Tag: Coaching

Goals 2014: 5 Questions For People Using Social Media To Connect With Others

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Social Media Activity

Just Some Of The Ways To Be Active On Social Media

How many different channels do you use to pursue your social media goals and present your brand online to the world?  As I researched this post I realised just how many social media channels there are, and how little time there would be to make the best use of all of them.  That’s why I’m referring to just a handful of platforms.

US versus UK Social Media Statistics

US data from 2013 undertaken by the Pew Research Centre (a non-partisan ‘fact tank’) is relevant here.  They have broken down online activity to identify who is using social networking (73% of US adults are apparently) and where they spend time: Would you say your strategy is to form links with 16% on Google +, or the 22% of adults on Linkedin (which celebrates its 11th birthday on 5 May)?  Connect with the 18% of adults using Twitter?  Or do you relate more with the 71% of all adults using Facebook?

According to Ofcom in the UK 55% of adults owning mobile web enabled devices use them to visit social networking sites, or networking apps.  That’s a hefty segment of users who you could be reaching.  Assuming you can find the right channel to engage with the demographic you have

Google+ How Is It For You?

It is a timely question as JP Mangalindan, writing online for CNN Fortune and Money, has speculated about the platform’s future in a recent tech article   How productive a space is Google+ for you?

Site Statistics

We’ve all visited sites where the most recent post was six months ago.  Perhaps the site’s owner looked at their site statistics, felt it wasn’t getting enough traffic and abandoned it for that reason.  I wonder what signal that sends to visitors and to corporations like Google who created the site?

5 Questions For People Using Social Media To Connect With Others

So there is high take up with social media in general, although some platforms are more popular than others.  All of this  prompts me to ask the following:

  • What story do your posts tell about your brand (well established leader in your sector, or attention worthy new entrant)?
  • What timing strategy do you follow when you post to your social media sites (Weekly, or less often? Midweek, or weekend?)
  • How many new visitors are you adding by posting?
  • What do your visitors gain by looking at your site (insight from material you create; engagement with other peoples’ posts which you curate and repost; more information about your work)?
  • When visiting your site on mobile devices do people miss out on some of the desktop content (or could they browse and even buy in both places)?

Your answers to those questions can help you assess the return on the time you invest, in creating and curating social media posts.

Feel free to browse the other ideas relating to your work and life goals in the Archive section here, on Facebook and Google+ too.  Or if you are a Linkedin user you can View Roger Dennison’s profile and connect with me there.

Goals 2014: What is the 1 step you will take to be happier this Spring?

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Dalai Lama quote on Happiness

Happiness Is Linked To Taking Action

How was your working week?  Stressy?  Unfulfilling?  Seemingly Goaless?  Don’t worry if any of those responses ring bells with you.  According to Gallup’s 2012 State of the Global Workplace research only 13% of employees are engaged by their work. That suggests the bulk of workers around the world are unhappy with their employment, to some extent.  There is action you can take to change your situation.

About a week ago I spent a day out with friends in the 30 and 40 something age range.  This social time included setting the world to rights over a meal.  Enjoying a relaxed, supportive afternoon with people who are socially engaged set me thinking.  I reckon it doesn’t take very much action to become more connected to good people and therefore a little happier.

Research about actions you can take to become happier

It turns out that research conducted by Colby College Professor Christopher Soto, discussed in the Wall Street Journal by Elizabeth Bernstein shows that as we age we become more agreeable and better connected.

Apparently there are 5 psychological domains* which help shape about half of our personality (the other half comes from our biological make up, although Dr Dean Ornish suggests in a TED Talk that your genes are not your fate).

5 Personality Domains Discussed Professor Soto’s research

We can choose an area from the following domains and set an improvement goal for ourselves within that area (I’ve worked on goals in the final domain for instance, so I can confirm that spending time with your friends, works wonders).

Conscientiousness

Agreeableness

Openness

Extraversion

Neuroticism

Your 1 Question Leading To Happiness

Here’s your 1 question:  which of these domains will you dip into during the next few days to identify your spring happiness goal?  That is your first step toward selecting the most obvious action to take, to move you toward the life you deserve at work and beyond the 9 to 5.

More About A Happy State

If you want a quick pick-me-up before diving deep into goal setting you can always clap along with Pharrell Williams whose song ‘Happy’ puts a smile on my face.  To learn more about the connection that song has made with people across the United States and around the globe try this short excerpt from an interview Oprah conducted with Mr Williams recently.

There are further ideas relating to your work and life goals in the Archive section here, on Facebook and Google+ too.  Or you can View Roger Dennison’s profile

 

Goals 2014: 2 Questions To Help You Distinguish Yourself At Work

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image of a latte

A Latte – Good For Creativity, Reflection And Patience

Is your local coffee shop your ideal third space, away from work and home? Do you reach your goals more easily with a cup of your favourite coffee in hand? Or maybe you mooch about with a Mocha when you want to refocus your work and life?

