4 Steps Toward Workplace Inclusion And Emotional Intelligence In #NIW2015

September 21, 2015Leave a comment

Human Nature: Bringing Empathy To Work – Picture From Dantada From Morguefile.com

According to recent research into artificial intelligence (AI)* by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in future there will be many jobs which will be destroyed, or at least done better, because machines have become smarter.

Emotional Not Artificial Intelligence

Luckily National Inclusion Week started today. That programme of developmental events highlights EI (Emotional Intelligence) rather than AI.

Therefore us human beings have a little more time to focus on the way we work with each other. Our goals can remain becoming more successful in delivering results and growing more skilled, innovative and service-focused at work.

Benefits of NIW2015

#NIW2015 highlights the business benefits on offer when people feel more valued, respected and listened to. Those factors help us challenge the status quo.

The benefits to organisations include:

More successful results for customers, provided by staff whose values are respected
Productive teams, where colleagues work well together towards shared goals
High morale, as people are engaged on work which makes good use of their skills

4 Ways To Boost Inclusion And EI

Ask staff what systems work well and which could be adjusted to create better results
Ensure that each team member has a goal which contributes to organisational goals
Prioritise personal development goals, which help staff grow more confident
Make sure that equality and diversity good practice is carried out, so that staff can flourish

Have Your Say About Workplace Culture

What is the culture like where you work? Are you able to speak up and suggest change? If you are a leader, what will you do this week to make your workplace feel a bit more human? Use the Comment section to have your say.

Sharing This Discussion

Thanks for reading this post about National Inclusion Week. If you found it useful feel free to share it with a friend and Like it as well.

*Follow the link for information about Jobs That Artificial Intelligence Cannot Replace
http://bit.ly/Brynjolfsson_And_McAfee_The_Jobs_Which_AI_Cannot_Replace

Are You OK Mate? 3 Ways In Which Receiving Support Lifts Your Mood

September 10, 2015Leave a comment

Men At Work From Morguefile.com

Here is a sobering statistic.

This year 75% of people in the UK taking their own life will be men.

That is 3 men for every 1 woman.

Strong And Silent

Generally men in mid-life say ‘Yes’ if you ask ‘Are you OK?’

It is best to be strong and silent. Man up. Keep working. Or get wasted. Or withdraw.

Tears are best kept for football. That’s a crying shame.

Those 40 somethings are the ones at greater risk.

Potential To Grow

I am lucky enough to have supported some men working through their personal development goals (and received support myself).

It seems obvious that men’s actual inner state can be weighing them down while outwardly there are no signs of distress.

Behind the facade there can be turmoil. Turmoil does not lead directly to self harm. It doesn’t help though.

Life is better with fewer obstacles to growth. It is hard to believe that you can grow if you don’t feel like you can exercise leadership in your own life.

What Could Men Learn From Women?

As a rule women will look for and find support. Women talk about their stuff, where guys will keep their hurt to themselves.

Maybe part of masculinity is being open to help?

Benefits Of Being Listened To

Today seems like a good day to start talking about the benefits of receiving help if you are carrying a heavy burden.

In my experience being listened to deeply can be an intense experience. It changes things. It is a big victory for some guys to take action on their goals.

Here Are 3 Ways Guys Initially Benefit From Support

They experience

caring help as they set priorities
more confidence as they tackle priorities and move past long standing blockages
fewer burdens and more happiness

After their confidence increases it becomes easier to keep moving forward. Doors keep opening once they practice their action-based skills.

Share This Information

Thanks for reading this post. Comment below if these ideas have struck a chord with you. Use Twitter @RogerD_Said if you perfer.

If you are sharing the post with your followers on Twitter you can use the hashtag #RUOK to be included in the wider conversation.

Finally, follow this link for more information on 10 September: World Suicide Prevention Day

http://www.samaritans.org/wspd

Does Your #SocialMediaPresence Deserve A Thumbs Up?

August 13, 20152 Comments

How Well Does Your Use Of Social Media Connect You To Your Community? Picture From Gabor From Hungary From Morguefile.com

You are not alone if you visit social media sites to get information to help you with a problem.

According to http://internetlivestats.com Google now processes over 40,000 search engine queries every second on average.

Imagine getting a thumbs up from someone in your community for posting something which precisely answers one of those queries and makes their problem go away.

If you make someone that happy they could potentially become one of your passionate customers.

How Does Your Content Solve Specific Problems?

Two weeks ago I spoke about tackling social media goals to an audience of startups and micro business people. One of the questions which came was how to create content which generates more engagement.

