for change and uncertainty.
Trust your team. This is so important to getting good results and keeping everyone happy. I share how to build that trust quickly and easily with your team members and how learn if you can trust their judgement quickly.
And finally, praise really does drive the behaviours you want in your team. Take the time to think about what when well and how it went well and praise team members who deliver and behave in the right way.
Give clear direction to team members and they will be able to deliver better results for you.
Having to deal with employees who don’t listen is so frustrating. Being ignored at work is never nice at the best of times and if you have to deal with employees who don’t listen it can knock your confidence, impact the team overall and can certainly create negative feelings that help no-one.
I share 7 ways to tackle employees who don’t listen, and each is effective. Don’t allow team members who don’t listen to remain an annoyance, a hindrance and a source of disruption for the team any longer.
Matching your communication style to their learning style is a sensible step which will help them take in what you are saying. Make it as easy for the employee who doesn’t listen as possible.
Next take a look at your own behaviour. Are you listening to them? Are you acting on what they are telling you? Are you asking them to undertake activities which help the team and them. Treat them as you would like to be treated and you have a much higher chance of being listened to.
Explain the why. Why are you asking the employee to do the task you are? Have you explained this to them? And when you are being ignored at work, explain the impact of the other person not listen and not doing.
If you are still not being listened to at work, then ask the employee to give you a summary of what you have asked and also ask for their input. This is a great way to get them involved and forces them to take in and think about what you have asked.
A further step is providing the employee who doesn’t listen with a set of options and ask them to decide which one should be pursued.
Whatever you mutually agree, put the actions and activities which the goals in writing. This provides a clear reference point for both parties.
And lastly, create consequences if the team member doesn’t listen and doesn’t take action.
Don’t allow an employee to not listen to you, particularly if the team output will suffer. Take any of the 7 ways outlined to deal with employees who don’t listen.
When you have team members who don’t want to work on your team it is painful, frustrating and problematic for the whole team.
And worse, team members and your boss are looking at you to deal with the employee who is not pulling their weight.
There can be lots of reasons why your team member doesn’t want to work:
1. Personal Problems outside of work
2. Problems within work
3. Unrealistic expectations
4. Actions or comments that have impacted their outlook and motivation
5. They are lazy and want to do as little as possible
The first step is to work out exactly what situation you are dealing with. There may be an easy solution that will fix the poor work attitude quickly. Ask the team member what the issues are and listen.
Setting out your expectations clearly is a vital step. After all, how can a person meet or beat your expectations if they are not sure what they are. If the employee’s performance is an issue, then by setting expectations, you are laying the groundwork for performance management actions.
Give them the confidence – through your actions and support – to share their problems with you. When you know what they are and understand how they came about you are in a much better place to fix them.
Other Employees need to be told what is in it for them. Spell this out to help motivate them. There are lots of different motivators and we all respond to a different combination.
Assess if your team members have the right skills and the right skill level to do what is asked of them. If they don’t, then help them increase their skills or move them into a role better suited to them.
And finally, for employees who are just plain lazy, disruptive, difficult or toxic, consider moving them out of the business. These team members don’t help the team and can do a lot of damage to the team.
Take action, and don’t procrastinate. Good luck!
Being around negative people at work is energy sapping, demoralising and frankly makes life at work a lot more difficult. The obvious step is to spend as little time around them as possible.
If you have to work with them – because they are a colleague, you manage them or need to work on a project with them, then learning how to manage negative people at work becomes really useful and makes your life at work better.
I take you through 9 ways to manage negative people at work.
The first way to handle negative people at work is to control how you react to them. You can’t control them and you can control yourself. By controlling your reaction you will reduce the impact of the negative behaviour.
Then when dealing with negative people at work, a good technique I have found works is to force them to talk positive by asking questions framed to get a positive response.
When managing negative people at work, it is very important not to be sucked in by their negative behaviour. When they ask you to participate in their complaining, sidestep the request.
Positive reinforcement is very powerful so when handling negative people at work, look out for any positive behaviour and praise it.
Another way to manage negative people at work is look out for the positives in the negativity. Glass half empty people can be a treasure trove of risks and issues. Use these to start the solutioning process.
If you are a manage, when dealing with negative people at work, set behaviour expectations. This can be done in a positive way that improves the team morale.
A great approach when handling negative people at work is to ask them for the solution to what they are complaining about. This forces them to think positively, and the team gets more improved.
And lastly, if a really negative person at work is unwilling or unable to improve how they behaviour at work, remove them from the team.
Preparing for a retailer buyer meeting is always daunting. Product buyers or retailer buyers are trained and experienced to get the best deal for the retailer, which can often mean a poor deal for you.
You want to grow your product business and getting retailer listings is a really great way of growing so there is a lot riding on the meeting with the buyer. I go through the key areas you need to focus on prior to going into the meeting.
Do these well and you have a much better chance of walking out of the retail buyer meeting with a profitable listing. Getting a loss making listing is much easier, and a mistake that many entrepreneurs make.
The pricing negotiation nearly always goes to the party that is best prepared, knows the most about the other party and is confident in their proposition. Doing your research is an obvious step to most, yet how many really do what is needed?
Working out exactly what your products value is to both the consumer and the retailer is critical to proposing and negotiating good retailer pricing. Learn new tips and tricks for this.
Knowing exactly what you want from the meeting other than a “yes” is another very valuable step. Be specific. For instance, do you want listings in all the stores they have or only certain ones. What about shelf position? Gondola ends? Marketing? There are a lot of factors other than price to consider.
Next, you really do need to know your own pricing back to front. Work out all your costs. Create pricing propositions hitting several price points so you have the ability and flexibility to negotiate during the meeting with confidence that you are not going to walk away with a loss making deal.
And finally, practice before you go into the retailer buyer meeting. Obvious I know, yet many don’t do enough. The words you use and how you come across matter. Don’t sell yourself, your product and your business short.
Good luck with preparing for your retailer buyer meetings
How to you spot a difficult manager vs a toxic manager is pretty useful to know, particularly if you are changing managers or moving to a new team.
Difficult managers may not be easy to work with, yet they can be very good for your career and skill set. Everyone wants to avoid toxic managers because they don’t help anyone.
How to spot a difficult manager and what makes them difficult quickly is super useful as you can then start working out how you are going to manage what makes them difficult or how you are going to flex your approach, so you get the best out of working with a difficult boss. Take a look at our video on working with a difficult manager.
Learn some new ideas on how to handle some of the behaviours that make managers difficult to work with.
How to spot a toxic manager as early as possible is important for your happiness, career and health. The are two main courses of action and three outcomes from these actions – challenge your toxic manager or move jobs into a different team or company. Neither are easy, and both are better than putting up with toxic behaviour.
Don’t be passive or put up with the toxic behaviour. Neither will help you or your career.
Please leave any questions in the comment section, particularly if you would like advice specific to your situation.
How to handle a difficult manager at work are vital skills to learn as we will all have a difficult boss at some point in our careers.
I take you through 7 ways to handing a difficult manager at work. Firstly, working with a difficult boss is not like the same as working with a toxic manager. A difficult boss still has our interests at heart - they are just not easy to deal with for any number of reasons.
When thinking about bout to deal with a difficult manager at work start by being super professional. Do the best job that you can. Don’t talk negatively about your difficult boss. Try to keep your negative emotions in check.
Next, to handle a difficult boss at work, be proactive and take charge of managing the relationship. Keep your mindset positive and flex your style to best suit your manager’s approach.
Find out what your Boss’ preferences are and play to these preferences. When dealing with a difficult manager, make your life easier by fitting in with that they like, in terms of communication, working practices etc.
Another great step to take when planning how to deal with difficult managers at work is to help them to success. What can you do that will help your manager reach their goals outside of your basic job. Every manager appreciates team members that support them and help make them successful.
Another option to handle a difficult boss at work is to speak up about concerns in a professional and calm way. Offer solutions that should work for them and make your situation better.
When dealing with a difficult manager, don’t allow yourself to be intimidated. I know this is not easy for many. Make sure you get enough support, interaction and attention from your manager – don’t shy away because this is difficult. I include more tips of how to do this in the video.
And finally, when dealing with any manager and particularly a difficult one, always be a problem solver. All manager love problem solvers in their team as it takes away some of the burden on their shoulders.
Watch the video for more tips on how to do each of these. Good luck in turning your difficult manager into a strong supporter!
How to Build Professional Relationships at Work is a challenge for us all.
I share 8 ways tried and tested ways to build professional relationships at work so you can create better relationships faster with your colleagues.
Better relationships allow you to be more effective at work, increase your enjoyment at work and increase the likelihood of being promoted.