If you answered ‘yes’ just then, you may want to learn more about the BBC’s collaboration with the Open University. The first episode of Business Boomers sheds light on the subject of the rise and rise of the coffee shop, a thriving part of the hospitality sector, even after the global economic crisis of 2007-08.

Coffee Shops As Places To Change Your Life

As Chris Ward’s book ‘ Out of Office’ suggests, the wifi enabled coffee shop is a place where you can change your life, or have the big ideas which can change the world around you.  Here’s a link to the Business Boomers Open University mini site: if you are very curious you can also click on a programme summary here – Business Boomers Coffee Shop Pdf

Despite the new types of working venues and the new technologies to support that work times are still tough.  The focus remains getting the best possible results from limited resources.  How much of your To Do list gets done, or thought about outside office hours?

What Is Your Third Space?

One of my local third spaces – Cafe Le Delice – attracts customers for work and leisure by offering an attentive quality of service; handmade food; and flexible usage (reserving a private room for a voluntary project meeting for instance).  This makes it the kind of venue where work  can still get done, after the 9 to 5.

There’s an analogue to the coffee shop as third space destination of choice.  How does an individual stand apart from his or her more prominent peers, when their offer seems similar?  How do they retain the work-life balance they want whilst giving their best performance?

Your 2 Questions To Help Distinguish Yourself At Work

Here are two related questions to work on:

  • What is your unique offer and how does it stand out in quality terms from everyone else’s?
  • What actions will you take in the next 12 weeks to further differentiate your brand from others; improve your prospects; and enjoy your free time?

Help yourself to the further ideas relating to your work and life goals in the Archive section here, on Facebook and Google+ too.  Or you can go to LinkedIn and View Roger Dennison’s profile

Goals 2014: 3 Questions To Help You Get The Leadership And Management You Deserve

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What Connections Do Leaders And Managers Inspire?

What Connections Do Leaders And Managers Inspire?

How confident are you about the effectiveness of your organisation’s senior leadership? What rating would you attach to your manager’s skills?

I ask as an article by Liz Ryan for Forbes online concerning Bad Managers has triggered my post (there are other Liz Ryan articles on LinkedIn ).

I had the privilege last week of sitting in on an Enterprise Nation Webinar, at which serial entrepreneur Doug Richard talked about the goal of Improving Leadership and Management.  My favourite quote from that conversation is shown above.  The post Liz wrote reminds me that Bad Managers leave a trail of angry and demotivated employees in their wake.  The Bad Manager helps create disengagement and they are a liability to their team and their employer.

One of the least inspiring managers I ever worked for had two operating modes. One with senior colleagues, involved smiling and kissing up. Mode Two, with team members, involved micro managing and being divisive. I remember once mentioning some of the valuable lessons I’d learned from my degree course and the Manager’s response was a classic: “Oh, you have a degree. That does surprise me!”

Needless to say I was never happier than when I left that part of the organisation.  I wasn’t the only one.  Effective management binds teams together and adds value to the connections between team members.  Bad management sows the seeds of disruption.  The manager I encountered clearly needed support to improve their practice. I only hope that they received it, before their behaviour triggered a complaint.

Here are 3 questions for your consideration this week:

  • How content are you that your job goals are being supported by your current management?
  • How congruent are your values with those of the organisational leaders who have the most influence on your work?
  • What actions will you to take this week because of your answers to the 2 preceding questions?

Feel free to look at the further ideas relating to your work and life goals in the Archive section here, on Facebook and Google+ too.  Or you can always View Roger Dennison’s profile

 

Goals 2014: How Will You Connect And Contribute To Your Network This Week?

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Do you have a goal to connect effectively to the people in your organisation, sector, or wider community? What sort of contribution do you want to make to the people in your networks anyway?

Dunbar’s Number

Did you know research by networking advocates Editorial Intelligence suggests that you can only hold stable relationships with 150 people (a figure known as Dunbar’s number)?  If communication is part of your goal setting agenda you are under no pressure to make your connections count!

Contacts You Connect With & Contribute To

How Many Contacts Do You Connect With & Contribute To?

Engaging People

Seriously though, these are timely questions. Organisations are setting their goals for the new financial year. Their staff are creating their strategies for personal improvement.

The UK Civil Service even has Engaging People as one of its key values (although it still has some work to do, to improve the feedback process on the blog published by its Head Sir Bob Kerslake ).

Organisational psychologist Professor Cary L Cooper outlines in a blogpost for the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development that our networks not only help us to thrive, they help us to cope. He says networking is a key determinant of success.