Audience members were frustrated having written an attention grabbing headline and great content, only to have no one comment on it.

Some entrepreneurs in the audience felt like giving up when their carefully written posts seemed to have no impact.

I thought there could be one missing element in those posts: a call to action.

What’s The Purpose Of Calling People To Action?

The audience and I talked about what kind of posts had impact and why.

We also discussed what could be done with less impactful posts to get people to engage.

We agreed that their social media content probably solved the problem which the questioner was facing.

What could be done to take that conversation further? Calling the audience to take action.

We recognised that content which stands out from the flood of posts calls the questioner to take action. Those posts invite people to engage with the content creator. The engagement benefits both the person with the enquiry and the content supplier.

Benefits Of Calling Your Community To Action

For the person with the problem it is useful to stay in touch with a reliable source of information. Who knows what further insight that source could offer in future?

For the supplier expanding their community has several benefits.

Their expert profile increases as more people come to know them.
They can experience word of mouth recommendation, as their audience likes what they do.
They can prove so trustworthy that people respond to their products, services or projects.

3 Ways To Add Value With Your Social Media Presence

Deliver information which helps to resolve a problem for a specific community member

Keep your presentation as simple and straight-forward as possible

Prompt your reader to take an action by leaving their comment, sharing your post, hitting the Like button, or trusting you with their email address so you can offer them future service

Here’s How To Continue This Conversation

Thanks for reading this post. I hope it has got you thinking about your use of social media. What will you now do to better connect with your community?

I’ll be exploring these themes in more detail in a workshop on 12 September (more information in future posts). Meanwhile here are some questions you can feedback on:

Who wrote the most effective post you have engaged with this year?
What made you comment having read it?
What else did it inspire you to do?
Who did you share it with?

Use the comment space below to add your voice to the discussion. If you Tweet your reply to @RogerD_Said please include the hashtag #SocialMediaPresence to make it easy to follow the conversation.

How Do Clients Benefit When Their #CoachesLikeCPD ?

July 28, 2015Leave a comment

I was surprised, but happy. Start up voluntary communities can – eventually – produce big results, when members work together.

Let me explain.

18 months ago I joined a continuing professional development (CPD) network for coaches. 12 months ago I decided to volunteer my skills and become one of the network’s co-organisers.

Since then I’ve hosted a number of CPD events. I’ve learned a lot from each session. That’s good, as I have been able to add value to the next session with what I learned from the last one (and try out new approaches like video). The people in front of me have been the beneficiaries.

How Do You Measure The Benefit Of Your Actions?

I am pleased to have played a part in improving the group’s outputs. The proof that volunteering to help CPD (or anything else) benefits others?

The group’s reputation as a CPD hub has risen in line with its visibility (100+ hard earned Facebook Likes and growing).
Collaboration between group members means their joint efforts produce better results for their clients.
Knowledge is shared between members who aren’t yet at the stage of collaborating.
New and well established members have an equal chance to contribute to group discussions, pursue future learning goals and put smiles on clients’ faces.

How Do You Volunteer And What Are The Benefits Of Spending Your Free Time Serving Others?

Thanks for reading this post. If it has been useful please share it with someone who can benefit from it.

By the way, what is the best you have result you have achieved for others by volunteering your time? Share your feedback below, or on Twitter @RogerD_Said – others would love to know what you think.

Want To Know More About The Benefits CPD?

Here is a link to the CPD group I co-organise, along with talented leaders @CliveMaxheath and @rjIvanov. You can get an idea of our agenda and more detail about the vision behind the headline by checking the group out http://www.meetup.com/Practical-and-Business-Skills-for-CoachPreneurs/

If you want more Big Picture perspective check out my company page below, which is in development. Fill in your email details and make personal growth part of your agenda.

www.experienceenterprisesltd.co.uk

Tackle Your #CoachingGoals – Top 5 Ideas For Engaging With Potential Clients

June 24, 2015Leave a comment

Support Personal Development And Spread Happiness

It is always good to spend time continuing professional development. Gaining more skills means you provide a better service to others, while living out your values. What could be better than helping to solve someone’s problem so they get their smile back?

Do You Know Someone Losing Sleep Over Their Problems?

Obviously I am proud to know so many people in professions which help others. All those others need, is a willingness to take action. Anything is possible if they are ready to put an end to their sleepless nights.

Which is why it is handy to have real / virtual access to the community of helpful people. People who coach; people who are NLP practitioners; women and men who are therapists.