The first step when relationship building at work is to be a likeable person. This may seem obvious – being nice, pleasant, and considerate all go a long way to helping colleagues think positively towards you.
Meet face to face wherever possible when building good relationships at work. Nothing beats it. With so many ways to contact people, many of them electronic, it is easy not to make the effort.
When building professional relationships, it is always useful to do your homework before meeting. This gives you a list of question you could ask to get the other person talking about their favourite subjects and gets the relationship off to a great start.
It can be hard to actually start building professional relationships at work, so look for any excuse to be able to meet with those you are looking to get to know. I run through my favourite tactics.
When building professional relationships it can be easy to forget the personal side of the relationship. Do find about what your colleagues do outside of work, what gets them excited and what they spend their time on. This adds a lot more depth and fun to the relationship.
As you build relationships at work, aim to help first and ask second. This is a much quicker and surer way of building positive and productive relationships.
In my view, the most important action to consistently do is deliver what you say. You must deliver and avoid letting people down. Delivering cements your relationship. You will end up with a higher standing in the team, your opinion carries more weight plus a host of other benefits.
And lastly, be consistent with your behaviour, effort and action. Consistency builds trust. Trust builds strong relationships. You must be consistent.
Make the effort to build good relationships, and that investment will be paid back to you many times over at work.
Enjoy building all those new relationships at work.
How to resign from a job professionally so that you keep your manager onside, get a good reference and keep open future job opportunities through your manager and colleagues is what I cover.
When you have decided to resign from a job, you want to leave as quickly as possible and start your new role. Running out the door is even more appealing when you don’t get on with your manager or some of your team.
As hard as it can be, leaving well is much more important than leaving quickly. The better and quicker you hand over your work, then the quicker you leave in practice. When thinking about how to resign from a job, think about how you can help your manager easily reassign the work you do. This is very much in your interests.
When planning how to quit your job professionally, make sure you use one of the 5 generally accepted reasons for resigning from a job. This will avoid anger or resentment towards you which will make your life easier now and going forward.
The next step in how to resign is to check your contract to make sure you understand the notice period you need to give and anything else required of you.
Next in how to resign from a job gracefully, start preparing for how you are going to leave. Go through the projects you are working on and plan out what needs to be handed over and to who.
Next when preparing how to resign from a job, write your resignation letter. I have included an example letter which should be short, concise, and positive.
How to resign from a job in person – the best way to resign – requires you to book in a meeting in private with your manager. Don’t tell others before speaking to your manager. Help your manager as much as possible so they have confidence that you leaving won’t be a problem.
Maintain your work standards and output during your notice period. Doing this will make it a lot more likely you will be released early.
And finally, stay in touch with work colleagues and your manager. The majority of roles are not advertised and networking is a good way to access these hidden job opportunities.
How to manage difficult conversations at work is a challenge for every manager. No-one enjoys having difficult conversations and they are one of the most feared aspects of being a manager.
To be an effective manager, being able to manage the things that don’t go well, the bad attitudes of team members, underperformance issues and all the other negative aspects of managing people is pretty essential - certainly if you want to get a lot done, if you want to keep the team motivated and if you want to get that next promotion.
I share 8 steps of how to have difficult conversations at work without putting yourself or the other person through an emotional rollercoaster, or risk not getting the outcome you need. The help you during the difficult conversation I also share 7 tips on how to control emotions when having difficult conversations.
The first step when thinking about how to have a difficult conversation is not put the off the difficult conversation. Getting started is often the hardest part and the easiest to put off.
Next, put yourself in a positive mindset when planning how to handle the difficult conversation with employees – your confidence and calmness directly impact the other person and the outcome.
Third, be very clear what you want to get out of the difficult conversation. If you can write this down, chances are you can articulate it to the other person.
Fourth, when thinking about how to manage a difficult conversation is to hold the meeting in private. You don’t want others overhearing what is being said. Go into a private meeting room.
Fifth, provide evidence or examples. Talking about examples is easier and more powerful that providing your opinion to the other person. A conversation about examples is also a lot easier to take.
Plan out your difficult conversation but don’t script it. Write down the bullet points you want to cover and the questions that you plan to ask the other person.
Spend more time actively listening during the difficult conversation rather than talking. This will help you manage the other person’s emotions.
Finally, manage your own emotions when having a difficult conversation. Remaining professional, calm and confident is so important for both you and the other person.
If you have any questions please leave them in the comments below and I will get back to you.
Good luck.
How do you manage difficult employees of often asked in interview when:
1. The interviewer or hiring manager is judging how effective a manager you are
2. You are joining a team with one or more difficult employees in it, and the interviewer wants to know how you are going to handle them
3. The team you will be managing has one or more difficult people in it
The reasons for being asked how do you manage difficult employees are wide so it makes sense to ask a clarifying questions first before answering this interview question. This allows to give a much more tailored answer, thus getting you closer to offer than a generic answer might.
When answering how do you manage difficult team members or any of the variations, it is important to manage your body language. If you look worried, hesitant, or scared or similar you will be putting yourself at a distinct disadvantage to candidates that answer this interview question confidently.
I set out the 5 points you should include in your answer if you are the potential manager and if you are the potential colleague having to manage or work with difficult employees.
And of course, we provide an example answer so show you how to cover the bases properly.
Good luck in your interviews.
What to do when staff or colleagues undermine you? It is horrible when you realise one of your colleagues is actively trying to undermine you and make you look bad in front of others. It can knock your confidence and trust in others and can be very demotivating. Worst case, your job could be under threat. To make this bad situation worse, the undermining actions are often subtle and hard to really pinpoint.
If you find yourself in this situation, there is a lot you can proactively do to stop the undermining behaviour. I cover
· what undermining signs to look out for
· 5 actions you can proactively take to stop the undermining behaviour as quickly as possible.
· 6 ways to Market your work internally
Repeated behaviour that puts you in a bad light or makes you look unprofessional is what to look out for at work. I give 7 examples of different types of behaviour that indicate that you are being undermined by employees.
There are lots of reasons why a co-worker may try to undermine you. What to do when colleagues undermine you? Don’t do nothing or be passive – take proactive action to stop the behaviour while maintaining your professionalism.
Because undermining behaviour is usually subtle, the first step is to start collecting evidence of the undermining behaviour. I appreciate that this may seem like overkill when you first become aware of the undermining, yet the sooner you start the sooner you can get the behaviour to stop.
Finding others who are or have been undermined at work by the staff member is another important step. You have to do this carefully.
Confronting the undermining colleague professionally can stop the undermining behaviour very quickly if done in a effective way.
Next, speak to your manager and ask them what to do when co-workers undermine you. Your manager can be a great ally when approached in the right way.
Finally you can escalate the matter to HR or further up the management chain if the undermining behaviour has not stopped after you and your manager have confronted the colleague in question.
I leave you with a number of ways to market yourself and the value you deliver at work more effectively, which is great practice generally, and even more so when staff or colleagues undermine you.
Take action!
How to handle team members with bad attitudes? Disruptive team members are a problem we have all faced either when managing a team or working in a team. Other team member’s bad attitudes can quickly affect your attitude and performance and the team’s attitude and performance. Dealing with negative employees is energy draining at the best of times for those around them.
Learn six tried and tested steps for how to manage disruptive employees successfully. The most important step when thinking about how to handle employees with bad attitudes is not to ignore the problem. It rarely goes away and usually gets worse if ignored.
Plus the rest of your team will start picking up the same bad behaviour or habits. You must take action.
Employees with bad attitudes can come about for a wide range of reasons. These reasons might be related to the working environment, colleagues or management or they may be a result of issues outside of work. Find out why the bad attitude has started before doing anything else.
The next step when planning how to handle employees with bad attitudes is to work out what the best plan of action would be. This very much depends on the situation and the person.
Dealing with negative employees is a lot easier once you have set out your expectations for their behaviour. Put your expectations in writing and be clear with the negative employee what is acceptable and what is not.
Then support the individual to improve their attitudes or if they can’t or won’t change their bad attitude, move them out of your team and company.
Deciding what questions to ask in an interview is always challenging. You will have plenty of things that you would like to know before starting and you know that you have to impress the interviewer with what you do ask.
Not asking any questions in an interview is a no no as it will give the impression you are not keen or interested, thus losing you the job.
So how should we prepare our questions to ask in a job interview? To ask really good questions, you need to know something about the company. So do your research so that you have good questions to ask the interviewer. This takes a lot less time that you think.
Find out exactly how to prepare great questions to answer “Do you have any questions for me?” or “Do you have any questions for us?”
