Coaching to Success

Our business is your success

Management

How can we make decision easier?

Some decisions are easily made, others have many connotations due to complexity of people involved, too many options or the need but not necessarily the ‘want’ when it comes to having to make a decision.

Decision making is primarily based around problem solving so now you are considering two elements. If you look at your daily routine, you’ll find you are constantly making, just not really acknowledging it as it becomes routine.

However, once we drift from familiarity, we encounter uncertainty where the decision you make may have a major impact on life, business or other people.

I believe we’re all capable of making decisions once we develop complete confidence in our abilities. So, to help that process, consider the following ‘5 point implementation plan’ next time you have that unfamiliar but all important decision to make.

Positive Environment

Look to what the benefits will be as a result of making that decision. Where there are others involved in the process, encourage the positive features and also their contribution.

Get the facts first

All too often I see people trying to make decisions simply based on apparently saving money (upfront costs at least).

Gain all the facts first. For example, if choosing between suppliers, compare hidden charges, perhaps an annual rebate structure or how reliable are they? I once lost a 500m2 order for plasterboard to a rival company because they were 1p/m2 cheaper. I later discovered they had turned up 3hrs later with 6 guys on site waiting! That was a payment of 18hrs skilled labour for a saving of £5! You do the maths.

Check out the options

Insure you have looked at all the alternatives whether it be a product, a service or a process. Explore what alternatives there are by using those around you.

From here consider implications of each along with risks and practicality … insure the solution matches the objective and funds can match both.

Select the best

If the answer is still vague with each option having its benefits, create a ‘decision matrix’. A simple tool that removes the emotional attachment of decision making. Draw a matrix with options going from top to bottom down the right side. Along the top from left to right, the criteria required to be met. Along each option, give a rating from 0 to 10 under each criteria and on the far right, total up.

Whichever scores the highest will prove to be the best overall option.

Once done … walk away and do nothing! Return a day later to re-examine or, if an urgent decision is required, still walk away for a short while and return with fresh eyes to re-evaluate what has been decided.

Announce and proceed

Put on your inspirational hat and go out there to inform all those who will be affected by this new decision.

If there is a team of people involved, encourage them to participate, giving them elements to control and be responsible for. Insure they know how important they are to the overall success of this decision, give them ownership.

Coaching to Success’ director, Neil Nutburn, welcomes your enquiries if you are considering change but unsure the best way of moving yourself or your business forward. Darwin wrote “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change”. So for those who endorse the evolution of moving forward by making decisions, contact Neil on 07761 187238 or email neil@coachingtosuccess.co.uk.

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.

 

 

 

 

How does ‘Procrastination’ effect your business’ success?

I’ve got to put my hands up and admit that I am a procrastinator, but I recognise this fact and have actions to insure those tasks I keep putting off don’t get shelved until the last minute!

So how many of these statements apply to you?

  • I usually have to rush to complete tasks on time.
  • I avoid important tasks on my to-do list and fill my time doing low-priority work.
  • When I need to do something that may be a little tasking, I put it off until I feel more inspired.
  • I frequently find myself doing things I had intended doings days ago
  • I sit down to start an important project only to immediately go off to grab a cuppa.
  • When deadlines approach, I often waste time by doing other things.

If, like myself, you find that some of these apply, then I’m afraid to tell you that you too have that disease known as procrastinationitist (OK, I may have made that up!).

No problems, Dr. Nutburn is here to help you…

Prescription A (Work out the WHY):

Is it simply that the job is unpleasant or boring? If so, attack it head on and get it out of the way quickly because it will just loiter there distracting you from other tasks.

A common thought process for procrastinators is that it has to be perfect! Unless you have the resources or knowledge base, it’s not worth starting is it? Sorry to say but ‘good enough’ is often just that. Your work is likely to be at a much higher standard than some so be aware of this ‘why’ and just go for it.

Is it too over-whelming or outside your comfort zone? Are your skill-sets in doubt? Accept this and go for it… you’ll surprise yourself as I often do!

Prescription B (Recognising):

Put off the low important tasks and set a time to do these later (this is prioritising!). Look at the statements made earlier and know which apply to you.

Be aware of continually re-scheduling tasks. This is okay occasionally but check you aren’t doing it regularly for the same tasks!

Prescription C (Look at strategies):

From a psychological point of view, procrastination is a habit. Habits take at least 21 days to form and we all have different ways of taken new ones on board.

Take what you can from these following tips. Try them for 3-4 weeks to insure you have a better chance of creating them:

  • Prioritise – Put jobs in order and do them in that order.
  • Peer pressure – ask someone to check on how you’re doing against set objectives
  • To-Do lists – Create orders so that those ‘unpleasant’ tasks don’t ‘accidently’ get missed!
  • Consequence vs Actions – what are the disagreeable consequences of NOT achieving the objective?
  • Rewards – Set yourself rewards for accomplishing a task. I enjoy making a decent percolated coffee as a simple reward so this doesn’t have to be big.
  • Time constraints – set a time boundary to start and complete tasks.
  • Jigsaw – Large projects can be broken down into segments. Focus on the important parts (borders) then bits that work together (colours/shapes) and then the rest (infill).
  • Try! – We sometimes assume a task will be worse than what it is. Start by simply giving it a try

So start understanding ‘Why’ you are procrastinating, ‘Recognise’ your triggers and ‘Strategies’ how to overcome them.

If you are struggling to find time to complete tasks, getting frustrated with putting things off or feeling overwhelmed by what needs to be achieved, Coaching to Success understand what you are going through so call for a free assessment by contacting Neil Nutburn on 07761 187238 or email neil@coachingtosuccess.co.uk. We’re here to help.

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.