John P Morgan is another advocate of inter-connectedness and service. You can find out more about his view here on youtube : his perspective is applicable in the UK, US, the UAE or anywhere else people act collaboratively.

Your Actions

So, now you have a different perspective of the role of contributing to others here’s a question for you to answer (making an appointment with yourself to see it through):

What one action are you going to take, this week, to make an authentic contribution to your network?

There are further ideas relating to your work and life goals in the Archive section, and on Facebook and Google+ too.

View Roger Dennison's LinkedIn profileView Roger Dennison’s profile

Goals 2014: Here’s 1 Action To Help You Improve Your Personal Presentation

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Here are some questions for you to reflect on over the weekend.  How much effort do you put into the visual side of your personal brand?  Could your choice of work wear represent who you are more effectively?  What action will you take to improve your personal presentation this Spring?

What Does Leadership Look Like?

What Does Leadership Look Like?

Not too sure how to answer? No worries.  Here is a short video you can watch now as part of your personal improvement goal.  It was filmed at Ad Week Europe and in 4 minutes Gok Wan, Kathleen Saxton, and the Guardian’s John Plunkett outline some useful key presentation concepts.  Could this be another theme for you and your coach to explore when you discuss your goals and your values?

Feel free to look at the further ideas relating to your work and life goals in the Archive section on Facebook and Google+ too

Is Improving Your Work Your 2014 Goal? Here Are Your 3 Key Actions To Take In The Next Week

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Was your week a mix of Highs and Lows?  Was one low your boss telling you that your
performance ‘must improve’?  If the answer is ‘Yes’ here are 3 actions to help you move forward in the next week, towards your performance improvement goal:

  • Review the evidence of your previously Successful, or Excellent, reports.  This helps you top up your self-esteem.  Positive customer feedback has always reflected the quality of your work.  Cultivate it from this point
    Your Improvement Strategy Will Move You Forward

    Your Improvement Strategy Will Move You Forward

    onwards.  Also plan how you will add to your key strengths, respect your values and earn more feedback.  Remember your boss’s view is probably changeable.  If not your psychological contract with your team may have ended.  Other bosses are out there.

  • Record the specifics of your next steps strategy, so you identify an immediate, positive, action you will take to start moving forward.  Call this Phase One of your plan.  Make it something constructive, that you know you can do well.  If that is not possible within your present role find another role that allows you to reassert your ability to do good work.  Outline what you want to accomplish in Phase Two of your plan, at the same time.
  • Recruit a skilled ally, ideally an experienced coach who: understands the significance of your work goals; recognises the importance of your values; will remain supportive as your performance rises and you start to fill in the detail of your Phase Two outline.

You are now good to go for Phase One of your plan.  Take these 3 constructive steps and your week ahead will be focused on improvement and positivity.

Good luck and feel free to get in touch with me to talk about your coaching needs, beyond the #MustImprove stage:  use the Contact tab above or visit me on Facebook  and Google+ too.

Goals 2014: When your manager says your work must improve which 3 steps should you take?

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Is Your Performance Going Up Or Down This Year? (Image under creative common licence from Morguefile.com)

Is Your Performance Going Up Or Down This Year? (Image under creative common licence from Morguefile.com)

This year, like every year, thousands of civil servants made the Government’s presentation of the Budget seem effortless.  Behind the scenes collaborations, across the various departments, over many weeks came together smoothly yesterday.  Meaning that as the Chancellor sat down, a comprehensive suite of Budget publications appeared online .

How will some of those civil servants feel, should they now learn that they ‘must improve’ their performance to meet their work objectives?  It is a knock to one’s self-confidence to be judged in that way by a line manager.  More so if that outcome bucks the trend of years of evidence-based good performance.

Guidance on ranking staff for appraisal purposes

This year a ‘must improve’ judgement will flow from the strict application of guidance in the new Civil Service Appraisal system.  The system is one part of Civil Service Reform (whose goal is delivering better services for less money).

The guidance – available to managers across different Departments, Directorates and teams – is to use the sector-wide appraisal system to determine who has had a successful year.  The system seems to mean that appraisal markings can be distributed along a curve.  On that curve approximately:

  • 20 % of staff in a grade will have exceeded their objectives
  • 70 % will have achieved expected outcomes
  • 10% must improve

One appraisal system but two perspectives on how it works

The dialogue around performance management is led by the Head of the Civil Service, Sir Bob Kerslake.  He has blogged about the new performance management system, which he believes, reflects consistency across the organisation and looks at what civil servants achieve and how they achieve it.