If you are wondering what questions to ask at the end of an interview, I have listed out 10 great questions to ask in an interview when you have not done much or any research.
There are also a lot of questions that you should NOT ask in an interview. In fact doing so could easily loose you the job. I have listed out 10 question types you should avoid.
Don’t worry too much about the number of questions to ask in an interview. An interview is a two way street and by asking questions, you are demonstrating your interest and keenness of the role and company. Take you cue from the interviewer’s body as to when to stop asking questions.
Good luck in your interviews!
Political skills for leaders are skills that are essential for anyone who wants to be more effective in influencing others. Building agreement, alignment and alliances with businesses enable you to deliver significantly more – which helps you, your team, and the overall business.
Political skills in management start with yourself and developing personal skills. We cover self-awareness, self-control and being proactive which are all very important skills when thinking about how to influence others at work.
Influencing others is not an underhand activity, or about manipulation. Being honest and sincere is a critical part of how to influence others as a leader. Other important interpersonal skills include listening, thinking before speaking, being curious and managing upwards well.
Being good at reading people and situation is very important in management and doubly so when influencing others and using political skills for leaders. Less than 10% of communication is in the words being said.
Political skills for leaders is also about building alignment and alliances between leadership team members and those in the various management layers. When you have leaders and managers aligned, you have massively better chance of delivering on your project or activity as everyone is support rather than pursuing their agendas and moving in different directions.
When influencing others, it is important to keep in mind the strategic direction and goals of the business and team. This keeps you on track and moving everyone in a consistent direction which produces better results.
You can get so much more done within a business when you are able to use political skills in management positions.
Even if you are not yet in management positions, you can use political skills when managing stakeholder and those you rely on and report to. Doing a better job and achieving more will move your career progress forward faster.
Enjoy practicing your skills!
“Why should I hire you?” is a common interview question. You might be taken back with the slight challenge implied yet will probably list out all your strengths with your answer.
This interview question has a trap that many candidates fall into which to avoid needs some preparation.
Other variations on this interview question include:
· Why should we hire you?
· Why do you want to work here?
· Why do you want to work for us?
· Why do you want to work as this company?
Knowing exactly what is being asked when answering job interview questions is the first step to giving a great answer. The interviewer is rarely after just the face value of the question.
Next, understanding how to prepare for Why should I hire you is also important if you want to give a very strong answer that will get the hiring manager thinking “I want to work with this person”.
Learn a three step process for preparing a great answer for “Why should I hire you” which you can use for each interview you attend which will give you a strong, memorable and original answer to this interview question.
At the end, go through the example answers that a professional level and junior manager level candidate might give.
Take the time to practice your answer. Speak out loud or video yourself. The delivery of your answer should be clear, structured, and confident. Do include at least one good example in your answer and use numbers to explain the scale of the benefit you delivered to the company you worked for.
Good luck in your job search and interviews.
How to execute and make things happen is the set of skills needed to turn ideas into reality. Many businesses place too much emphasis on those with good ideas which is maybe 5-10% of a solution and don’t emphasis the execution skills needed to turn ideas into concreate action and results – the 90%+ of the solution and the hard part.
In this podcast I share 8 key practical steps that will help you significantly improve how to execute and make things happen personally and through your teams.
Getting Teams to deliver consistently is hard work if you don’t know how approach the task. Execution or making things happen in the workplace is not taught as such. If you are lucky enough to have a manager who knows how to get colleagues to deliver and teams to deliver, then they may teach you about execution in business.
How to execute is not hard learn. It does take practice and effort to develop the skills needed. Don’t be put off – executing in the workplace is a fantastic boost for promotional prospects and it will massively help you in your career progression.
The first step is to understand your team – what can they do and what can’t they do. Next work to get the right people in your team which makes your life as a manager a lot easier.
Understanding what your goals are, communicating your goals and getting all stakeholders aligned and agreed with those goals is another vital step.
Managing the team so there are clear owners for each step in the project or activity that you need to deliver, visibility of progress and the right support for each team member are also vital steps.
And finally, following-up so that you are signalling how important the project is through your actions and also being able to proactively support and help were needed is a step that managers rarely do enough of.
Use the steps we outline so you can deliver a lot more at work and get the rewards for achieving more.
How do you manage expectations or how do you manage the expectations of your manager are both interview questions you should expect to be asked in pretty much any interview you attend.
How you manage expectations at work is such a critical skill for everyone, and in particular anyone managing people.
If you manage expectations well, then you will be:
1. Easier to work with
2. Colleagues will like you more - because you don’t let them down
3. You are perceived as
a. more professional
b. a better team player
c. better at your job
These are all qualities that any interviewer will want in anyone they hire into a professional or managerial role.
I take you through 8 suggestions of what to include in your interview question answer and at the end of the video, I share two example answers.
Before you start putting together your answer to the interview question “How do you manage expectations” it is sensible to understand why the interviewer is asking this question and what they hope to get out of your interview question answer.
With all interview questions and answers you are looking to hit all of the key points the interviewer is looking for in your answer.
“How do you manage your managers expectations” is another variation on this manage expectations interview question, often asked by your line manager for obvious reasons.
Your interview question answer should cover the same key points.
Choose the best and most relevant example to include into your interview question answer as this provides some “proof” that you can do what you say you can.
Good luck in your interviews!
Long term planning for business or strategic planning is the hardest type of planning because the timeframes are over years and a huge amount can change in that time.
I am going to take you through how to approach long term planning for business, what to consider, what to avoid and how best to approach each stage.
When setting strategy or long term business goals you should undertake a realistic and honest assessment of the current business as well as understanding the external market, direction of trends and all the other likely influences on the business over the next 2-5 years. The aim is to create a picture of where you want the company to get to and include business goals.
The strategic planning process is all about HOW we translate that strategy or set of long terms goals into tangible steps we can take to get us from where we are today to those strategic goals.
I suggest several of the tools to use when thinking about how to create a strategic plan. Thinking about your internal strengths and weaker area is as important as looking externally to the company at market and customer trends etc.
It is well known that many leadership teams create strategies that they then struggle to put into practice. Alignment within the leadership is very important as is with the senior and middle management layers that are going to have to implement the strategy. Getting them involved or giving them a chance to input into the planning process helps gain their buy-in and improves the success of implementation.
When thinking through the strategic planning steps, keep the ability to implement the plan firmly in mind.
Forward planning for managers is an essential part of the job. The purpose of planning is to think through the steps we need to take to reach a goal, hopefully massively increasing the chances of reaching that goal and hopefully doing so quicker and more easily.
The purpose of planning is so
1. we don’t let others down or damage relationships,
2. we use as little time, energy, and money as we can while still achieving our goals,
3. we know which steps to take when,
4. we can co-ordinate many people or moving parts
5. we take better advantage of business opportunities or avoid business risks
6. we can consistently deliver thus building our credibility and reputations within the organisations we work.
Learn about 4 key areas to cover in any planning process, what to avoid and what to do. I also cover 5 types of forward planning that managers are likely to be involved in starting with strategic planning. As the timeframes and complexity reduce as you go into tactical planning and then operational planning, planning for a manager become easier.
One of the key steps for any planning process in business is to define the goal you want to get to. The goal should be specific and clear rather than vague and general. This will help your planning process.
Another key one of the forward planning techniques we cover is to get the individuals that well need to implement your plan involved in the planning process. This helps them own the plan alongside you, thus significantly increasing the chances of the success of that plan.
Implementation of any plan is always the hardest part, so it makes sense to take all the steps possible to improve your plan to make its implementation as easy as possible while still achieving the goal you have set out.
Enjoy your forward planning!
How to increase the price of your products without losing customers is a big challenge. Price has a significant influence on our profits, sales volumes, and our customers.
I’m going to let you in on 7 secrets on how the experts deliver a price increase as part of their retail pricing strategy.
How to raise product prices starts with your confidence. This may sound cheesy but if you believe in your product price increases, you have done your homework, then your confidence will impact the way you speak, your body language and your message. If you are confident, the buyer will be a lot less confident in asking for a lower price or discount.
A great way to plan how to raise product prices is to justify a much bigger price increase than you have planned. The perceived value you communicate will easily justify the increase in product price, increasing the chances for you to successfully deliver a price increase.
Rising prices without losing customers is always a concern and to counter this, communicating the value that your product brings to your customer will reduce concerns about paying a higher price.
Retail product price increases are expected over time. How you ask for the increase and how you position the price increase with the retailer make the difference between success and failure. Provide the right context and the customer will be happy.
Keep alternative options available if the customer refuses to accept a price increase so you and the customer win from the situation.