How Do You Start Conversations Which Help Solve Problems?

Any time I get together with these helpers the conversation returns to the basic theme. What approaches work well when building powerful and authentic problem-solving connections?

In the last 7 days I have gained a bunch of insight from others’ marketing wisdom. Some of it has been completely new. Some insights put a fresh perspective on information I already had.

Here are some headlines you might find useful if your profession helps others perform better.

Top 5 Ideas For Engaging With Potential Clients

Allow your outreach plan to signpost your next step. That’s the step which makes more potential clients aware of the benefits they gain by knowing more about your work
The simple step after just knowing about you? Keep providing service. Go deeper so people really like and trust the benefits you offer
Use the client’s language so they savour the sound / sight / taste / feel / smell of their exciting future
When you offer to help solve their problem pause. That creates a space for the other person to decide how to respond
Practice self-care. Be mindful about making the best impression you can while building the relationship and offering service. Accept that the other person could still say ‘No’. Don’t take it to heart if they do (you might be able to signpost them to someone else, which is still a good service)

Caring But Not Too Much

The last point is the tricky one.

Obviously you care about explaining the benefits of your service to the other person. You want them to connect the dots, so it is obvious that you can solve their problem.

Don’t do what I did after attending one corporate meeting. I thought it would be plain sailing once I sat down with the decision makers (and submitted a follow up proposal).

When I did not receive a response I emailed the decision makers. I waited.

No response.

Finally I called their virtual assistant.

She took a message and promised to pass it on. The silence which followed triggered a light bulb above my head.

The organisation was not into my proposal. They used a passive silence to get that message cross.

Lesson learned, I moved on.

Giving Credit For These Insights

Hat tip to Clive Maxheath of the Men’s Action Project (full disclosure I Co-organises a MeetUp group for coaches with Clive) you can follow @Coachpreneurs on Twitter too. Details of Clive’s MAP work are available via the following link http://www.meetup.com/TheMAP/
I also enjoyed learning more about marketing from a great a range of speakers led by Carole Bozkurt and Ann Marie Mayling at the Blueprint Practice – you can visit them here http://blueprintpractice.com/

What is your favourite strategy for engaging clients?

Go ahead and use the comment section to share your favourite strategy. How do you build your presence in an authentic way? How assertive do you need to be when you engage with clients (I’m leading a workshop on assertion on 5 July so the issue is very topical)?

I’m looking forward to reading your replies. The community reading your comments will be grateful for your wisdom too.

Finally, remember to share this post if you have found it useful, so others can benefit from reading it.

How Does #Assertion Help Improve Your Day?

June 8, 2015Leave a comment

Ready To Take Assertive Action? (Picture credit jzlomek at morguefile.com)

The quietly confident smile on Nick’s face said it all.

Nick was a middle-management colleague of mine. He led a team at work and he was a good sportsman too. He knew a lot about getting the best out of others.

When I saw Nick smiling I guessed the ‘quick word’ he had held with our senior manager had gone well.

Why was that quick word necessary?

That morning our senior manager (Sue) had chosen to brutally criticise Nick during a staff meeting. Nick’s team had been around the table.

Nick’s face had registered shock. The rest of us were embarrassed. It was one of those I’m-glad-that-wasn’t-aimed-at-me moments.

After the meeting broke up Nick sat quietly, writing a few words in his diary and looking in the direction of our boss’s door.

Once he had fixed his goal in mind he’d walked up to the door, knocked and gone in.

What Did Nick Do To Be Assertive?

When I had the chance I asked Nick the obvious question. Making the decision to act was one thing, what had he said to Sue about the meeting? His answer?

I let her know how I felt after what she said this morning ….I told her I never spoke to my team like that and I don’t accept it either …there’s better ways to work together…she said she saw my point of view.

Nick influenced a positive change in Sue’s behaviour towards him, judging by his upbeat mood.

Assertion Means Talking About Your Feelings When You Negotiate

Nick’s real-life example shows the value of bringing emotion into assertive situations.

Use the range of evidence at your fingertips, including your feelings. Involve the other party in a conversation.

Your theme is how to make your relationship more productive. Give them an incentive to change their behaviour so it benefits others.

If they join in with that conversation and then change their approach that’s a great outcome. You have both benefitted from your honesty.

If the other person refuses to engage with the conversation you have learned something.

That knowledge means you can choose your future options wisely. Those options might include downplaying or even ending the relationship.

Want To Continue This Conversation?

