Category: Coaching

In this episode we are looking at managing perceptions; more accurately, we are looking at the statement that perception is often viewed as reality. What that means is that the way people observe you and what they see of you will create a perceived reality in their head.

Now it may not be the truth but what they see is what they believe and that may affect the way they relate to you; whether they trust you or believe something about you that is not true. So it is really important that you manage the way you conduct yourself so that you are not causing others to create negative perceptions about you; neither are you misleading people who observe you so that you are put in an awkward position with the people that you lead.

So why does this matter ? Why does it matter if people perceive things incorrectly ? 

Prefer to watch the video ? Click here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yebdRTWrUuQ

Like I said earlier, perception is reality in the minds of people, so if you have got team members who perceive you a certain way or team members who see something of you that is not true, it causes you to lose credibility, lose trust and influence with those team members. So you have got to be really vigilant about how you manage perceptions so that people are not making wrong assumptions about who you are and what you do. 

Let me give you an example. If you are in the habit of having meetings with people over lunch, which is not uncommon but you have never told anybody that this is what you do, all they see is that you go to lunch every day  for a couple of hours and then you come back to the office. Some may perceive that you just have long lunches or you just go out for lunch and have a few drinks and you do not do any work. But the reality may be that you go out to meet clients and discuss or negotiate contracts, however, the perception is that you do not do anything.

So part of the process for you is to ensure that the perception of what you are doing does not negatively reflect on who you are and how you are conducting yourself. It may not be true but if that is what they think then that is going to taint the way they relate to you. I hope I am making that clear; it is a little bit convoluted.

1. Have an Awareness of Everything you do.

So the first thing you have to do is this, you have to have an awareness of everything you do and how it is perceived by another person. For example, I do a lot of work on my phone. If I am just standing in the kitchen or my staff room and I am messaging on my phone, it looks like I am just standing around sending text messages. Now I do a lot of my work on my phone. I reply to emails on my phone, I research stuff on my phone,  book meetings on my phone and  manage my calendar on my phone but to the outside observer they may just perceive me as sitting on my phone sending text messages or surfing Facebook.

They might not know what I am actually doing on my phone and so I have to be aware that when I am using my phone I have to be in an environment where it is not going to set the wrong example for other people. I try to ensure that I can either be in my office when I am using my phone or if I am using it in front of somebody else what I might say is, “Excuse me, I just need to check something on my calendar” or “Excuse me I need to send an email.” That way they know why I am using my phone and that doesn’t create the wrong perception of what’s going on. So that is about being aware of people’s perceptions. Being transparent is another way of being open and honest rather than leaving people guessing or filling in the blanks.

2. Practice what you Preach

The second area to affect people’s perception of you is this, you need to practice what you preach. If you have certain expectations of your team and you do not follow them yourself,  the perception is that you do not take seriously what you say. If you have a policy of not being late to work but you have a tendency to be late to work, the perception is going to be that your rules are not to be taken seriously or you do not respect the team enough to actually turn up on time.

So you have got to practice what you preach. Set a few expectations for your team and make sure you can follow those expectations. Make sure that wherever possible, you are able to abide by the expectations that you have set. Make sure you are not setting yourself up for a perception that infers that you walk to the beat of your own drum; in other words that there is one set of rules for your team and another, more lenient set of rules for you.

3. Do Not Defend Yourself

The third area is, do not defend yourself if somebody has a negative perception of you. What I mean by this is,  let’s just say somebody confronts you or you hear a bit of chatter about you or people thinking the wrong thing about you, if you go into defense mode it just makes you look immature and petty. Trying to defend yourself is silly. What you can do is this, you can talk to the person who has the perception and say,“Hey I heard that you had this perception and I want to apologize if I have given you the wrong impression”. So rather than defending yourself saying things like, “Hey what do you think you are doing? Why are you talking about me? This is not true,”   what you can do is, apologize if you have given that impression by the way that you have conducted yourself. 