And finally, we share a couple of tactics at the end of the video that you can use to delay or soften the price increase for the customer.
Good luck with your price increase meetings.
Working out how to deal with an underperforming team member and then taking the right action is one of the bigger personal challenges any manager or leader faces at work. I would like to take you through the approached I used, successfully, time and time again in over 25 years of managing teams.
The first step to take when confronted with how to deal with an underperforming employee is not to ignore the problem. You know it will be a challenge, unpleasant and possibly difficult, yet procrastination around poor performance at work ends up being much worse.
The individual’s performance is likely to get worse, not better. Your team will get fed up with you and the underperforming employee and are likely to lose motivations and team performance will drop. None of this reflects well on you the manager nor your poor performance management skills.
So take action.
On of the first steps to take when thinking about how to deal with a poor performing employee is to talk to them and find out what the reasons are for the poor performance. Tell them why they are an underperforming team member, use examples and set out your expectations for them.
Work together to create a plan for how to help the underperforming team member improve their performance and how you are going to help them do this.
Coach and mentor the underperforming staff member, so they have the tools to enable them to improve their performance. The more effort you put in to this process, the more likely the team member will turn around their performance.
Throughout the plan, give honest feedback and monitor progress. Share progress with the underperformer so both parties are clear on what has gone well and what still needs to be improved.
Not all underperformers are willing or able to improve their performance. If this happens, it is important that you take formal action to resolve the underperformance, even if this means the underperformer leaves the business.
Good luck.
Knowing how to prioritise tasks effectively is a daily challenge for all of us at work and becomes even more challenging once you have team members to look after too.
I would like to share with you 7 approaches which have really helped me in how to prioritise tasks at work, learnt and used in a 25 year management career.
Learning how to prioritise tasks in the workplace and do it well is a key skill to improve if you want to become more and more effective and keep your manager happy.
Working out how to prioritize tasks becomes easier if you keep in mind the value to the business of doing each task you have to do. Another very useful approach is to prioritise tasks that support you achieving your objectives which are important to the business.
When thinking about how to prioritize tasks at work, it is very tempting to do the tasks we like doing, or are good at, first and put off the other tasks till later. Don’t.
Working out how to prioritize tasks when each tasks seems important and urgent can be difficult. In the “How To Prioritise Tasks Effectively”, I take you through several approaches that you can use in this situation.
The next level of difficulty come when you start thinking about “how to prioritise tasks for my team”. And the more direct reports you have and the larger the team, the more challenging this becomes.
Use your team members to help spread the prioritisation work where possible. Keep in mind your longer term goals - this really helps in working out how to prioritize work and tasks.
Keep practicing your prioritisation skills and enjoy the benefits of being more effective at work.
Good decision making for managers is important to build trust, a reputation for competence, and to progress your career. The decisions made by managers and leaders can quite literally make or break - projects, careers, and businesses. As a result consistent, good decision making at work really does matter.
To help increase the quality of the decisions you make, I want to share a really useful 6 step decision making process with you.
Good decision making as a manager is significantly improved by following a decision making process, especially for those complex or important decisions.
I have seen time and time again; managers and teams jump straight into solution mode when confronted by a problem without really taking the time to fully understand the problem or make sure they have the full picture. Dig into the detail can be an important first step in a good decision making process.
Next, when decision making in management it is very useful to define the goal of the decision. What exactly needs to be achieved from the decision that you are making? Be specific with your goal.
When you are clear on the problem and the goal of the decision, then explore your options. I have included 6 questions to ask yourself to improve decision making skills and the options you create.
Deciding which is the right option rather than the most acceptable option is a hard step in making decisions.
And then finally, how you communicate your decision to those affected by your decision will determine in part how effective the implementation of your decision will be.
Enjoy good decision making at work!
Learning how to delegate tasks as a manager is vital for any management position. You can’t and shouldn’t do everything yourself. If you don’t learn how to delegate effectively at each management level, your management career will stall.
Learning how to delegate work as a manager is not as easy as it first seems. In my first management role, I quickly learnt that just telling a team member to do x, y or z rarely got the result we needed.
Learning how to delegate work effectively has more to do with knowing what to delegate and how and then taking time to support, to mentor and coach and then following up than it does with the traditional view of directing traffic.
Delegating effectively and making sure the team member is set up to succeed is a vital part of creating great team performance and delivering consistently as a team and as a manager or leader. What you put in you get back with a lot of interest!
We go through 9 key stages of how to delegate tasks as a leader or manager, which will help improve your delegation skills and make you and your team even more effective at work.
Enjoy delegating even more effectively!
If you want to enter the management ranks and progress, a big part of your future success will depend on you learning how to influence others at work, how to influence your manager and potentially how to influence the leadership team.
Unfortunately, just having an opinion doesn’t count for much – everyone has an opinion. To influence others at work, you need to back up your opinion with evidence that your opinion will lead to improvements or better outcomes.
Putting yourself in the other person’s shoes is a critical first step when using influencing skills. This gives you insight into how to position your proposal in a way that helps them.
Most people understand that trust is a key factor to influence your manager and to influence your stakeholders. Without trust, most other influencing tactics fall flat. Likability and professional competence go a lot way to build trust and significantly increasing your ability to influence others at work.
“How to Influence Your Manager & The Leadership Team” details 9 tactics that teach you how to increase your influence at work and 3 communication factors that will further improve your influence.
If you are thinking about how to influence without authority at work, then a
give before you take approach - spotting opportunities to help others and building up a “favour bank” can work wonders.
I also cover 4 other key influencing tactics which add weight to your opinion and I have successfully used a lot to influence my manager and many others over the years.
Building your influencing skills is critical to progressing your career through the management ranks and into leadership positions whatever business you work in.
Try out each of the tactics in “How to Influence Your Manager & The Leadership Team” and practice them regularly. You will end up using these tactics naturally and you influence at work will only increase.
Learning how to facilitate a meeting effectively is a great skill to develop for anyone who runs, organises, or attends a lot of meetings.
Facilitating a meeting effectively is likely to make the meeting a lot more useful for everyone - attendees are more likely to solve the problem or make the decision they are at the meeting for. And it is likely to be a much more enjoyable journey to get there for all attendees.
In “How to Facilitate A Meeting Effectively” I share 9 meeting facilitation tips that will help you improve your facilitation techniques for meetings, making meetings more productive and useful to you, the team and business.
It is very hard to undertake effective meeting facilitation and be a full participant in the meeting. Take one role or the other – avoid attempting both.
The first action in how to be a good facilitator in a meeting is to stay neutral. If you don’t, you will not maintain the trust of every participate, therefore hampering your ability to be an effective meeting facilitator.
Stay apart from the meeting conversation and observe the dynamics of what is happening, the personalities in the room and all the non-verbal signals everyone sends. Listen to what is being said and help keep the meeting on course to achieve its objectives.
I share meeting facilitation ideas and questions that you use to keep the meeting moving through the agenda, overcome roadblocks and gain agreement from the participants.
Use my 9 effective meeting facilitation techniques to improve the results you get from your meetings.
Learn 20 Ways to Build Trust On Your Team. Learning how to build trust is a foundation for team happiness, effectiveness and performance – a key lesson I learnt in over 25 years of managing teams in corporates to SMEs.
If you have a good manager, they should be able to teach you a lot about how to build trust in teams. For those of you that don’t have a good manager, this video will get you started with ideas and approaches to help you improve building trust in teams.
All 20 ways to build trust discussed in this video can be adapted for your management style and approach. You need to be genuine and natural in your approach and we don’t suggest trying to be someone you are not.
Build trust with employees by behaving in an open and honest way. Be trustworthy in your actions and support and care about your team members. I know it sounds obvious – we have 20 different actionable ways to build trust on your team – put them into practice.
One of the best ways to build trust directly with individuals and throughout the team is to spend time teaching, mentoring, and coaching your team members. Take any opportunity to pass on the skills and knowledge that you have built up in your career. Also help team member develop their stronger skills. This is a great approach and a key way in how leaders build trust on a team.
Get to know your team members on a personal level and let them find out about you. The better your relationships the more trust you are likely to build.
Working with a team that you trust and that trusts you in return is so much more enjoyable. Plus you should get the benefit of noticeably increase team performance which will also help your management career!
Set the right business goals and you are much more likely to achieve success, outperform competitors, grow faster, and generate more profits and cash.
How to set the right business goals and then achieve those goals is unfortunately not so straight forward. I have a 5 step process to make setting the right business goals and objectives easier and quicker, which also helps deliver better outcomes.