Thank you for reading this post. Feel free to Comment below and share the post with others who can get something from it.

I am sharing more information that will make your day easier in my June newsletter. If you would like to get on to the mailing list for further information first head over to

www.experienceenterprisesltd.co.uk

Then fill in your email address in the field on the right hand side of the page and finally press the red Send button.

I’m looking forward to sharing more ideas with you in the weeks to come.

Performance Improvement: What’s Empathy Got To Do With It?

April 23, 2015Leave a comment

Empathy Beats Confrontation In Performance Management – picture credit Pexels.com

Spring is the season for reporting on performance. It seems to me empathy is the key to influencing others to help us with our performance goals during the coming year.

Drawing on an existing stock of empathy could make the difference to you, if you break out in a sweat at the thought of approaching a good team member who is suddenly producing sub-par work.

Leaders Set The Tone For Their Team

If you have already established an empathic / supportive relationship with your team you have an advantage. The door is already partly open to difficult conversations.

You can now use the stock of trust you have built up to go into potentially uncomfortable territory when speaking with team members (you might want to start being more empathic if you are starting from a low base).

3 Useful Performance Questions

From personal experience performance conversations involve being a bit vulnerable yourself. You aren’t looking to beat anyone up. You are helping yourself by accepting your feelings of discomfort and focusing on helping someone perform better.

Here are 3 discussion openers which might help you get your colleague engaged in finding solutions, as part of a constructive performance improvement conversation

It has been a while since our last review, how are things with you workwise?
I’ve noticed that X seems to be happening with your work, that’s not like you. Can you say what’s happening there?
What more can I do to help you produce different results?

Open questions prompt the listener to think of a full response, since a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer doesn’t fit. Empathy, Thought and Action should feed into your conversation and the ones which follow to help your colleague improve their results.

Feel Free To Continue This Conversation And Share It With Friends

Why not use the Comment section to share the approaches have you used to successfully support performance improvement.

How did you help your member of staff produce good or excellent results, after a temporary downturn?

If you were the one being helped how did your boss’s approach help you move forward? Did they offer to help you, or take a confrontational approach?

For an overview of the effects on performance of feeling overwhelmed at work please follow this link

http://www.experienceenterprisesltd.co.uk/

How To Shape Your Future With The Support of A #Coach

April 13, 2015Leave a comment

A Step Towards Greater Job Satisfaction

The numbers speak for themselves. If the commuters in the picture are UK workers then 2014 survey results* showed 6 out of 10 are motivated and engaged with their jobs.

The remaining 4 out of 10 aren’t producing the same quality of results for their clients; are having strained relationships with colleagues and are feeling overwhelmed when they are at home.

Where Do You Show Up In Those Statistics?

Interested in finding out how coaching support could make you even more productive and engaged with your work (or really help you out of the 4 in 10 bracket)?

Then you might want to invest 30 minutes in a Google Hangout on Tuesday 14 April at 8pm in which the spotlight will fall on the effectiveness of coaching.

The Hangout takes place here on https://plus.google.com/+ExperienceyourlifeMe

It will also be available on the related YouTube channel.

Any Questions?

Please use the Comment section here to raise specific questions about the Hangout’s theme, or Tweet me @RogerD_Said with your queries. I’ll do my best to include your feedback in the Hangout or to use it in future blog posts.

*(the survey results I mentioned are shown in this link http://bit.ly/HR_Magazine_ORC_Employee_Engagement )

3 Benefits You Get From Inspiring And Motivating #Content

February 4, 2015Leave a comment

Progress Involves Setting Goals Taking Action And Achieving Great Results

It was great to start a conversation about goals, actions and achievements at a workshop last week.

Speaking with a roomful of people – on 28 January – about how to #SetGoalsAndTakeAction caused me to think about the benefits you get from pursuing your dreams.

If you are in the right frame of mind to change your life you can have a brilliant year. Positive thinking will open your mind to the key messages from inspiring live speakers, or writers appearing across social media.

If you are on the lookout for inspiring, motivating and action-oriented content you might want to search out material offering these outcomes:

Effective Content Offers These 3 Outcomes

It Solves Your Specific Problem – How does the story being told connect directly to your situation? People like to learn how to resolve their situation by following the example of someone who has been there already. How can you apply the lessons on offer?

It Suggests An Alternative View – Does the material give evidence that challenges your views? It might be worth considering what is being said, since it could influence you to take a fresh look at a familiar topic. Your creativity may be triggered, highlighting a new way forward.

