Confidence

Oct 21 2013

7 TIPS TO DEAL WITH CONFRONTATION

How many times have you got caught up in an argument that if just one of you had been less defensive, could have been resolved or at least diffused, if handled better?

Here’s 7 tips on how to control your own demeanour and, in turn, the potential landmine that an argument can be.

Take a deep breath just before the confrontation or during it. This lowers your heartbeat and blood pressure.
Breathe a little slower, again, the amount of adrenaline running through your body also drops.
Take 5 minutes, if you can, quickly rehearse what you are going to say to someone. Make key points of your argument.
Get to know what triggers your anger. Prepare a new response to that trigger. By doing this you are aware of the buttons people can push to elicit a certain response.
Make the person aware of how confrontational they are being. Saying something like ‘why are you shouting at me?’, ‘Why are you being so aggressive’. This turns the energy back on the person and lets them look at themselves for a minute, this might calm them down as people get lost in the moment.
Turn all the attention back on the person you are arguing with. ‘You seem really angry about that!’. This can have the same effect of point 5.
Don’t get sucked into their arguments. The purpose of an argument is to manipulate you into losing one, thereby showing the other person they are superior.

Consider this story…

I drove past someone who lived on our estate and he was walking his dog. He was on the pavement as I drove past. I pulled into the driveway then heard this guy shouting at me. He walked aggressively and I prepared myself for a confrontation as I hadn’t a clue what had happened. The conversation went as follows;

“You soaked my dog”, I looked at his dog and suddenly realised I must have driven through a puddle. Inside, I questioned the absurdity of this man looking for a fight because some water had gone over his dog. I said

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realise.”’

“You did soak him, you went through a puddle and soaked him.”

“I said, apologies for soaking your dog I didn’t realise” repeating what I had said before. His demeanour changed.

“Well you did and I’m pissed off!”

“I can see you are, but it was an accident”. As he turner to walk away, he added “

I’m sorry I was so angry, it’s just it happened last night as well with somebody else.”

“It’s okay, I understand. See you later” I replied.

This shows that different things annoy different people, but it’s easy to deal with their behaviour if you point out how they are behaving.

If there are anger issues within your workplace, give Neil a call on 07761 187238 or email info@coachingtosuccess.co.uk to arrange a free, no obligation consultation and discuss what issues are affecting you.

Jun 04 2013

60yrs as a ‘Confident’ figure head. 10 tips to aid with YOUR own confidence

60yrs at the helm and our Queen makes an exceptional role model for confidence. From the off-set, our monarch had a difficult task ahead of her and at such an early age whilst having lost her father too. Yet, has always come across competent and confident.

Confidence is something we all lack at some point in our life so here are 10 steps to help you become the ‘Ruler’ of your own destiny.

Set goals – As a Business Coach, this is one of the most fundamental things we work on. By setting specific goals, actions and a timeline, you commit yourself to achieving something and this encourages confidence through commitment.
Improve conversational skills – This isn’t just being able to talk for England (our Sovereign can do that for us) but the ability to make eye contact, a good listener and offer opinion without shirking away or becoming too vociferous. This gives off positive vibes that the people around you will ‘feel’ and then perceive you as being a confident person.
Try new things – Not only can you develop new skills but it allows you to try things not experienced before and this, in turn, enables you to accept new skills and confidence by helping you grow as a person.
Small steps – As a child takes their first teetering steps, building confidence is no different. Start small, ie at the next scheduled meeting/conference, promise to yourself that you will vocalise your opinion. Decide to hold your head up high throughout the day and smile to everyone you meet… small gradual steps and eventually you’ll be giving the main opening speech at National conferences … hmm, ok … but it IS possible!
Be happy with Yourself – Be happy with the person you are whilst having a positive attitude is key to achieving confidence.
Seek out professionals – Sometimes it’s just that extra push or support that will help you overcome the initial barrier. Purchase DVDs, Audio files, books, the guidance from a counsellor or coach (hello!) to reach your potential. All can offer strategies to help you move forward.
Get engaged – New experiences at work improve skillsets and personal growth. Look to take up the ‘Leadership’ role or join a group of which you will need to participate in.
Practice being confident – ‘Acting’ confident encourages the end result. The old expression of “Fake it ‘til you make it” is very fitting! Inside your stomach may be turning in knots but once you start to experience the interest others have and look to you for inspiration, pretense will soon fade into practice.
Use positive affirmations – Visualise yourself as a confident person. Check your history file in your memory banks of times that you were successful and tell yourself that you are a confidant person, believe in this and smother negative thoughts before they have chance to grow.
Watch role models – Such as the Queen, people in Politics, those in the limelight or even your own working groups or friends/family, finding confident role models can help you become more confident yourself. Rather than just accept what they do, observe and learn their traits.