Setting business goals must start with the long-term business goals. This provides consistency of direction and effort which will more the business forward further in a given timeframe. Achieving business goals are also easier when you have a consistent activities, which you can improve over time.
When considering which long term goals to choose, I always think it very important to consider the purpose of the business. What does it exist for? And making money and growing are too generic choices and are outcomes rather than reasons.
When thinking about how to set business goals, think about how you are going to implement the goals. What resources and skills do you need and do you have the right ones and enough of these within the business to achieve the goals set?
Break down your goals into outcome goals and process goals. Process goals support you achieving the outcome goals and these are much more in your control. This makes tracking performance against them a lot easier.
When thinking about how to set goals for your business, think about the metrics that you will need to track progress against those goals.
Good luck in choosing your business goals.
Being asked about your 30 60 90 day plans for interviews is a make or break question. This interview question separates the great candidates from the good to okay candidates. The candidate’s answer also provides the hiring manager with some insight and confidence into the value that would be created by hiring that candidate.
So planning your answer to “What is your 30 60 90 day plan?” or “How would you approach your first 90 days on the job?” is pretty crucial if you want to get that job offer ahead of talented competition.
In “30-60-90 Day Plans for Interview”, I take you through 4 mistakes that many candidates make with their 30 60 90 day plans for job interviews. It is super important that you get the right level of detail, make your plan realistic and use it at the right point in the interview process.
Knowing how to build a 30 60 90 day plan, what you should cover and how to present it is also very important to give you a good chance to get the job offer. I cover what is needed within 30-60-90 day plan for interview and include examples for different levels of managers.
The further you progress in the interview process and the higher the level of role you are going for, the more likely you are to be asked how you would tackle your first 90 days in a new job. The interviewer can gain a lot of insights into the value you might provide, your confidence and your experience and judgement by asking about your first 90 days.
Prepare your answer and as you go through the interview process, keep coming back to your plan and updating it with all the new information that you have gained.
And of course a 30-60-90 day plan for managers is incredibly useful to make sure you start any new management job with a flying start that will set the scene for your career at this company.
Make sure your plan really impresses!
In “How To Run A Great Team Meeting” I take you through 9 tips on how to running effective meetings, saving time, and even more importantly, creating better more useful and valuable output from those meeting.
We have all been in meetings that wasted our time and didn’t seem to achieve anything. The average person attends 10 meetings or more per week and spends 31 hours in unproductive meetings per month.
How to run a meeting effectively can be learnt quickly and put into action quickly too. Try these tips on a small informal meeting and build from there to gain confidence and practice.
How to run a team meeting starts with having an agenda which is clear and circulated in advance so attendees can start thinking how they are going to contribute.
When thinking about how to run an effective team meeting, get the team involved, particularly with setting the behaviour rules for everyone to stick to. This step helps engage peer pressure. I run through some of the popular rules I have come across.
Plan who will facilitate the meeting, informally or formally. This really helps in how to run a meeting, particularly if there are a lot of attendees or everyone is very opinionated.
Next when planning how to run a team meeting effectively, is think about what the meeting is going to be for. What is the output you are seeking or is the meeting an information sharing meeting?
If you are looking for a meeting with discussion, debate and decision making, then keep the number of attendees to a smaller number.
I also cover how to run a meeting with minutes, which is very helpful if keeping as many people fully engaged in the meeting.
Practice running effective productive team meetings! It does not take long and your team and career will thank you for it!
How to Set a Meeting Agenda to get the best out of the meeting and not waste attendees time takes a little bit of thought. The average person attends 10 meetings or more per week and spends 31 hours in unproductive meetings per month.
I have 7 actions that you can take to create meeting agendas that work, keep everyone engaged and produce useful output. These cover meeting agenda best practices and I have tried and tested these in 25 years of working in work class companies through to SMEs.
The first step in how to plan a meeting agenda is to think what you want to get out of the meeting or the meeting’s purpose. If you are not clear on this, creating the meeting agenda and then having effective meetings is that much harder.
To help you with how to plan a meeting, we have included some examples of what time to allocated to different types of meetings and give you some thoughts on meeting agendas.
The meeting agenda format will depend on what you want to cover. We suggest that you keep it to a small number of agenda items and give sufficient time to each rather than cramming as much as possible into the meeting agenda.
Make use of pre-reads – information sent out before the meeting starts – to share information which frees up time during the meeting for discussion, problem solving and decision making. This will ensure efficient meetings and keep the attendees engaged.
It is useful for a person to take minutes during the meeting, saving everyone getting distracted writing their own note and then you can share with the wider team meeting agenda and minutes afterwards to promote an open working culture.
Providing a meeting agenda format with specific agenda items allows each attendee to start mentally preparing before the meeting. This helps in running efficient meetings where everyone is able to participate from the start.
How to set a meeting agenda is a great skill to develop and will make your job as a manager of the team that much easier.
Running effective one to one meetings at work - I think - are one of the most important things to get right if you want to:
· Develop your team members
· Improve team effectiveness and happiness
· Retain your best staff
· And get promoted as a manager
In “How to Run Effective One to One Meetings at Work” we take you through 9 tried and tested tips to improve the effectiveness of your one-on-one meetings with your team.
Learning how to run one to one meetings is a great way to develop your team members, which in turn improves their effectiveness at work, the team improves and you get credit as a manager of that team. One on one meetings are time set aside from a busy schedule – use them to coach and mentor.
One on one meetings with direct reports is a great way to build professional and personal relationships with those you rely on to drive the team’s performance. Building trust is a critical starting point for effective 121 meetings.
It is super important that you don’t cancel or move you one on one meetings so you signal to your team members that these meetings and they are important to you. Stick to a set time each week or every other week for your 1 to 1 meetings with staff.
Ask your team members to bring their agenda to the one to one meeting. That way both parties can discuss what is important to them.
1 on 1 meetings are a great time to review progress against objectives, praise what is going well and help your employee with progress on any challenging areas. Reviewing objectives leads easily into performance conversations – take the time to praise great work and discuss areas for improvement.
Setting objectives with your manager can be an easy process if you have prepared well or it can be a real challenge if you have not.
Learning how to prepare and propose objectives to my manager helped me get better, easier and more useful objectives for me and my career development.
It should be no surprise that setting goals with your manager is a lot easier when you are supporting reaching the managers goals or objectives. This, or the company or department strategy was always the first place I started when setting objectives with my manager. This approach also makes a lot of business sense.
Put yourself in the driving seat by preparing objectives and goals that align with your manager goals and objectives rather than wait for your boss to give you a set of goals. Taking this step means you set expectations and the starting point with your manager first.
Having more realistic objectives and ones that will help your career development helps when you come to have your appraisal meeting with manager. You are more likely to have achieved your goals, which makes this meeting a lot easier.
Having goals is useful but having a rough or detailed plan of how to achieve those goals is a lot better. Before you think about objective setting for appraisals, go through how you might achieve the objectives. How long will it take? What resources will you need? Can you achieve the objective by yourself, or do you need your team to deliver it?
Think about all the assumptions you are making when planning how you are going to achieve your goal. I always found using assumptions is a great way to manage my manager’s expectations of what could be achieved.
Setting objectives with your manager gives you a process to follow that creates the foundations for how to set goals and achieve them and is a useful approach for objective setting for managers.
Towards the end of “Setting Objectives With Your Manager” I share 5 tips to help you manage the meeting to your advantage.
Good luck with your objective setting meetings.
Setting goals for the finance team that support the business growth, strength and performance can be a challenge, even for experienced finance professionals. In “Setting Goals for the Finance Team” I provide examples of 7 different areas for goal setting and provide plenty of example finance team objectives. And WITHOUT using lots of financial or accounting terms.
Setting finance team goals, like setting any goals, helps create focus for the team and improve the financial management of a business. What you expect from your finance team and its capabilities are a great starting point. Do you need basic financial reporting? Or are you in a more complex business that needs its finance team to help run the business, provide financial information, manage systems, all the way through to provide financial strategy? What are your expectations of the finance team?
One of the key tasks of any finance team is managing and improving the financial health of a business – both its profitability and its cash generation. Creating both require strong business management skills among many others.
What plans should you have in place for team development? How will you measure finance team performance? These and other questions are answered in “Setting Goals for the Finance Team” along with many example of the type of objectives and goals you could set a finance team.
Financial reporting and visibility of performance at all levels: the company, department, function, team and even down to the individual drive improved business performance. We give you suggestions on the types of goals you might want to include to improve your financial reporting.
Systems and the tools the finance team use the help manage the business are vital for the speed and accuracy of information to support decision making, the control of spending, and the efficiency of many parts of the business. Do you have enough focus on what the finance team is doing to improve the systems and process used in the business?