It Stirs You To Take Action – Does the speech get you fired up so that you want to move forward beyond your limiting beliefs? If it is persuasive you might feel compelled to take a beneficial action straightaway.

What Can You Do To Promote Useful Content?

If you see a presentation or a post which combines those 3 elements you will probably want to add your comment, or share your experience with other people in your network, so they can benefit from it too.

Your commentary or authentic word of mouth recommendation is very valuable and can make an idea get the attention it deserves.

In other words your Facebook ‘Like’ or Twitter ReTweet can spread the word far and wide.

What Is Your Next Step?

Thank you for reading this post. Would you like to help continue this conversation?

What is the most effective content you have encountered recently? What made it work so well for you? Say a few words in the Comment section below or Tweet @RogerD_Said

If you found this post useful feel free to share it with others. I’m on YouTube so you can suggest topics for me to comment on http://bit.ly/Experience_Your_Life_Intro Either way keep an eye out for future posts that help you achieve a more successful 2015.

3 Ways You Can Do More Than You Thought Possible By Setting Goals And Taking Action

January 17, 2015Leave a comment

Where Will Your Next Step Take You? – Photo Credit smswigart via Morguefile.com

If you read billboards, or advertising on public transport, you will already know this is your year to:

Meet someone amazing
Achieve your ambition
See the difference you make

No pressure then if your work or life goals are smaller in scale. How often does the big vision you have of a personal project stay in your head? Taking the first steps towards turning your mental vision into the real-world outcome you want can be hard.

If your vision is a bit more modest you could take inspiration from the historic achievement of Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson who scaled El Capitan this week. They have been working toward that outcome for years. Naturally they believe Teamwork and Persistence pay off in the end.

Here’s a link http://bit.ly/Inspiratonal_El_Capitan to the BBC coverage of the story. For me this is Kevin’s killer quote

He said the experience of scaling a peak by a route no one had taken before

“recalibrates your perception of what you can do and what’s possible”

3 Ways People Can Do More Than They Thought Possible

In the real world people get by with what they can achieve. With a little inspiration they can achieve more.

Understand the nature of the person whose problem you are trying to solve – I was on the receiving end of an email a while ago from someone with whom I was collaborating on a project.

Their email was a bit of a rant over several topics on the edge of our project. Luckily I read and remembered something from Dale Carnegie’s classic book How To Win Friends And Influence People.

Carnegie quotes what the founder of the car making company Henry Ford said about understanding others:

“If there is any one secret of success it lies in the ability to ‘get’ the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own.”

With that thought as my inspiration I made time to make a phone call. I really listened to what my friend was saying. I understood that the rant was actually about fears that their voice was generally going unheard.

A phone call and some deep listening took the heat out of the situation. By understanding what was underneath the rant I was able to move the relationship forward. Good news for the project too, since there were no serious disagreements festering under the surface.

Practice to improve your skills – most people don’t have special powers. Initially we make do with our natural abilities. Then we grow. There are ways to work with what you have got to improve.

The late Arthur Ashe is someone I quote often. He was action oriented. The quote I will use in a goal-setting workshop later in January goes like this:

“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can”.

When was the last time everything was 100% perfect in your life? All of the elements are not perfect in the project I just mentioned. But they can be made to work together with some effort. Is waiting for the perfect moment keeping you from achieving more success?

Collaborate with others who can help you improve your performance –

Henry Ford also believed that

“The accumulation of great fortunes calls for POWER and POWER is acquired through highly organised and intelligently directed specialist knowledge. But that knowledge does not necessarily have to be in the possession of the man who accumulates the fortune”.

In other words, you can spend time trying to be a specialist in several areas. Or you can offer your skills to a group of people who have other skills you can draw on. Who will you work with this week?

What Will You Do This Week To Redefine The Word ‘Possible’?

Hopefully you are inspired to start making a difference in your own life. The Pareto Principle suggests 80% of your results can come from just 20% of your efforts. It is surprising where small initial steps, in line with your values, can take you. What ‘impossible’ outcome will you achieve this month?

As I mentioned above, I will discuss these ideas with people coming to my goal setting workshop on 28 January – details here http://bit.ly/Set_Goals_Take_Action – so expect to hear more about the benefits of taking action over the coming weeks.

Meanwhile I would love to hear about what you are going to accomplish in 2015. Share your plans here in the comment section, on Twitter @RogerD_Said or have your say on LinkedIn if you would prefer.

Experience Your Life

A site for people committed to growth through coaching

Tag: Goals