Coaching to Success

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Leadership

Do you listen, ‘Truly’ listen to what the other person is saying?

You may have come across a book called “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” by the recently deceased Stephen Covey, if not, it’s a good book for those wishing to become truly effective

Out of the 7 habits, one of my personal favourites is #5 “First Seek to Understand, THEN to be understood” and this is what this week’s feature is about.

In the early days of sales and retail, I soon learned that your sales would improve once you started to LISTEN to clients’ needs and NOT what I had to sell. Whether it was a ‘Deal of the week’ item or not, if it fitted their needs, great, they got double satisfaction but first and foremost the art of Listening was paramount to a successful sale.

As a coach, this is a skillset which has been enhanced to insure I hear what isn’t being said as well as what, on the surface is! From here, further incisive questions are asked, then more listening is required to reach a specific objective for clients to obtain their goals.

So how can we improve our listening skills both at work and home to help others and, in turn, ourselves as a result of this? First, look at the following questions and respond honestly with as many answers you believe relevant against each one.

How effective are my Listening Skills?

  1. When listening to someone, I’m likely to:
  2. I interrupt people when:
  3. If I had to choose between speaking and listening, I’d chose to …… because:
  4. Listening comes easy to me when:
  5. When people express their emotions, I feel:
  6. If I can’t have my say, I feel:
  7. I find it easy to listen to people when:
  8. I become easily distracted when listening if:
  9. People I tend to find it difficult to listen to include:
  10. The best listener I know is …… because:

Now review what you have learned about yourself as a listener and list these out.

Once accomplished, complete the following statements:

  1. I know I actively listen well when:
  2. Habits I find irritating in a person speaking comprise of:
  3. To become even more effective at listening, I need to:

With a clearer understanding of your own foibles and strengths, write down what you will work on to improve your skillset.

How often have you started a conversation about something that has happened to you and before you even finish what you’re saying, another party has taken over the story with their own examples? We are all guilty of having what others say trigger our episodic memory but some of us learn that this conversation is not about Our needs but actually to ‘Listen’, in full to the other party.

So once you have mastered the skill of listening, the next step is to quell the desire to re-iterate our own examples into the situation unless it will be ‘truly’ beneficial to the other party.

If you are finding that there doesn’t appear to be anyone around to really listen to your concerns, ideas or plans or feel that an external person to your current situation who will ‘Listen’, truly listen to what you have to say, please contact the author, Neil on 07761 187238 or email neil@coachingtosuccess.co.uk and if you’re online, have a look at his interview video at https://youtu.be/RvCwOL4hPco where you’ll be assured a warm welcome to discuss how we can help.

To employ, Or not to employ … That is the question

Things are starting to look up and business is moving forward. Time to expand … hang on though! That involves recruitment! How do we know we’ll get the right person(s)?

Swiftly we go from a positive outlook to uncertainty, questioning if it’s the right thing to do! And that step forward becomes less attractive! Has this raised questions within your own company I wonder?

We’re not recruiters but what we do know is people are your biggest investment and, as importantly, your biggest asset so what happens when you take the plunge and bring them on board?

When employed you might expect them to be up and running straight away and forget it takes some a little longer to settle in!

If, they simply don’t seem to understand WHAT you’re telling them, this might be because of HOW you’re telling them!

Consider the following 7 Learning traits that we all fall into. See what your preferred style is and then how you go about understanding those coming on board thus helping/teaching the new recruit(s) according to ‘their’ thinking. Stephen Covey’s habit #5 depicts “Seek first to understand… Then to be understood”, master this and you will lead the way to communicating with those important assets.

VISUAL (SEEING):

  • Prefer colour, layout, and spatial organisation in your relationship with ‘Visual’ words in your dialect (eg not just “It was large” but “It was as big as a hot-air balloon”).
  • Use images, pictures and other visual media with colour highlighting major/minor associations.

AURAL (HEARING):

  • Use sound to provide a background aiding visualisations.
  • When creating reminders, make the most of rhythm and rhyme. Set them to create a jingle.

VERBAL (LINGUISTIC):

  • Use role-playing to teach verbal exchanges such as negotiations sales or cold calls.
  • Record your teachings and use it later for reviews.
  • When you read content aloud, make it dramatic and varied.

KINESTHETIC (FEELING-TACTILE-PHYSICAL)

  • Introduce writing and drawing of diagrams in your teaching.
  • Use physical objects as much as possible.
  • Describe the physical feelings of your actions.

LOGICAL (MATHEMATICS)

  • They may find it challenging to change existing behaviours or habits.
  • Create systems thinking to help understanding the bigger picture.
  • Create and use lists by extracting key points from the teaching material.