Explain what is happening just so that they have the full story and leave it at that. You do not have to defend yourself, you do not have to necessarily excuse yourself. Just apologize for conveying the wrong perception, give clarity if it is needed and then leave it at that. When you defend yourself it sounds a little bit childish or defensive and most of the time people who have a wrong perception will get defensive if you go after them as well, so just be aware of that.

So these are three things that I have just mentioned.

•  Be transparent or be aware of how you conduct yourself and be open about what you are doing so that people do not have the wrong perception of you.
•  Practice what you preach. If you have got a set of expectations or a set of rules make sure you abide by them, you follow them so the perception is not that there are two sets of rules, one for them and one for you. 
• The third aspect is, if people do have the wrong perception of you and people start to talk about something that may be incorrect, do not try to defend yourself or go after the person. Just apologize for the false impression that you have given, explain with some context and then leave it at that.

I hope that has been helpful for you. We have looked at perception or managing perceptions in your leadership environment. If you enjoyed it, give us a comment and tell us what you liked about it and also give us a share if you think there is somebody that would enjoy this content.

If you would like to learn more about effectively growing in your leadership, why not check out our FREE Goal setting guide. See below for details.

https://leadcommunicategrow.com/free-goal-setting-guide/

5 Steps to Set Goals that Work

We are going to talk about learning to appreciate your team and show it in tangible ways and letting them know how much you value their contribution. This is such a key component of building relationships and building trust with your team.

Prefer to watch the video, click here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yc-F9XXmlo4&t=1s

Appreciation, why is it necessary?

Appreciation is one of the simplest ways that you can actually build rapport with your team. When you regularly engage with your team over small tasks, thank them. Show them that you have noticed the work that they do. It makes them feel noticed and shows them that you care about them. This is really crucial. As a leader, you need to show your team that you care about them. When you show them that you care about them what happens is they actually want to work well.

So if you are wanting your team to go above and beyond or you are wanting your team to go in a direction that they maybe have never been in, you need to make sure that they are prepared to trust you. They need to feel appreciated by you. It is really simple. Be observant, take a walk around. I do this in my organization every day, I am in the office, I take a walk around, visit everybody and just say “Hi.” I ask them how they are going, I ask them what their day has got in store and then I say, ” Thank you so much for all that you are doing today”.

If I see them at the end of the day, I ask them how their day was, how it ended up, whether they had any challenges and I say,  “Thank you. I really appreciate all your hard work.” It is a really simple thing, it takes about 10 minutes out of your day but it fosters relationships and fosters an attitude in team members where they actually want to go the extra mile for you. So that’s the easy way of doing it.

What are some other benefits of appreciation?

Parallel Acknowledgement

Appreciation can actually be used to modify behavior. Let me explain this in teaching, which is my professional root originally. There is a technique called Parallel Acknowledgement. If we see behavior that we are unhappy with or needs addressing, one of the ways we can address it is, rather than correcting the behavior that is negative or inappropriate we find somebody that is doing the right thing, doing things the way that we want it to be done and show them some appreciation and appreciate  what they are doing by saying, “Thank you so much for following the procedures when you executed this project Sandy.”

We praise them or appreciate them in front of everybody else. What that does is it tells everybody else who is not following the procedure that this is what you want to see because you are praising and giving attention to the thing you want to see rather than focusing on the things you do not want to see.

So appreciation can be a really powerful way of modifying behaviour and it is good for building relationships with your team when you praise and appreciate the behaviour that you want to see rather than focusing on correcting the behaviour you don’t want to see. Now if the person you are trying to correct modifies their behaviour in response, make sure you go back and show them appreciation too.

It is really important that as soon as you see the change in behaviour, as soon as you see the adjustment in attitude, focus or whatever it is, that you go back and say, “Hey Tom, I love the way that you are doing that and following the procedure and I really appreciate you adhering to that system.” So, use appreciation to correct the behaviour and once the behaviour is corrected go and appreciate the person that has corrected their behaviour. That is relationship behaviour modification.