And finally, what have you tasked the finance team on with regard to financial strategy? How should the company be funded? What improvements can be made to the business model? What levels of cash should be help to mitigate business and financial risk?
Set objectives and goals for the finance team that reflect the business needs, the business complexity and the capabilities of the finance team.
Getting your first management or team supervision role is very exciting and a little scary. Firstly congratulations and welcome to your new career of managing people.
In 8 Tips for New Managers I share 8 very useful tips for those new in the manager role. We all have a preconceived image of what a manager should be like and when we start, we want to do a good job. The pressure is on yet we should remember to just be ourselves and not be someone we are not. If I had to chose tips for new managers, this would be the most important.
The next of my new manager tips when starting at a new job is to get to know your team. Your key job is helping others do their best and to do this you must get to know them on a personal level.
The next of new manager tips is to remember you are a boss not a friend. This is a hard transition, particularly if you are now managing your old peer group. Without some emotional distance, people management is a lot harder in my view.
These tips for new managers and supervisors give you a lot of points on how to understand what is now expected on you and also how to set expectations of those you manage. Being in the middle is hard work.
I am a huge believer in developing my teams and I think it is very important step in how to be a great manager. This takes time, effort and thought on the part of the manager yet is paid back many times over at a personal and team level.
It is just as important in terms of developing your people management skills that you keep learning and developing as a manager. You really need to practice what you learn as often as you can to get better.
Enjoy 8 Tips for New Managers and enjoy managing your team!
Creating a good relationship with your manager is pretty vital if you want to be happy at work, get a bonus, get promoted and progress your career. In 10 Great Tips to Manage Your Manager I share practical tips I have used to build and maintain good relationships with wide range of managers and indirect “bosses”.
When thinking about how to manage your boss’ expectations, a great place to start is to ensure you are doing a good job or at least average compared to peers. That way, when managing your boss, they already view you as an asset to the team. Delivering what you need to is a great way to start building relationships at work.
Every manager is different, so when learning how to manage your boss, ask them how they like to be managed. How you manage up should be tailored to your specific manager.
As you plan how to manage your manager ask them what they expect of you. If you don’t know what good or okay looks like in their eyes, meeting that expectation is harder.
It is in your interests, when managing up, to take responsibility for managing relationships at work and particularly with your manager. Your boss influences so much of your working life therefore it must be a no-brainer to be proactive in creating a positive professional relationship.
A key part of expectation management at work is to reduce the number of surprises for colleagues and particularly your manager. Surprises, both positive and negative, hinder planning and impact how your manager in turn manages their boss’s expectations.
How to manage your manager is well is not as hard as it might seem at first. Think how you would like to be treated and replicate this for your manager. How to manage your boss effectively requires a little planning and effort on your part and taking some or all of the steps outlined in “10 Great Tips to Manage Your Manager” will make a significant positive different to your relationship with you manager. Make the effort – it really is in your best interests if you want to be happier at work, get interesting projects to work on, get a bonus and get promoted.
Good luck in practicing how to manage your boss!
In How to Set Objectives for the Team, I take you through a tried and tested 5 step approach to set clear, actionable, objectives which have team member buy in.
If you are going to put the effort into objective and goal setting, you want to ensure that your objectives help drive accountability and deliver improving team performance. There are many elements that go into how to improve team results. Setting employee goals and objectives is an excellent place to start.
Objective setting for managers will involve some effort on your part but the time taken to set objectives will be repaid in benefits to you, your team, and the company. I view how to set goals and objectives to be an essential part of good team management.
When you are thinking of how to set goals and create an action plan it really helps to start with the end in mind. Think about what you are wanting or needing to achieve. The company, function or department strategy is a good place to start.
Setting objectives from the top down helps co-ordinate activities particularly when you are thinking about how to improve teamwork effectiveness across the company and within your own team.
Get the team involved in setting objectives. This significant improve buy-in to the objectives and goals. I think this also helps solve the how to improve teamwork and communication challenge when working through the goals and objectives in the different parts of the team.
Make sure the objectives are specific and everyone knows and understands exactly when we have reached the objective. Make your goals and objectives SMART.
And finally, plan how you are going to measure your progress and create visibility of progress with all team members and stakeholders. This helps drive accountability and engages peer pressure to support the overall team performance.
Enjoy managing and leading your team!
In “How to Price a Product for Retail” you’re going to discover what retailers really want when it comes to pricing. Your retail pricing strategy should be focused on what the retailer wants and needs and not simply what you want. So “How to Price a Product for Retail” explores 5 key retailer wants that will make all the difference to your product pricing and your retail pricing strategies.
Increasing your retail sales is a lot easier when you have your product pricing strategy right for both you and the retailer. Product pricing that is too low means you will not make enough profit to survive. Product pricing that is too high means that you may not even get a listing.
Knowing what retailers want will help you determine how to price a product. We take you through lots of tips making pricing retail products for your ideal retail partner that much easier.
In “How to Price a Product for Retail” we touch on various pricing strategies in retail as well as many of the metrics that retail buyers are personally measured on. What do retailers want are often guided by how the retailer assesses its buyers. Understanding this will guide you on how to price a product for profit.
Think about how you are able to help the retailer gain new customers and keep those customers and how to help the retailer attract customers to their store thus increasing their footfall.
The more relevant your product to the retailer’s store, the more they will want it and therefore pay for it. Think through the value of your product to each retailer you want to approach while help set your retail pricing.
Focus on delivering value to the retailer as well as keeping enough benefit for you. Both are needed to increase your sales over the long term.
Why we should set objectives for our team may seem obvious to some, yet many teams I started working with didn’t have objectives or specific goals to achieve.
Why set objectives?
Setting objectives or goals is a great place to start improving team performance at work. Setting goals for a team helps everyone. Objectives provide direction and focus, helps create accountability, and I think must be one of your team management techniques.
Setting objectives for a team does take time and effort yet gives a massive return on that investment by improving performance in the workplace. Delivering better results or improved performance of your team and achieving goals reflects well on your own team management skills.
For me, why we should set objectives for our team is a no-brainer – performance and happiness of the team improves. We all like to know what is expected of us, and in my experience most team members want to do a good job. Setting objectives and setting employee goals is a great tool to allow them and the manager to know when they have done a great job.
When you are managing a team within a larger business, setting objectives through the functions and teams helps improve business co-ordination. Each team supports the activities of the other teams rather than not-support or even hindering them. Objectives and goal setting help co-ordinate activities.
Setting goals and objectives are part of team leadership. To get the most from the work you put into setting objectives, you must keep reminding the team and individuals about their objectives, track progress to reaching your goals and coach and mentor the team members to help them achieve their goals.
If the team does well, the manager of that team usually does well.
If you haven’t set clear, specific objectives with your team, why not start now.
In “How to Give Performance Feedback to Team Members” I share how to tackle giving really useful feedback – positive and negative - to others on their performance that they will appreciate and that will help them improve what they do.
Giving performance feedback to employees can be hard to do. If feedback is negative, we are worried about offending the other person, creating resentment, ruining relationships, and making our own lives harder at work. When we are giving positive feedback, how to we make the feedback useful further improve performance or behaviours.
Giving feedback and constructive feedback is essential to help our colleagues and team members improve what they do. It is also essential for managers and leaders to receive employee feedback to help them improve their performance too.
Practicing giving feedback will improve how you deliver feedback. Start with giving positive feedback. Don’t just say “you have done a good job”, practice breaking down why they have done a good job and be specific in your feedback so that the other person understand exactly why you are giving positive feedback.
When you are more confident giving positive feedback, you will feel more confident having the more difficult conversations at work. No-one enjoys these conversations no matter how experienced they are, yet if you want performance to improve, you need to provide a balance of positive feedback and negative feedback.
With practice you learn how to give feedback and increase your confidence in doing so. I think you should always approach giving feedback with the other person’s development at heart and be honest with your feedback.
And lastly, research has shown that to keep an team member happy, you need to give positive feedback three times as much as negative feedback.
“How to Give Performance Feedback to Team Members” is written to help managers giving feedback to employees and can be used by anyone to improve the feedback that they give.
How to increase accountability in my team is a question that I have been asked many times by clients, team members and colleagues.
In this podcast, I explain why many managers find holding team members to account difficult and go through what you should do to make increasing accountability in your team much easier.
The benefits you get of increasing accountability in your team in terms of team performance and team morale far outweigh the work to increase accountability. Increasing accountability makes managing teams a lot easier and is an essential step in creating high performing teams.
