3 Steps Toward Better Diversity Results And #TVWeWant

March 26, 2016Leave a comment

How To Work With #Diversity In Happier #Teams & Produce More #SatisfiedCustomers on @LinkedIn https://t.co/bicaPn0xUr

— Roger Dennison (@RogerD_said) March 2, 2016

There’s a good chance you haven’t thought about diversity lately.

Why would you need to pay attention to diversity after all?

Unless one of your goals is to meet the needs of a diverse group of customers (or you have a personal story which connects you to a disadvantaged group) you just get on with providing products and services on an equal basis.

However there is a risk associated with not showing inspired leadership. That risk involves failing to meet the needs of different staff within organisations / industries and not paying attention to different customers / clients.

We each have a different life story. Leaders who build on the range of talent available make their team members feel engaged in producing outstanding results since their unique contribution matters.

Diversity Problems In Hollywood Echo Those In UK Television

Follow the link in the Tweet if you want to check out my LinkedIn post on the Diversity Problem within the Hollywood film industry.

A similar discussion about the exclusive nature of an industry is taking place within UK public service broadcasting circles. What role will ethnically diverse staff and others at the margins play in that future? You can contribute to the discussion at www.futureoftv.org.uk

The Risk Of Staying The Same

If the people responsible for bringing new talent into organisations only hire people like themselves they aren’t helping solve the lack of diversity issue.

Staying the same within an organisation means it is likely the range of ideas, insight and engagement available to that organisation will remain limited. Customers won’t be served with the widest selection of offers possible.

More than that. If the sector stays the same don’t be surprised if in 5 years’ time award winners, Directors, Department Heads and senior staff still do not reflect the widest pool of talent.

A Better Way Forward

It seems to me there is a better way forward for media, or other business organisations.

I think that recruiting, retaining and supporting the progress of a diverse range of creatives (staff) can only widen the rich mix of broadcast output (products and services).

A greater mix of outputs makes it easier to achieve customer satisfaction.

3 Self Help Steps Toward Greater Diversity

So, assuming diversity matters to you here are 3 self-help steps which reflect my experience of supporting the development of women and men from diverse backgrounds since the 1990s:

Present yourself in a way which highlights your present experience and future potential (don’t get defined by other people’s view of you)

Record your achievements regularly using testimonials, feedback and a goal setting process (ensure those achievements count towards your next step)

Support others pursuing their professional development and seek support yourself where necessary (be determined to make the progress appropriate to your ambition)

Visit www.experienceyourlife.coachesconsole.com to download a FREE tool to help you tackle your key presentation, achievement or support goals (just fill in your contact info and press the big blue button).

Thanks for reading this post (please share it with anyone who would find it useful). Also feel free to join in the discussion on the theme of diversity here in the comment section or on Twitter @RogerD_Said

Here Are Some UK Diversity Dates For Your Diary

LGBT History Month (February)

International Women’s Day (8 March)

Black History Month (October)

International Men’s Day (19 November)

Disability History Month (22 November – 22 December)

Value Added

September 11, 2013September 11, 2013Leave a comment

Best Ever Value (c) R Dennison September 2013

If you were to list three of your core values what would they be? Dedication? Reliability? Thoughtfulness perhaps? Now the tricky question, where did you acquire those values? How many of them came from your schooling?

This is a topical question. Research by Populus for the Jubilee Centre for Character and Values suggests 84% of parents sampled want school to instil key morals and values in their pupils.

I don’t know if there is a consensus as to what particular values should be transmitted. If a top three set of positive values could be taught (like the ones I mentioned in the first paragraph), they would be a powerful foundation on which to base some goal setting later in young peoples’ lives.

They might also lessen the number of young people who end up within the criminal justice system. A revealing feature story by BBC Home Affairs correspondent, Tom Symonds, touches on one young man’s value system which led him to commit a second knife-point robbery and end up in prison. The young man sounds like he considers his own needs first and foremost, when he says he did the robbery because “[he] was going shopping in the West End the next day and … wanted some money to spend”.

If in future that young man was motivated to identify more positive values he could be coached successfully. It would take time to build enough rapport to support him in action planning. The key achievement would be to help him identify a decisive action, to answer the question ‘what else’ does he want to do with his life after his sentence ends.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24022774

Graduate Employment: Against All Odds

August 6, 2013Leave a comment

More Than 80 to 1 Odds On Getting A Graduate Job (c) R Dennison August 2013

As some school students nervously await their exam results their elder graduate siblings are looking for work. The good news is that there are graduate level jobs available. The not so good news is that competition has never been more fierce.