Appreciation Builds Confidence

The other thing that appreciation can do is, it actually builds confidence in your team. If you have team members who lack confidence or doubt their ability to do the job well, one of the most powerful ways to help them to grow in their confidence is to actually appreciate them at every opportunity. When you have seen that they have put in the effort, go the extra mile to say, “Hey you know what, I want to tell you how much I appreciate you putting in the effort with this. I know this has been tough for you and you struggled, but I really love the way that you have stuck to it and gone the extra mile and I want to tell you how much I appreciate you.”

When you appreciate somebody in those circumstances, their confidence grows and as their confidence grows their productivity grows, their output grows and their ability to perform their tasks grows exponentially.  So use appreciation to actually build confidence and build the capacity of the people that you are leading.

So these are three little tips on how you can use appreciation.

•  Appreciate your team regularly and often to show them that you care and to build trust and loyalty with them. 
• Use appreciation to modify behavior. Appreciate people who are doing the right thing and that will in turn correct people who are doing the wrong thing. 
• Thirdly use appreciation to build confidence in your team. If they lack confidence or they are trying something for the first time, show lots of appreciation and encouragement and that will build their confidence, increase their skill and their productivity.

I hope that was really helpful for you. Make sure that you leave a comment and tell us what you thought or share it with somebody that you know would benefit from this.

If you would like to learn more about effectively growing in your leadership, why not check out our FREE Goal setting guide. See below for details.

https://leadcommunicategrow.com/free-goal-setting-guide/

5 Steps to Set Goals that Work

Today we are going to be talking about assertiveness, in particular how to be assertive while still being empathetic and compassionate. 

One of the traits of being a good leader is to be able to stick to your guns, to be able to operate with confidence and say, “No” when you have to say “No”. There are ways in which you can do this that are beneficial to the relationships of the people that you lead and there are ways that you can damage those relationships. So really, assertiveness is about balancing the need to stick to your guns, the need to be confident and the need to say “No” when necessary and still maintain a relationship.

You do not want to ever let your assertiveness become domination, aggression or bullying because that is not the same thing. You never want your assertiveness to come across in a way that damages relationships because relationships underpin your success as a leader. 

Prefer to watch the video, Click here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p21UQepxQP8

So what are four areas in which you need to use assertiveness? How can you do it in a way that is compassionate and empathetic but still be able to stick to your guns?

1. Be Confident and Decisive

The first thing is this, if you want to roll out a new idea or give a directive or cast a vision, use language that is confident. Use language that is definite but still be open to the input of others. So what I mean by that is this, for example I will say, “This is the direction in which I believe we should head and this is the change I believe we should make. Here are the reasons why I believe that, but I would also like to get your thoughts on how you feel about it”. So you are being very clear and very precise about where you want to go but you are also leaving the door open so that others feel that they have a place to speak and a place to respond.

If you lead with hesitation and if you lead with language like, “I am thinking we might go down this track but I am not really sure, I just wanted to get your thoughts on the matter,” what you may find is that the lack of confidence or your hesitation will lead to a myriad opinions and make it very difficult for you to come to a decisive decision. You may also find that, if you have a decision that you want to implement but struggle to get it across to your team because you were so hesitant in the beginning, then nobody really takes it seriously.

So that is the first tip; be confident and be decisive in the way that you speak about direction, change or vision but also leave the door open for feedback.

2. Listen with Humility 

The second thing that is tied to the first is, you need to be prepared to listen with humility. When somebody is giving you their feedback or their perspective, be open to it even if you feel really strongly about your decision. Be open, do not give them facial expressions or tones of voice that are dismissive or make them feel like their opinion does not matter or is not valued. Do active listening, ask questions for clarification and help them clearly state what they are trying to say. Check in to see if you have understood them, repeat back to them what they have said and ask if you have understood it correctly.