SOCIAL (INTERPERSONAL):

  • Sharing key information with others in groups aiding understanding by exploring all variations on a theme.
  • Ask they share ideas and present to other people.
  • Introduce role-playing.

SOLITARY (INTERNAL-EMOTIONAL):

  • Self-study and solitude learning is preferred.
  • Modelling is a powerful technique to help them associate themselves internally with others.
  • Align objectives/goals with their beliefs and values.

The most important thing is to understand that we are not all the same and people aren’t being awkward or belligerent, it’s just that they may not ‘see’ things the same way as you (oops! That’s just given away my thinking style! Did you spot it?).

Coaching to Success use a myriad of tools to help get messages across to employees through their workshops and one-to-one sessions, should you be in a position to undergo employing new members of staff, contact Neil on 07761 187238 or email neil@coachingtosuccess.co.uk for an informal conversation to see how we can help increase the productivity of new staff or other matters concerning business development.

 

 

 

 

Some tips on how to communicate stronger by knowing other’s preferred thinking senses!

Understanding these can assist communication channels immensely as human beings process information by using the five senses of seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling and tasting. These allow the mind to code and understand what is happening. Some will be more developed or favoured than the others and it is these preferred senses that will be used to represent their world.

Once aware of this, you can detect the preferred sense of anyone you are talking to. Then you can adapt the way you speak to enhance the other party’s understanding.

Eg Jill “I feel like he’s not in touch with his team”, Mike “I hear what you’re saying, we seem to be on the same wavelength but how do we get him to listen?” … Jill is obviously tactile whereas Mike is auditory.

Here are some commonly heard conversational clues to see which area people feel comfortable in:

 

‘Seeing’ or ‘Visual’:

  • I get the picture
  • See what I mean
  • That is colourful, coming from you
  • Show me what you mean
  • We’ll look back on this someday

‘Hearing’ or ‘Auditory’:

  • Sounds good to me
  • Clear as a bell
  • I just turned a deaf ear to…
  • I hear what you say
  • Ah, that’s music to my ears

‘Feeling’, ‘Tactile’ or ‘Kinaesthetic’:

  • I feel good about this
  • He’ll get the sharp end of my tongue
  • I cannot get a grip on this
  • I felt right at home
  • The pressure to complete was incredible

 

‘Smelling’ or ‘Olfactory’:

  • This smells fishy
  • I smell a rat
  • As sweet as a rose
  • He had a nose for which direction to go

 

‘Tasting’ or ‘Gustatory’:

  • Let us chew it over
  • Like eating a piece of cake
  • It left a nasty taste
  • She’s so sweet

 

Although the last two are rare, a further clue is that olfactory types will often sniff before they make a decision – to see if it smells right and gustatory people may smack their lips or make swallowing sounds – to get the taste.

 

EXERCISE:

As fast as you can, using the answer that immediately feels right for you, tick one from each of the three options given in the sections below.

 

I like to learn by…

(   )   Seeing how to do it

(   )   Hearing a talk

(   )   Having a go, hands-on

 

I make decisions by…

(   )   Getting a clear picture

(   )   Finding out how it sounds

(   )   Attending to my gut feeling

 

I buy things based on…

(   )   Colour, style and appearance

(   )   Its description, sound or salesperson’s patter

(   )   The feel of the thing

 

I find it easier to…

(   )   Draw a picture

(   )   Sing or hum a tune

(   )   Play sport

 

By opting mainly for the first statement, you are probably primarily visual.

Selecting the middle option suggests that you are primarily auditory.

The third option indicates a kinaesthetic preference.

 

Improved communication and productivity can be obtained by listening first, understanding the other person’s preferred thinking sense and conversing in that style. It will assist in offering clarity and a stronger likelihood that your message will be understood.

 

If you want to better understand the way you communicate to others and how you can increase engagement, contact Coaching to Success’ Neil Nutburn, email neil@coachingtosuccess.co.uk or call 07761 187238 to set up a meeting to discuss areas that could help.

 

Coaching to success is all about creating successful businesses, firms and organisations. We’re here to insure you succeed.

How to achieve the best from appraisals

As is the nature of what I do, ie ask a lot of questions to gain clarity of thought and direction, it wasn’t surprising when I was recently asked to help a client with appraisals.

This brought about a shudder running down my spine remembering days where the big boss would hold appraisals. Or rather, interrogation, where you felt placed in beaming spotlights, asked a myriad of questions extracted from some manual that bore no resemblance to what you actually did.

Bombardment of questions with answers not even considered. A one way conversation on how you need to improve is not, I know this will be hard to believe for some, the correct way to hold an appraisal!