Many Senior Civil Service (SCS) staff and their junior colleagues have replied to the blog (although it seems the distribution curve does not to apply to members of the SCS).  In unusually frank replies staff express their views about the system’s apparent use of quotas and its effect on morale.  They also note that HMRC staff downed tools over this issue in February.  So seemingly there is one appraisal system, but two perspectives on how it works.

It is also worth noting there may be an impact on workplace equality, since the sector employs more women than men below SCS level.  Black and minority ethnic staff, and disabled staff, are also concentrated in the grades where must improve ratings will appear.

3 steps to take when your manager says your work must improve

Are you someone whose performance ‘must improve’ this year?  How about rising to that challenge?  Once that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach subsides, you should focus on moving forward.  Here are 3 actions to help you to move forward beyond your appraisal:

  • Review the evidence of your previous successful, or above successful, reports (to highlight your favourable customer feedback, transferable strengths and as a reminder your present rating may be quite subjective)
  • Record the specifics of your strategy to take an immediate, positive, next step to achieve a short-term win (something constructive you know you can do well, within your present role, or one that allows you to reassert your ability to achieve good quality results)
  • Recruit a skilled ally, ideally a coach who: understands the significance of your work-life goals; recognises the importance of your values; will remain supportive as your performance returns to its former state.

Civil Servant or not, how will you improve the quality of your work this year?  Why not dip into the Archives, to the right of this post, to get some inspiration as you move forward.

Goals 2014: 2 Life Planning Questions For People Over 45

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Were you between 15 years old and your mid 20s in 1975?  If you were around that age in the UK you might remember your first trip to your local – newly opened – McDonalds franchise.  You might have seen the newly released Steven Spielberg film ‘Jaws’ earlier in the year  too.  The impact of the UK economy’s 24% annual inflation rate was pretty new too; so was the trend of nearly a million people out of work.

There is quite a contrast between the UK in the mid 1970s and the country nearly 40 years later.  As this week’s Budget will reveal the economy is showing signs of resurgence after the financial crisis of 2008, which triggered a global recession.  The question is what does that change in the economy mean for your personal circumstances?

How does your age affect your life plan?

Have you reached your mid 60s with the degree of financial security you planned for?  Based on current life expectancy  projections, for British 65 year olds, will you be comfortably off for your final 21 years (if you are a woman) and 18.5 years (if you are a man)?  Put another way, how comfortable are you with the gap between what you expected from your working life and what you have got?

I’m asking as unexpected insecurity has come up as an issue with previous coaching clients.  Those in their 40s are thinking ahead, to put a strategy in place to make their future more secure.  Those in their 50s are taking action to make their next decade more satisfying.

It is unsettling to pursue one career track, or follow a portfolio career, and not arrive at the destination you had planned for.

How has the global recession affected someone in their 60s (and what lessons are there for those in their 40s and 50s?) 

Follow the link in the Tweet below to learn more about actions to help secure your future.  Then give yourself a score for your answers to the two bullet point questions that follow the Tweet (10 out of 10 means you are totally satisfied with your situation, zero means you are totally dissatisfied, 5 means you are neither satisfied nor dissatisfied)

  • How satisfied are you with the way you curate your presence across your online profiles?
  • How content are you with your approach to sharing useful information and contributing to the development of your online connections?

Total up your score adding both answers together.  If your total score is 11, or less, what steps will you take this month to improve the way you present yourself online?  How does your self-marketing strategy fit into your wider financial security goals?

What are your other self-development goals this spring?  Why not dip into the Archives at www.experienceyourlife.me for some inspiration.  There are more ideas On Facebook and Google+ too

Goals 2014: 3 Key Questions To Ask Yourself Before Jobhunting

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Banana Skin

Focus On Your Goals & Avoid Life’s Banana Skins

As The British Chambers of Commerce forecasts  that the economy will be back to its pre Recession peak over the summer it is a good time to ask, how is your goal focused plan for 2014 going?

Are you still action planning to change jobs this year?  Maybe you are unexpectedly between jobs at the moment, and wanting to make the right move into a secure job niche?  If so you are in luck, as this post contains 3 key questions to get you moving in the right direction.

  • What job sector do you want to work in and what kind of employer do you want to work for?
  • Which jobs will you excel at, given your skills and values?
  • What other work will you take if you can’t get what you want?

The answers to those straight forward questions will unlock a wealth of insight for you.  Tuning into your inner wisdom means knowing what is best for you.  That knowledge provides you with a starting point from which to actively look for your ideal next role.  It also establishes the outline of a Plan B in case the ideal isn’t available just yet.

So, when are you going to take the action that moves you one step closer to the job you want?  What support, including coaching input, will you draw on as you move forward?

Good luck and don’t forget there are further ideas relating to your work and life goals on Facebook and Google+ too