When you listen with humility, what you are saying is, I am open to hearing what you have to say and I am open to the possibility that my idea may not be the best idea. Be prepared to hear others out and to take on board everything they say.

3. Be Ok with Saying, “No”

The third tip is, be okay with saying “No.” There are going to be times when you will have to say, “No”. You may hear somebody out but you know for the benefit of the company and those that are involved in the decision, saying “No” to somebody’s opinion or somebody’s feedback has to happen and it is ok. Sometimes leaders fear saying “No” because they do not want to be unpopular nor their team to dislike them, however, that is part n’ parcel of leadership.

Sometimes you are going to make decisions in which you won’t be popular and you won’t be liked. If you have good reason and you have taken the time to talk to people, you have taken the time to listen, get good advice and you have a strong conviction that this is the direction in which you want to go, then it’s okay to say, “No” to the others who have a different opinion. You don’t always have to say, “Yes” just to stay in the good books.

4. Address the behaviour, don’t attack the person

The fourth tIp is this; whenever you are saying, “No”  or  you are correcting somebody or have to speak to them with a little bit of assertiveness, you have to be very clear that you do not want that behavior repeating itself. Communicate that you do not want them behaving in a certain way. Always focus on the behavior, not the person. If you have to raise any kind of issues that are slightly confrontational or require you to be a little bit strong, confront the behavior, don’t confront the person. Do not go into personal attacks or statements which sound accusatory of the person but focus on the behavior and the outcomes of that behavior.

For example, say,  “When you did this and it resulted in this outcome, this is how I felt, this is the impact it had on other people, please do not do that again.” So the focus is on the behavior and how it affected everybody else rather than saying, “Why did you do that? You’ve messed things up!” Don’t attack the person, just talk about the problem. Be precise about it but also be compassionate and empathetic. Understand that nobody likes to be on the opposite side of being told that they have done the wrong thing. However sometimes it is necessary. There are ways that you can do it without breaking that relationship or putting people off-side. 

So that is how to use assertiveness in four four different ways. You need to be strong, confident and say things that are not always popular, but you can do it in a way that is compassionate and understanding of the people you lead and not damaging to the relationship in the process. 

I hope that was really helpful for you. Leave a comment and let us know how we are doing and if you have got any questions or you would like us to tackle a particular topic, let us know and please share it with somebody you think will benefit from this.

If you would like to learn more about effectively growing in your leadership, why not check out our FREE Goal setting guide. See below for details.

https://leadcommunicategrow.com/free-goal-setting-guide/

5 Steps to Set Goals that Work

This week we are looking at honesty. Honesty is an essential trait for being a great leader and so I am going to give you three ways or reasons why honesty is absolutely essential in leadership and why you need to practice it if you want to be a great leader. 

1.Be honest when defining reality.

2.Be honest about the future.

3.Be honest when you make mistakes.

Prefer to watch the video, click here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuUDsHi7WRM&t=85s

1. Be honest when defining reality.

The first area that you need to focus on honestly is in your defining of reality. One of the responsibilities of a leader is to define reality; to be able to help your team and your organization understand the place that you are in now, whether it might be your position as far as the goals that you are trying to achieve, whether it is your financial status or your ability to execute or to achieve some of the goals that you have set for yourself. Defining reality is part of your job and it is vitally important to be honest when talking to your team and organisation about your understanding of where you are at.

There is no point sugar coating your reality, if your reality or your present state is in a difficult position or you are up against some great obstacles. There is no point sugar coating the reality or pretending that it doesn’t exist or keeping people in the dark. All that happens if you do that is, your team will only be able to perform and to operate in terms of what you have shown them. So if you are not showing them the full picture and you are not being honest about the reality that they are facing, then what’s going to happen is, you will only get the results that resemble the reality that they have been given, which is not real. 

If you face some obstacles, challenges or financial difficulties, then you need to be upfront about that, even if you are speaking of hope for the future. Even if you are trying to motivate your team to look towards achieving greater outcomes, you still need to be able to be honest about where they are starting from. If you know where you are starting from, then you can make a much better plan of how you are going to get to where you are aiming to go. So that is the first tip, being honest when you are defining reality.