Regardless of how confident we appear to others (See #8), we all have areas or situations that a boost could help us, so, If you are one of those forward thinking individuals or wishing to portray yourself as being more confident, take the first step by speaking to someone who can help. Call us to arrange a free consultation by contacting Neil (07761 187238) or throw us an email at info@coachingtosuccess.co.uk. We’re here to help, after all … Our business is YOUR success.

Dec 31 2012

MOTIVATION… WHO DRIVES YOURS?

The fun and festivities of Christmas and New Year will soon become fond memories as we drive forward into 2013… Oh, and on that note ‘Happy New Year’ to you. So with regards getting up on damp, dark and cold mornings, what’s going to be your motivational push?

One of our primary motivators is to work on our strengths rather than highlighting potential weaknesses! However, sometimes we don’t really know what our core strengths are in ourselves or for those we’re responsible for.

As an example, let’s use the Olympics and the gold medal winners. We have Greg Rutherford who took it in the Long Jump, Tirunesh Dibaba took the 10,000km, Barbora Spotakova secured the Javelin and Usain Bolt took the 100m. Now the team coach/manager wouldn’t look to someone like Usain to compete in Greg’s given strength or Barbora to run in Tirunesh’s given sport of long distance running. Each have different skill sets and different characteristics from endurance to knowing when to jump or release the javelin to give it the greatest distance or have muscles that explode with power for the sprint! Bosses, Managers, Leaders all too very often miss out on individuals strengths and focus on weaknesses as do we with ourselves and this can be such a demotivate outcome when criticism is handed out under the banner ‘areas for improvement’!

Negative feedback often gets us, or those we distribute it to, to become defensive and the desired result is rarely obtained as we seldom believe what is being said is actually true but more of a personal attack! The outcome is usually that we don’t feel ‘motivated’ to do anything about it. However, think back, when praised we feel like we are doing something worthwhile, we feel appreciated and seek to receive the same ‘reward’ by continuing with the positive behaviour.

A tool that coaches often use is to create our own survey on how others see our strengths and is known as ‘The Reflected Best Self’. So how do we go about achieving this, here we go…

PUT OUT A SURVEY … Choose 10 people (Existing colleagues/boss, clients/customers, old acquaintances, family members, friends … generally, a broad spectrum of people who know or have known you). Ask them to consider what they believe to be your strengths complemented with an example so it quantifies what they are writing. Also, stress that this isn’t simply ‘work’ orientated but aligns to what they see in you as a person.
IS THERE A THEME APPEARING? … When you have them all back, group the responses into ‘theme’ groups. There will be the obvious ones you’ve always been aware of but you will undoubtedly find new ones that you hadn’t even realised others see within you because this is something that’s natural to you and you just take it for granted!
CREATE YOUR ‘STRENGTH PROFILE’ … take the key strengths that emerge and write a few paragraphs that summarize what you are really good at. The purpose of this is two-fold, one, this acts as a support when confidence may somewhat escape you and, two, it will help you guide forthcoming actions and choices.
PLAY TO THESE STRENGTHS … so you now have your list of strengths, how do these fit in with your current role? Are you playing to these strengths? If you’re great at analytical work but not so hot on cold-calling, is there someone else within your firm, team, organisation, that are more people orientated that could do that task and you get on with accumulating data? I think you get the idea.

This simple exercise allows you to truly understand your own strengths as well as those within your responsibilities (or even suggest this to your manager/director as a good idea to consider) and by playing to your strengths your SELF MOTIVATION will improve accordingly resulting in not only a better outcome but one that you’ll wish to continue pursuing.

Coaching to Success helps firms/companies and the people therein to develop motivation through such activities both one to one and in teams whilst also building confidence through the benefit of praise within the workplace. If this is an area you are looking to develop within your working environment to either simply increase the positive atmosphere or to improve performance, take the next step by speaking to someone who can help. Call us to arrange a free consultation by contacting Neil (07761 187238) or throw us an email at info@coachingtosuccess.co.uk. We’re here to help.

Dec 04 2012

How great are you at making decisions? Here’s a tool to help you out

This is such an easy tool to use yet so frequently we struggle with options, we do our pros and cons lists or we just let things rattle around in our head without being totally happy with our final choice.

This is a logical way of getting to that final decision and allows you to find peace with yourself on the decision you make, giving you the confidence through its rationality and can make you stand out as the decision maker when others around you are struggling.

This tool is simply called ‘GRID ANALYSIS’. To start off with, you need to consider two lists. The first is the OPTIONS shown in the row and FACTORS needing to be considered shown in the columns. Then you give each a score in the matrix which gets totalled at the end. May sound a bit too complex to some but it’s truly easy.