Remove the shackles of normality, re-look at what the appraisal should be about. This is a joint venture for all to develop better ways to harmonise the workforce. Dare I say, ways for the company/manager to also improve as a result of observations from the staff! Now there’s a thought.

Fine tune your LISTENING skills too. Avoid the ‘Why’ question (justification) and ask questions that open with What, Where, How, Who, When (exploratory), eg ‘What would the reason for this be’.

Prepare a report of the appraisee.

  • List training needs and discuss.
  • Note both what organisation and the appraise needs to do.
  • Look back – how well has the appraisee performed against set actions
  • How could they have done better?
  • Look objectively, not emotionally. Work off ‘evidence’ based aspects.
  • What hurdles did the company put in their way as well as what they put themselves
  • Look forward – what achievements are you looking for over the next 6mth/yr
  • How will you assist them in reaching their objectives?
  • Draft a report within 3 working days, both sign and conclude the process within 5 days

Art of listening

  • Show the appraisee that you are listening – look at them
  • Listen to what they DON’T say – look for avoidance around issues
  • STOP TALKING! – once asked, let the appraise answer. If there’s a pause, allow them time to process what they are thinking about.

Conducting

  • Review appraisee’s documents (ie time keeping, job description, client/customer feedback etc)
  • Allow at least half as much time again as anticipated to carry out the appraisal
  • Highlight success and initiatives taken.
  • Question how failings could be handled better (without reprimanding!)

Feedback

  • All evidence based. NOT around personality or assumed motives
  • Provide examples and not generalisation of observed behaviours
  • Ask appraisee to describe their thoughts and feelings about the impact that an identified behaviour will have (ask rather than tell)
  • As Stephen R. Covey stated “First seek to understand, then to be understood”. Use this philosophy throughout the questioning in the appraisal. Both will get so much more from it

Before any meeting, create questions under headings such as Job & Expectations, Supervisory, Fulfilment & Morale, Continued Personal Development (CPD), Teamwork, Equality & Impartiality, Communication, Organisation’s Overview, Clients/Customers so you gain a broad spectrum of understanding and this can then be analysed to create further questions at the one-to-one meetings.

If you wish to go through the process of Appraisals and want to get the best out of managing them or help running them, contact Coaching to Success’ Neil Nutburn, email neil@coachingtosuccess.co.uk or call 07761 187238 to set up discussions. We also have 60 incisive questions based on the above headings too.

Coaching to success is all about creating successful businesses, firms and organisations. We’re here to insure you succeed.

The 9 Hit list of common time-management mistakes … Prt 2 of 2!

Part 2 of 2: A fortnight ago we started off by discussing the first 5 parts of mistakes so commonly made in managing the tasks we have in the time to achieve them. How we manage the task is what is imperative. Time continues regardless and there are always 60 minutes in an hour, 24hrs in a day and 168hrs in in week no matter how you look at it.

See how many you’re guilty of! Here’s to the start of insuring you spend your time wisely and, in turn, create wealth for your business or time for the family or friends…

  1. PROCRASTINATION

This is the mother of all distractions from taking us away from important tasks. There are a myriad of reasons why we put things off and find other, often menial in comparison. Maybe you’re dreading the task or find it’s too big. I will often create an action plan to break the task into smaller, manageable components, work for half hour on each and then spend a last element joining the pieces together. Another is to set a time break when you will start/finish regardless of where you are. Repeat this until it is complete!

  1. MULTITASKING

So you can multi-task eh? Here’s some data for you, as a result of not concentrating on one task or another, or speaking on the phone while emailing a reply to someone, you can actually take up to 40% MORE TIME to complete a task as you are not focused on it. Also, the person on the other end of the call realises you are not giving them your full attention and we won’t even go in to mistkaes yuove made in yur emails (or article in this case)! Become aware of the traits of Multitasking to insure you don’t fall into the trap.

  1. FAILING TO COPE WITH DISTRACTIONS

I used to be forever reading emails as they pinged through or picking up the phone as yet another FB message found its way there. Now it’s different! I’ve turned off all email alerts and my phone goes on silent, as if I was in a meeting, when I have something important to accomplish. Manage your distractions as well as interruptions

  1. NOT TAKING BREAKS!

We are not robots and can’t produce the best quality work over an 8hr+ stint. This is treasured downtime which enable our brains to gain a chance to breath. We feed our bodily engines with food so feed your brain with frequent breaks. Create time in your diary to go for a walk, do some exercise anything to stop your brain focusing on what you are currently doing and when you return, you’ll be surprised as to how things become so much clearer.

Coaching to success specialise in time-management to help their clients become much more productive in work while freeing up time for family and friends. If you wish to know more, simply take 10 minutes out to contact Neil on 07761 187238 or email neil@coachingtosuccess.co.uk and discover who we can help you make those changes.