2. Be Honest about the Future

The second tip is this; be honest about the future. So if you can see things coming down the path, perhaps there are changes that are coming or challenges that you are facing in the future and they may impact the way in which your team and your organization operate, then it is important that you be upfront about that. If you have to make job cuts, it is better that you talk it through honestly with those concerned rather than lying about it and saying, ” No we do not have to make any job cuts” and then turning around and cutting jobs. 

You have got to be really honest. That does not mean that you have to be harsh, insensitive or unempathetic to individuals. It just means that when you are talking with people who need to know what’s coming down the pipeline, that you are honest enough to tell them where you are at and where you are headed. It is a little bit like defining reality but it is about things that are coming in the future that may not be a reality right now, but you sense that they may become a reality. So you have got to be honest about that. Have honest conversations because when you have honest conversations you can actually make honest plans to face those challenges in real ways and overcome those obstacles in practical ways that will get you through.

3. Be honest when you make mistakes.

The third thing is you need to be honest when you make mistakes. There is nothing worse than a leader who does not own his/her mistakes and wants to blame everybody else rather than taking responsibility for themselves. When you are the leader, everything rises and falls on your shoulders, on your ability, on your decisions and whether you are the person directly responsible for the outcomes or not,  you still have to take responsibility for what happens. You have to be honest enough to own your mistakes or own your part of it. Do not throw your team under the bus. Do not pretend that you knew nothing about it. As a leader it is your job to know what is going on and it is your job to be honest when it does not go right.

When you are honest, what you will find is that your team will learn to trust you. Your team will trust you and learn to take risks. They will follow you into the unknown because they know you are trustworthy and they know that even if you get it wrong, you are going to be upfront about that.

The other thing about honesty is that it will get the best out of your team. When you are honest, they are going to give their whole selves to what they do, they are not going to hold back. They are not going to be suspicious of your direction, they are not going to be reticent to talk to you when they have made mistakes. So, by modelling honesty and that is what you are really doing, you are showing them what honesty looks like, and you will find your team is more honest with you. 

When you have got an honest team you can actually function better as a leader. So remember, you need to model honesty. It means, show that you have an honest character. Be honest in the way that you manage your teams and maintain honesty. You cannot tolerate dishonesty in your team. If you have team members that are being dishonest,  you need to address their dishonesty.  Do not let it slide or pretend it didn’t happen. You need to maintain a culture of honesty and truth-telling at whatever level they are working.

These are our three tips about how important honesty is in leadership and how to use honesty effectively in leadership. Don’t forget to share this with somebody that might benefit and send me a comment if there’s a topic you want me to talk about or some area of leadership you’d like us to go down a rabbit hole with you. I’m happy to discuss anything you would like, so just give me a comment and let me know which way we should go next time.

If you would like to learn more about effectively growing in your leadership, why not check out our FREE Goal setting guide. See below for details.

https://leadcommunicategrow.com/free-goal-setting-guide/

5 Steps to Set Goals that Work

In this blog, I want to talk to you about the 5 Whys Method for getting better outcomes in your organization.

If you prefer to watch the video, click here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfvFOyest9M

So what is the 5 Whys method?

This is a method that is credited mostly to the Toyota corporation. They are known for a system called the Toyota Way. Within the Toyota Way, there are 14 ways of operating in which they ensure that they have a very efficient and high-quality product. Of course, Toyota cars are known around the world for their reliability, high craftsmanship and their affordability. 

The 5 Whys method is a way that they analyze broken aspects of their system. So if something goes wrong, what they do is, they engage in a conversation. They ask the five why’s of what went wrong. Very often when we see that something went wrong or a system failed, the first natural reaction is to ask why? What happened? Very often as leaders what we do is we stop at the first why. We allow that to be the explanation of what went wrong. 