How to increase accountability in a team is one of the essential skills of leadership and team management. I take you through my experiences and what has worked for me in many businesses include business turnaround and high growth business were team accountability is vital.
“How to Increase Accountability in My Team” has 6 key actions for you to take for creating and increasing accountability. Each will help you create the foundations to improve employee engagement, the team culture and team performance.
Setting expectations clearly and then following-up regularly are probably the two actions that are practiced the least by new and junior managers, yet both are vital to creating an accountability culture within your team.
I have had to take a team with very low team morale, with low accountability, in a failing business and turn around their performance and morale to deliver results to ensure the company did not fail. I used exactly the steps I go through in this podcast to achieve a dramatic team and business turnaround.
Use the tips and examples within this podcast to improve your management skills and leadership skills and enjoy managing and leading your team!
How to hire a successful team is a critical task for any manager or leader in a growing business. As a manager of a team your performance is closed linked to the performance of your team. Hiring the right team members can make or break a team.
In this Podcast “How to Hire a Successful Team - 7 Tips for Getting it Right”, I share my best tips of how to hire the right people for your team to help you deliver great team performance with a team you love working with.
When creating a high-performing teams, learning how to hire good employees that have a good cultural fit with existing team members is so important. The team will be more effective, will work together better and deliver great results.
We share tried and tested advice for hiring managers when thinking about how to hire employees. Build a team in the right way, and your job as a leader or manager will be so much more enjoyable and easier.
Looking at the statistics, having the wrong team members is one of the top three reasons for new business failures. And if you think larger businesses can escape poor hires, think again. The quality of the team impacts decisions at all levels. The more senior the decision maker, the larger the impact of those decisions. Plenty of large businesses fail because of poor decisions
If you listen to interviews or talks with the likes of Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg or in fact any leader from any growing business, one of the first things they talk about is how they go about hiring the right people to create a high-performance team.
We know that many managers and companies do an amazing job of hiring their staff. There are many more companies that do not do a great job because they have not taken the right steps to set themselves up for success.
Hiring the right people into your business or team is a critical activity for any growing company. Make sure you spend enough time setting up how you are going to hire well.
How to manage expectations at work are essential skills to learn and improve no matter what you do. Use these 5 tried and trusted steps do a brilliant job of setting expectations at work.
Set and manage expectations well and you will be:
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Easier to work with
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Colleagues will like you more because you don’t let them down
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You are perceived as
a. more professional
b. a team player
c. better at your job
- And you are more likely to be promoted.
Set expectations is common piece of advice for nearly any office worker, yet not many managers or colleagues take you through how to do this effectively.
As a result, many staff and managers are not effective at setting or managing of those they work with – their colleagues, manager, team members and other stakeholders.
Practice these 5 steps at work and build your confidence and your skill in managing expectations. Your happiness, stress levels and career will all thank you for it.
Setting expectations as a manager or leader is challenging because you have more moving parts and more peoples’ expectations to manage.
These 5 steps are super useful in how to set expectations with your boss and with setting expectations with employees.
Everyone likes to work with a person that sets and manages expectations and then delivers against those expectations time and time again. Work at your expectation management skills and it won’t take you long to be in these shoes.
How to Motivate a Team is a question many managers and leaders ask. In this video I take you through 10 tried and tested actions you should take to motivate your team.
I always felt that the more that I could do to improve the team, to train and coach them and get them thinking and involved in decisions then their motivation would increase, and this would encourage them to perform at their best. When this happens, everyone is a winner – the individuals, the manager, and the business.
How do you motivate your team?
There are many ways to motivate your team at work – it is important that you try different approaches that work with your style of management. Being genuine and authentic is a very important starting point.
Motivate your team as a leader by setting direction and goals. This gets everyone moving in a similar direction and is pretty essential if you want to achieve a lot and achieve the right results. I take you through practical tips on how to motivate a team to achieve results. By setting expectations and creating a plan of how each person can achieve the results, the team is well placed to deliver.
Another key action to take to motivate your team members is to say no and protect the team. I always appreciated a manager or leader who would look after the team and ensure that everyone had the best chance to do their work well.
And finally, positive reinforcement works so much better than criticising work not done as well. Find out how often you should complement staff vs criticise if you want to keep them happy – it is more than you think.
Enjoy leading and motivating your team!
How to Develop Your Best Team Members take you through 9 actions that you should take to get the most from your best team members and keeping them within your team.
How to develop your best team members is a pretty tough challenge as a manager. So if you are lucky enough to have one or more star performers on your team, how do you go about managing and developing them?
There are lots of options available, as I share lots of tips from my 25 years of managing and leading teams, in corporates and household names through to SMEs.
Keeping your star performers is a key team management goal and providing personal development to each team member is one of the best staff retention strategies I know. I view team development as one of key team management skills to learn.
Get more from your team by going through each of the 9 actions I recommend you consider implementing soon. Support the development of all team members and encourage them to develop their skills. I have found this a great way to motivate employees and get the best out of them.
Your best staff members will want responsibility and autonomy. I take you the Do’s and Don’t’s of giving responsibility and autonomy to your team members, giving you practical tips of how to do this.
Spend a portion of your time coaching and mentoring your direct reports to pass on your knowledge and expertise and develop problem solving skills in your team.
8 Ways to Improve Managing Teams Through Change shares 8 ways to improve managing teams through change, giving you a list of proven practical steps that you can put into place straight away.
Change is constant in today’s workplace, so managing staff through change is also a fairly constant job for anyone managing teams in business.
Managing teams is not easy at the best of times and during periods of change, even harder. Use the experience I have build up in over 25 years of managing teams through significant change to improve how effectively you are managing your team and particularly through periods of change.
Communicating with and managing the relationships with your team members remains at the heart of being an effective manager. Periods of change draw even more heavily on the skills of managers to keep teams effective and happy.
In “How to Motivate Teams Through Change” I take you through 8 factors - that if you get right – make a huge difference in motivating teams through change (and are very useful in day to day management)
In “5 Steps to Manage Difficult Employees” I take you through 5 tried and tested steps to make managing difficult employees easier.
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In this podcast “5 Steps to Manage Difficult Employees” I explain why, as a manager, doing nothing about difficult employees is the worst option for all concerned. You must take action no matter how difficult it is.
Taking action can be daunting and it is certainly emotionally and energy draining. So use these 5 steps to make taking action easier and fairer for you, your team and the difficult employee.
Connect with us:
Website https://enhance.training/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/enhancetrainingandcoaching
LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/en-enhance/
In this podcast “How do I Prepare for a Management Interview” we take you through 5 key areas you must include in your preparation if you want to get that job offer.
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Take a look at the online resources and courses we offer to job-hunters: https://enhance.training/job-hunting-courses-and-resources/
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In this podcast “How do I Prepare for a Management Interview” takes a look at 5 key areas you need to consider and prepare for other than just answering all the typical interview questions a manager might expect.
The more senior the management role you are applying for, the more the skills of management and leadership become important. Learn how to bring these skills out in the best way during the interview, what examples to prepare, what questions to ask and more.
How to Combine Pricing Strategies to Maximise Price takes you through why combining pricing strategies with marketing strategies can produce fantastic results for your business and your customers and consumers.
In this Podcast “How to Combine Pricing Strategies to Maximise Price” we go through how to combine Cost Plus, Competitive and Value pricing strategies, how to maximise your price compared to the value that you offer and take a look at why finding the right comparisons to your products is crucial.
And of course we have tips and examples to highlight successes gained from this approach.
In this Podcast we take you through how value pricing can benefit your product and your business. We look at why it is seen as the most profitable way to price your product and whether it is applicable to you.
When pricing your product, you really should be value pricing.
Pricing can be confusing, and I appreciate it is tempting to add up your costs and ‘just add a bit’ or to copy what someone else is charging. However, while this might be quick, it really is unlikely to be doing your product justice.
You have most likely spent hours and hours on product design, packaging, marketing so make sure you put the same attention into your pricing. Your customers and your pockets will thank you for it.
Whilst there are other pricing methods available to you, this podcast is going to tell you why value based pricing is the one that you should put forward first and why it is the one that will make you the most profit.
Listen to tips shared by Anna Taylor who has over 15 years pricing experience working in commercial finance with sales and marketing. Anna has worked at top tier companies such as Cadbury’s, SAB Miller, Asahi and Unilever and she now uses her skills for the benefit of a wider range of companies, just like yours.
Make sure you give yourself the best chance of increased profits from your pricing.
Interviews are competitive - sometimes very competitive – so the right preparation is a must if you want to get that job offer. And the higher up the career ladder you do, the competition gets tougher because there are less jobs and the competition is better and just like you.