As the BBC noted in a report from the Association of Graduate Recruiters there are more than 80 graduates after each vacancy.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-23247176

The challenge is twofold, scale down unrealistic expectations of new entrants and then encourage realistic appraisal of their skills. The coaching approach would then be to ask questions to:

– clarify what the job seeker wants from the jobs they are pursing (an adequate income; the opportunity to use their skills; room for development into a long-term career)

– support the development of a confident; approachable presentational style on paper and in person, to ensure their CV becomes one of the half dozen sifted in and they shine during their interview.

– Encourage reflection if the job search does not make the hoped for progress – what else could be done to present the candidate in the best possible light?

Keeping the candidate’s confidence up would also be part of the coaching programme, since the odds are their search for their elusive first job might take them beyond the end of the summer.

Three Steps Toward Happiness

July 3, 2013Leave a comment

Can Money Make You Happy? (c) R Dennison July 2013

Actively pursuing a goal can contribute towards personal happiness, although gathering a pile of money might not be enough to put a smile on one’s face.

The BBC reports that recent research, led by Professor Ruut Veenhoven from Rotterdam University, indicates that:

“In order to lead a happy life, a rewarding life, you need to be active, … So involvement is more important to happiness than knowing the why, why we are here”

The top three indicators that you are likely to be happy include being:

in a long-term relationship

actively engaged in politics

active in work and in your free time

So perhaps having a goal which regularly engages personal, or professional, energies helps move individuals one step closer to happiness.

There is more information in the link below about the research (and a list of the top ten happiest nations).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23097143

Follow The Leader?

June 10, 2013Leave a comment

Leadership Display (c) R Dennison June 2013

Let’s assume you have an organised approach to planning your life and you are pretty content with things at the moment. You have a happy home life. You are good at your job. Family and friends sustain you. What could be the only cloud on your horizon during the working week? How about the attitude your boss displays towards you?

The Work section of the Guardian newspaper regularly features descriptions of bosses who aren’t effective leaders. They aren’t helping to solve problems, since they are busy creating them. Here’s an example.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/work-blog/2013/jun/07/how-delegate-responsibility-remain-successful

Others are reported to be less than effective as they are: leaving new recruits to fend for themselves; stringing staff along in periods of restructuring; and in one recent example, oversharing details of an individual’s personal life after being asked not to

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/work-blog/2013/may/31/how-stop-boss-mentioning-sexuality#start-of-comments

It seems that there is a real gap into which development opportunities could fit. Those opportunities would help people-managers become more competent leaders and more confident in delivering better results through people.

His or her goal could be as simple as, ‘Listening carefully to what colleagues want and, where possible, helping them achieve good results afterwards’.

Perhaps a degree of empathy would also help. If the boss was to ask herself, ‘what does my leadership style feel like to my staff?’ they might be able to fine tune it to better effect. Here’s an interesting reflection on the role of empathy in the workplace from the BBC.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20257373

The relationship a leader has with colleagues isn’t like the one with family, or friends. However fine tuning the relationship by: listening carefully; supporting consistently; and being more self-aware, it can still be a respectful and productive one.

Chairing Discussions Is Easy, Right?

June 9, 2013June 9, 2013Leave a comment

Is Chairing Easy? (c) R Dennison June 2013

Although I don’t always get it right, I have learned a lot about chairing discussions and meetings over time. My main learning, through bitter experience, is that people will sometimes want to focus on their pet themes, whatever the stated agenda.

Things have usually gone well, as long as I have made clear at the outset that the conversation is going to:

– create space for attendees to raise their views

– involve attendees listening respectfully to other views

– achieve an outcome in which some constructive conclusions emerge

As I say I have learned how (mostly) to get positive results in meetings by trial and error. It is a revelation that even veteran moderators like Andrew Neil can have a hard time of it.

Mr Neil led a discussion this morning – within the BBC programme, The Sunday Politics – about the Bilderberg Group meeting in London. His guests were US commentator Alex Jones and British journalist David Aaronovitch. See what you think about the effectiveness of the communication about the topic, after watching this segment

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22832994

However did they get Mr Jones to leave the studio I wonder?

Bullying – No Joke

May 1, 2013May 2, 2013Leave a comment

Just Say No

Even if it has never been an issue for you, it is probably obvious that bullying is not funny at all. The BBC reports on one factor possibly contributing to playground harassment, apparently University of Keele research suggests it is linked to the use of humour.