Normally if you just go to the first why, it usually is just at the level of blaming the person that didn’t do what they should have done. The problem with that is if you’ve got dysfunction in your system and you don’t take the time to find out what’s going on, you may never actually fix your system. You’ll just keep on doing the same thing.

There is a great story I read once about American car manufacturers who went to Japan to study the production line of the Toyota corporation. They got to the section where they were installing the doors on the cars and noticed that the car door went on smoothly and they screwed it all in place. It  closed beautifully and the American car manufacturers inquired about how they were able to get their doors to fit so perfectly. In the American car production lines, they had a method whereby the fitters would have a rubber mallet. The door would be put on and then they would use the rubber mallet to bang it into alignment so that it closed properly. 

They asked the Toyota manufacturers, ,”How come your doors just fit without any kind of rubber mallet?” They said, “Well that’s because we designed it that way. We took time to analyze what was wrong and we’ve devised a system to ensure that every door fit perfectly the first time.” 

This is where the 5 Whys method really comes into play.

If something  goes wrong; let us say you are a fast-food chain and your burger goes out wrong and a  customer complains. The first “Why” question you might ask is, “Why did the customer not like the burger?” They might tell you they didn’t have certain ingredients or it was made badly. The second “Why” might be, “Why was it made badly? Maybe it’s because the person who was making the burger failed to follow the system or the procedure. If that’s the case, then you have to ask another “Why” question. “Why didn’t they follow the procedure? Was it perhaps because they weren’t trained in the procedure.”  Then you’ve got to ask whether they had a bad attitude? This will help you identify the next layer of the problem. You also ask, “What’s wrong with our induction that allows somebody to go through the system and not get trained properly?”  If there’s a problem with the induction system then ask, “Why is  that a problem? What do we need to change to ensure that this doesn’t happen again?”

By asking “Why” you can see very quickly that if you ask 5 Whys about the problem you can drill down to what becomes a core issue. Often you’ll drill down to the level of your systems. You’ll find that there’s an aspect of your system that is broken. Whether it’s a lack of training, lack of communication, lack of implementation or whatever it might be, you will find that there’s a breakdown in your system.

That is where you need to fix the problem. It is no good just blaming the person that got it wrong. You cannot just tell the customer, “Sorry that guy is new and he did not know what he was doing”. You cannot simply yell at your team member because he did not do the right job. You have got to figure out why they did not do the right job. 

Ultimately there is a problem with your system that caused that result. So that is where the 5 Whys Method really comes into play. It helps you identify the problem so it does not get repeated. You do not want to keep having people make bad burgers. You can actually deal with the system that caused it in the first place, then create a team that is able to produce the results that you want them to produce.

Here are 4 steps to implement the 5 Why Method to analyse your systems and make sure you are getting better outcomes in the long run.

1. Invite all parties to participate in the conversation.

The first thing is this. You need to invite all parties to participate in the conversation. It can’t just be the high-level management people that are at the top talking about what went wrong. You need to involve the people that are on the ground, who are hands on with the problem in the first place. 

Ask them “why”. They will have a different perspective to what the middle management will have. Middle management will have a different perspective to what upper management will have. Upper management will have a different perspective to what the CEO has. So you’ve got to involve all members of the process to make sure that your “Why’s” are getting to the root of the problem.

2. Ask the 5 “Whys”

When you have got this group in a room talking about the problem, you have got to be willing to ask the 5 “Whys”. Don’t get stalled by the first or the second problem. Each person that identifies a problem will think that their view is the be all and end all of it. Very often team members will zero in on what they understand, what they know and what they feel confident with.

So, often they will say, “If you fix this, then we would not have problems.” That might be part of the issue but you have also got to understand there might be layers of issues that need fixing. Be prepared to go through the process of asking all 5 “Why’s”, not just stalling at one. There may be a deeper issue that is at work and you’ve got to go through that process.