In this podcast, I talk about how much preparation you should do for professional level jobs and above, the four key factors that will decide if you pass or fail, and I give you nine key tips for preparing for your interview.
And for more tips and help for winning job offers, visit our website: https://enhance.training/
Why should you improve interview technique may seem like a no-brainer to some of you thinking about getting a new job. And to others you might be asking how my does interview technique really matter – surely I will get a job based on my skills, experience and attitude not how brilliantly I answers questions.
Which approach is right?
In this podcast we set out 9 key factors that go into interview technique, how much interview technique really matters in an interview and at the end of the podcast we give you three options on how to improve your techniques.
In this podcast we take you through competitive pricing and we show you why copying isn’t always the best answer.
When you don’t know how to price your product, it is tempting to look at the competition and use their prices as a basis for yours. But what happens if you end up copying the wrong answer? Or what happens if your competition reacts to your price; what should you do then?
It is said that ‘Pricing is either your most powerful weapon or your worst enemy.’
We have created this product pricing series to provide tips to help you make pricing work for you and certainly not be your enemy! In this second episode we look at what competitive pricing is, who uses it, why it’s great and not forgetting those all-important watch outs too. You will soon be in a better position to price your product.
In this podcast we take you through business lessons learnt from 2020.
We have surveyed colleagues and clients, leaders and directors in multi-national companies and small businesses about what they have learned in 2020. We have discussed the major impacts and the key business lessons that we should take forward. These have been grouped these into 7 main 2020 lessons for you.
2020 has been a challenging year but rather than simply banishing it from memory let’s learn from it. Let’s learn the business lessons it threw at us, so we are more resilient, more adaptable, and more successful in years to come.
In this podcast we take you through the method that 80% of businesses use as part of their product pricing. Cost plus pricing. It is one of the founding pricing methods but is it too basic or can it still be key to business success?
It is said that ‘Pricing is either your most powerful weapon or your worst enemy.’
We have created this product pricing series to provide tips to help you make pricing work for you and certainly not be your enemy! In this first episode we look at what cost plus pricing is, who uses it, why it’s great and not forgetting those all-important watch outs too. You will be in a better position to price your product.
Succession Planning is absolutely in your interests if you are a business owner or a person seeking promotion.
It can also be very useful to attract and retain great employees, increase the value and performance of a business and reduce the stress when one of your team moves on.
Find out why in this video as we share tips on how to set up effective business planning and discuss why many people worry about putting succession planning in place.
2020 has been an unforgettable year with massive changes in business environment. Business planning remains essential for those business looking to outperform through these turbulent times.
This podcast gives you ideas and 4 steps to make your planning flexible and adaptive to rapidly changing situations and events, thus keeping your plan useful and relevant.
“An hour of planning can save you 10 hours of doing”. A quote from Dale Carnegie sums up planning brilliantly.
Learn how to write a great cover letter with the tips and examples within this podcast.
The purpose of writing a good cover letter is to make your application stand out and improve your chance of being invited to interview.
Too few job applicants write a covering letter or if they do, they waste the opportunity with a generic or poor covering letter.
In this podcast, we take you through how to structure your cover letter, what to include and what not to, and we provide you examples for each section.
Working capital – what is it and why should I care about it?
Working capital is the biggest investment most businesses make, sometimes without realising it. Don’t manage your working capital well, and your business could fail.
In this podcast we explain exactly what working capital is using every day language and share some simple examples.
Working capital is an a essential part of running any business from start ups to global corporates. Listen to our podcast to find out why.
Starting a new job is an exciting time, but it can also be overwhelming. Creating a clear 30-60-90 day plan can help you adjust to your new position quickly and effectively. In this video, we discuss a 30-60-90 day plan for managers, explain how to create the 30-60-90 day plan and provide useful tips to help you get started on your own
In “30-60-90 Day Plan for Managers” we cover what is a 30-60-90 day plan and take you through why creating a 30 60 90 day plan as early as possible is absolutely in your best interests - particularly if you are starting a new management job. We discuss how you should use your 30 60 90 day plan during the interview process and how it will help you during your first few months of a new role and in passing probation.
We also share in the video a set of questions for you to answer that will make starting your plan a lot easier. These questions and the areas we discuss will help you cover a good range of areas that you should consider when building your 30 60 90 day plan.
You have put a lot of hard work into getting your new job. Use a 30 60 90 Day Plan to get yourself off to a flying start in your role and impress your new colleagues and manager. Having a plan will reduce your stress levels and allow you to take in more during those first few weeks. Your happiness and career will thank you for it.
We take you through how to create a great answer to “What are your strengths”, the classic interview question.
This question or a variation is expected by all interview candidates, so to beat your competition you need a better answer than they give.
We provide lots of tips for you to decide on your strengths, we talk through what the interviewer is looking for and provide example answers
What is your management style is a frequently asked interview question and preparing a good answer is a must.
In this podcast, we take you through what the interviewer is looking for, how to structure your answer and give you example answers for junior and senior manager positions
In this podcast we take you through how to answer the “Where do you see yourself in 5 years” interview question and talk you through five pitfalls to avoid.
This interview question seems fairly easy to answer yet it can be easy to talk yourself out of a job with this question.
This make this interview question tough to answer well and it definitely pays to plan out your answer in advance. Use this podcast to understand what is being asked and learn how to structure a great answer.
We have also included two example answers useful for professionals to senior managers.
Why are you looking for a new job is asked during every interview process and it may even be asked in each interview you attend.
Say the wrong thing and you can quickly be out of the running for the job - so it is important to plan your answer to this question.
In this podcast we are going to take you though what the interviewer is looking for and how to structure your answer. And we have lots of tips and examples throughout the podcast.
What is Value Pricing and when should I be using it?
Anna, with over 15 years working in top FMCG companies like Cadburys and SAB Millar, takes you through what Value Pricing is and when it should be used.
Get great tips and learn the basics of value pricing. Your business will thank you for it.
In this podcast on pricing strategy, we are going to explore five eye-opening reasons why your business will thank you if you give pricing strategy the attention it deserves. Five reasons that will make you want to get your pricing strategy right.
Pricing is one of the classic “4 Ps” of marketing (product, price, place, promotion) and whilst we love pouring over the other 3, pricing often gets left out or left until last, almost as an afterthought.
In this podcast we let you discover why a pricing strategy will make a difference to your business and your profitability.
Listen to tips shared by Anna Taylor who has over 15 years pricing experience working in commercial finance with sales and marketing. Anna has worked at top tier companies such as Cadbury’s, SAB Miller, Asahi and Unilever and she now uses her skills for the benefit of a wider range of companies, just like yours.
Make sure you give yourself a better change of being successful.
How to price a product for retail? First you need to put yourself in the retailer’s shoes. Imagine you are the retailer. What do retailers want? Retailing is a tough environment. Even before COVID-19 hit us, retailers have had to work hard to juggle declining footfall, increased competition from online and increasing costs. However, they hold the key to your consumers, to the people you want to sell to. To get your products to more people, you need retailers. To grow your business, you need to sell your products into more stores.
In this podcast we take you through the key considerations you need to make when setting your pricing for the retailer.
Anna Taylor has pend over 15 years working with top FMCG companies such as Caburys, Uniliver, and SAB Miller and she is going to share some of her amazing knowledge with you, so you can price better and sell more.
Getting a new job can be a stressful and time-consuming process. It can be disheartening when you are sending your CV to companies and not getting interviews. Or you might be getting interviews but not at the companies you want. Reduce the frustration by working on improving your CV using the tips in this podcast.
Jess Coles shares his experience of reviewing 1,000’s of CVs while a hiring manager for over 20 years of his career. Jess has recruited CEOs to junior staff and has worked at top tier companies such as Innocent Drinks. Fosters, EY and many mid-sized businesses.
Make sure your CV gets you to the next stage of the job selection process and you get the job that you want.
Going to interviews can be a stressful nerve-racking experience, even for those with plenty of experience. The nerves, worrying about what interview questions are going to be asked and will you have a good answer for them. Being in the spotlight and quizzed on your experience, what you think and have done is not most people’s idea of fun.
Interviews can be a fun challenge, a duel between you and the interviewer. You want to talk about all the good stuff; the interviewer wants to know about some of the bad stuff. Who wins depends a lot on how well you prepare for the interview.
Listen to interview tips shares by Jess Coles who has sat in over 1,000 interviews as a hiring manager and recruited CEOs to junior staff. Jess has worked at top tier companies such as Innocent Drinks. Fosters, EY and many mid-sized businesses.
Make sure you succeed at interview and get the job that you want.