Okay, so here goes…

FIRST List your options as the rows on your table. Along the heading, write the factors needing to be considered as the column headings (these can be anything that matters, like cost, availability, service level, maintenance, reliability, dimensions etc).

SECOND Score against each of these headings against the options, these may be supplier, candidate for promotion, product whatever it may be. The score should range between 0 (Worst) to 5 (Best) and score relevantly not differently! By this I mean that if all score 2, then, so be it. You don’t have to be concerned about whether the score matches or not but that you give it a true reflection of what you believe it to be worth.

THIRD Now ‘Weight’ the importance of the factor in your overall relative importance (eg if the items were cost, practicality, reliability, quality you may rate them cost(4), Practicality(1), Reliability(3) and quality(4)… again, it doesn’t matter if a few have the same ratings). Create a row at the top or bottom of your options and write this value.

FORTH take each of your scores set against each factor/option and multiply this by the weight. So, let’s say we were looking to buy a camera. Supplier ‘A’ scored 4 on reliability so based on the previous weighting, this would equate to 4×3=12, whereas, Supplier ‘B’ may only score 2 on this factor, ergo 2×3=6 etc etc

FIFTH is the final stage where you total all the scores at the end of the row and the highest score represents the strongest option to work with

As an example, we’ll use the camera idea from before. The number before the line goes through it is the initial score, the number next to it is the total having used the weighting factor (hopefully that’s clear enough)

FACTOR	Cost	Practicality	Reliability	Quality	TOTAL
Weighting	3	2	4	4	N/A
Camera 1	4 12	3 6	5 20	4 16	54
Camera 2	5 15	1 2	2 8	5 20	25
Camera 3	2 6	5 10	3 12	5 20	48

From this, it is clear to see that Camera Two was never really in the running but One and Three were close, however, by adopting this approach, a clear winner (Camera One is ‘exposed’ as being the right one to go for – sorry, bad pun but you get the idea)

And there you have it, a Grid Analysis tool that helps you to decide between several options, where there are many different factors needing to be considered.

And you can also use this tool to help select that all important Business coach that you need in your organisation, just remember to add Coaching to Success to the Row and speak to us concerning areas that we can help with, costing, availability, benefit, ‘fun’ (always an important element to learning or striving forward with new goals or objectives) and call Neil on 07761 187238… well, it’s worth a try by us isn’t it?

Nov 05 2012

Derren Brown – Apocalypse… It’s all about the presentation!

Whether you believe in his abilities, whether you enjoy what he does, the mastery of Mr Brown’s Stage and TV presence is unquestionably all about presentation!

So how are you, your Firm or Company presenting itself or your case to the world?

KNOW THE SUBSTANCE OF YOUR DISCUSSION – So obvious it can sometimes be ignored! Research is key. Don’t make assumptions and now where your weak areas are so you can work on these. A strong presentation given with the confidence knowledge brings is a winner.
KNOW YOUR LIMITATIONS – As a business coach, I’m always pushing clients to stretch out of what we refer to as our comfort zone, however, it is still wise to know what our ‘true’ limitations are. Align these with knowing your subject matter and your audience and you’re well on your way to delivering a memorable presentation that befits both parties.
KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE – as alluded to, depending on the circumstances, knowing your audience will vary from one situation to another whether you are in court presenting your client’s case or to a board of directors or to a team of like-minded individuals to name but a few scenarios… try to understand their mind-set and play to that strength. Humour, where appropriate helps with the absorption of information (we learn things quicker and more in-depth if we enjoy what we’re taking on board, same thing applies here)
WHAT’S THE PURPOSE – You could be presenting a case, looking to get funding, coming up with new marketing campaigns or quite simply (going back to Derren) to create something that will entertain… keep reminding yourself of the purpose for this presentation.
KNOW WHAT YOU’RE SAYING AND WHAT YOU’RE ABOUT TO SAY – Prepare a script! It doesn’t need to be lengthy or wordy or full of everything you wish to relay and can be as easy as writing some bullet point notes on cards. The most important fact is to make sure you don’t waffle on inanely. Get your message across in a succinct fashion, even if presenting in a formal environment, where a fully transcribed document is required.

Coaching to Success have helped firms/companies and the people therein to develop and deliver strong presentations to put there point across in a way that’s befitting the circumstances.

Coaching concentrates on your abilities, the lack of self-conviction and the strength within teams or individuals to allow them to stand shoulders higher than their nearest rivals. If this is an area you are looking to venture into, take the next step by speaking to someone who can help and call us to arrange a free consultation on how we can, contact Neil (07761 187238) or throw us an email at info@coachingtosuccess.co.uk… We’re here to help