3. Identify some Solutions

The third thing is this, once you have identified the root problem, then you have got to identify some solutions. There is no point knowing what went wrong if you are not prepared to fix it. You have got to go through a process and again this involves your whole team. You ask everybody, “How do I fix this problem? How do I get a better outcome?”

Along the way, what you will find is that often somebody who is a process worker, who is on the ground and is a hands-on person, will have a different reason as to why your system doesn’t work. You need to listen to those people because they will have a better understanding of how there can be a practical solution, than somebody who is in an office.

4. Communicate the Solution

You have got to involve everybody in the solutions process. Then,  once you have identified the solutions and you have rolled the solution out, you need to make sure you communicate it. Communicate it to everybody. Make sure there is re-training. Ensure that everybody on the team understands how the system has changed. The last thing you want is an old system overlapping with a new system and causing confusion. Have a very clear top to bottom communication on how the system has been tweaked and why it has been tweaked. 

That is my synopsis on the 5 “Whys” method from Toyota. I hope that was helpful. I find it really helpful for analyzing problems and system breakdowns in my business and the church organization that I’m a part of. I hope that you can start implementing that in what you do as well. 

Don’t forget to give us a comment below if you found this helpful. Let us know what you thought and also suggest some topics if there’s something you want us to talk about. We’d love to create content that is more attuned to what you’re experiencing.

If you would like to learn more about effectively growing in your leadership, why not check out our FREE Goal setting guide. See below for details.

https://leadcommunicategrow.com/free-goal-setting-guide/

5 Steps to Set Goals that Work

Hello leaders. In this episode I am going to give you five keys for connecting without using words. They say that only 20 percent of what people hear actually comes from words, 80 percent of what they hear is what they observe or what they see through nonverbal communication.

It is absolutely essential that you know how to communicate and connect with others without your words or to go beyond your words to make sure that your message is getting through. Before I get into these tips I want to remind you to subscribe or follow if you do not already do so. We produce this content every week and we do not want you to miss a single episode. Share it with somebody who you think will enjoy it and get the most out of what we are producing.

Prefer to watch the video, Click here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-8rGYX0ecI

Five keys to connecting without words.

I wonder if you have ever heard the expression “Actions speak louder than words?” The brain is wired primarily for sight and the main way we collect data is through our eyes. So it is reasonable to think that when we communicate with other people, a lot of what we understand about what they are saying and what we understand about them as people, comes through what we observe, not by what we hear.

Animals, like dogs for example, have very keen hearing but human beings do not have great hearing. We have great eyesight, so that is where the bulk of your communication needs to be focused. So how do you communicate without using your words ? 

1. Eliminate distractions

We need to eliminate distractions. We live in a world that is so distracted, more distracted than we have ever been in history. You do not have to go very far to see people with their phones out and staring at it. I was in a restaurant the other day with my family and it was kind of amusing because I looked at my own table and all my kids were on their phone, I looked at the next table and everyone was on a phone, I looked at the next table and everybody was on a phone. It seems like everywhere you go now, people are walking with their head down staring at their phones.

It is really easy to be distracted when you are in a conversation or you are trying to connect with somebody, if you pay too much attention to your phone. If your phone dings or a message comes through while you are talking to somebody, do not answer it, do not pick it up, do not even flip it over to see who it is, because if connecting is really important to you, then what you will find is, that every time you get distracted or lose attention you are actually losing the person that you are trying to connect with. You need to eliminate distractions if you are trying to have a meeting. Try to meet in an environment where there are less distractions.

If you go to a sports bar and there are TVs everywhere and noise everywhere, that is not a great place to meet someone who you are trying to connect with. However,  if you go to a quiet cafe where there are less distractions then you will find that you can actually communicate more effectively. So be aware of distractions. Eliminate them as much as possible when you are trying to build relationships and connect with people.

2. Maintain eye contact

The second thing is this – it is connected to the first one. You need to maintain eye contact. I do not know if you have ever talked with somebody who tends to look around the room. They look everywhere except the person they are talking to. It can be really off-putting and it certainly breaks connection if you are trying to build rapport and trust with another person. Just be really mindful when you are talking to somebody that you maintain eye contact with them.