Correspondent Sean Coughlan reports the University’s Dr Claire Fox’s comments that:

“Children who use humour to make fun of themselves are at more risk of being bullied”

It is as if self-defeating jokes send a signal to the would-be school bully that their potential target is self-effacing and underneath that, vulnerable.

I wonder how many teachers (or managers in the workplace) rise promptly to the challenge of tackling this sensitive area ?

As a start a coach might ask about the wording of any mission statement that the school or workspace has regarding the zero tolerance for bullying. Beyond that, there are a few additional coaching questions that spring to mind:

What resources does a leader possess to promote the confidence and self-esteem of the people around her ?

How comfortable is she with planning what to say in a conversation with the perceived aggressor, making it clear their behaviour is no laughing matter?

What approach has she outlined to support the person targeted, without over-doing her show of concern?

Once the person in charge recognises the sensitivities in the situation, tackling bullying and then raising confidence becomes possible. It might be uncomfortable to open up the issues when they are still raw, but having a clear goal to work towards is the starting point in each case.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-22354326

How to: Deal with bullying in the workplace (reed.co.uk)

Mind Your Language

April 27, 2013Leave a comment

Logo of the British newspaper The Guardian (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Maybe it is just me. I can think of many issues in the corporate world that might be worthy of ridicule. I wouldn’t poke fun at language that potentially helps bring thousands of people together into one culture across several different sites, and perhaps different time zones.

Sometimes though language can obscure meaning, or be quite passive-aggressive when it is used strategically (I’m thinking of some of the Public Relations flavoured speech of the character Stewart Pearson, in Armando Iannucci’s comedy The Thick of It).

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/organgrinder/2010/nov/01/stewart-pearson-thick-of-it

Anyway, here is the list of scorn-worthy corporate buzz words , proposed by Steven Poole in the Guardian newspaper this week (provoking more than 1800 below the line comments):

– Going Forward

– Drill Down

– Action

– End Of Play

– Deliver

– Issues

– Leverage

– Stakeholders

– Competencies

– Sunset

None of these is out and out offensive to my mind (as long as they are not strung together thoughtlessly in the same Bull S$!t Bingo-worthy sentence).

Mind you, if I was coaching someone who had ‘issues’ with an option they wanted to take I might have to stop and check what exactly that meant for them. Otherwise the list is fairly innocuous.

Luckily ‘Kicking This Into The Long Grass’ and ‘Low Hanging Fruit’ don’t feature in the top ten, as those do sound too jargon-like, even for me.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/apr/25/top-10-worst-management-speak

Strong Foundations

April 27, 20131 Comment

James Dyson (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As you may recognise there is a theme of ‘confidence’ running through many of the posts this year. That’s not a surprise, as I happen to think we all benefit from confidence, which stems from receiving empathic and effective parenting as young people .

It is certainly easy to recognise the quality of stick-to-it-ness that confident people and groups have. As confidence coach Pam Lidford says, deficits in this area only show up when there is a temporary loss of the ability to ‘take calculated risks’. Pam’s site is well worth a look by the way www.PamLidford.com

In the context of confidence I blogged about G4S last year. In hindsight the organisation was over-confident that their standard recruitment system could deliver exceptional results in hiring Olympic security staff before the 2012 Games.

I also mentioned Sir James Dyson, who displayed the appropriate level of confidence in knowing that his revolutionary vacuum cleaner design would, eventually, work.

I recently considered how the young mobile phone app designer, Nick D’Aloisio, has the right amount of it to have successfully created and sold on Summly before the age of 20.

So it is no surprise to note that University of Warwick research relates to confidence, in the context of the effects of overprotective parenting. The research is based on the characteristics of children who are bullied and the BBC coverage notes Prof Dieter Wolke saying:

“Parenting that includes clear rules about behaviour while being supportive and emotionally warm is most likely to prevent victimisation.”

I wonder if more coaching for parents is a partial solution. If parents can be supported in encouraging their children to grow into confident young people (who feel adequately nurtured and emotionally secure) they may be less likely to grow up as bullies, or as those who face bullying. Who knows, less anti social behaviour and aggression might result too.

An added pay off down the road would be a more resilient generation, better equipped to deal with the challenges that get thrown at them later in life. If a fraction of that was the case it would be a good result simply from coaching interventions.

The BBC’s coverage of the story follows:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-22294974

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