Sometimes this can be a little bit strange, just staring at them directly in the eyeball, so I usually just stare at a spot just in between their eyes and that makes it look like you are looking at them. You are getting that connection but what you do not want to be doing is just looking around the room, looking at the TV or looking at somebody who just walked past.

You have got to really try to maintain that connection but maintaining your focus can be hard in a crowded room if you are in a networking event or you see somebody walk in that you know.  If you can maintain that focus, that will really help you to establish a connection with a person because he/she will notice that you are completely focused on them and will appreciate you for that. So, eliminate distractions and maintain eye contact. 

3. Be expressive

The third tip is this; you need to learn to be expressive. When you are communicating, use your full range of facial expressions. Do not have a deadpan face. You have probably heard of the expression “resting you know what face.” In other words, you know that face you have when you are really deep in thought?  You do not want to have a stern face all the time. Maybe you have a face that looks a little bit like a deer in the headlights. Whatever it might be, just try to use your eyes, mouth and your smile to express what you are saying. 

You can also use your hands. It just helps to emphasize or helps to bring the person into what you are saying. Just a little tip about using hands. Do not wave them around too much in front of you because that can be off-putting as it gets into the other person’s personal space. When speaking to someone, I keep my hands fairly close to me when I am using gestures, rather than reaching out in front of me because that can become a barrier. So be expressive, use your facial expressions, smile, use your eyes, use your eyebrows, use your hands and you will find that helps you to communicate, build rapport and connection with another person.

4. Observe the person you are talking to

The fourth thing is this, you need to observe the person who you are facing. Take notice of their body language. Be observant about how they are standing. If they are sitting then you sit, if they stand then you also stand. Do not try to have a conversation with somebody who is in a different position to you.

It is very hard to have a conversation with somebody if you are sitting down and they are standing up or vice versa. You need to try and mirror the other person, if they lean in you lean in, if they lean back a bit relaxed then you lean back a little bit relaxed. So try to mirror them but do not make it too obvious. You do not want to mirror them the minute they change their hand movement because that is just going to look silly, but just very subtly be observant of your counterpart and try to mirror what they are doing. 

What happens when you do this is, their brain says,”This person is like me I can trust them”. This is what your brain is really doing all the time when you meet a new person. It is looking for points of connection and gauges whether you can trust him/her. So if you are being observant about the way that they are holding their body posture, the way that they are talking, for example, their tone of voice, you try to mirror very subtly what they are doing. What you will find is that this will build connection and rapport with the other person very well.

5. Watch your own body language 

The fifth tip really is tied to the fourth. You need to also watch your own body language. Make sure you are not giving off body language that is creating a barrier towards the other person or seems overly aggressive; for example, crossing your hands  while you are talking to somebody. Do not do this, unless  you can read the situation really well and the other person is crossing their hands and you can tell that they are very relaxed. Otherwise, you do not want to cross your hands because crossing hands creates the impression that you do not want to talk to the other person and they can perceive this as an aggressive stance.

Also, be mindful of your height. If you are taller than other people, try to bring your height down so that they do not feel like you are standing over them. One of the things I do is, I spread my stance a little bit wider so that it brings my height down so that if I am talking to somebody who is shorter than I,  I am not looking down on them or intimidating them. Try not to get into people’s personal space unnecessarily. Keep a safe distance, however, you do not want to be so far away that you are aloof but at the same time you do not want to be so close that it feels awkward or weird.

Be mindful of your hands, I mentioned them before. You do not want to have fists clenched or point too much because that can be perceived as aggressive traits that may be off-putting. So just be mindful of your own body language and how you’re carrying yourself so that you don’t inadvertently communicate a sense of hostility or a sense of a barrier or blockage between you and the other person. 

So these are the five things that I think you need to learn to do or be aware of when you are trying to connect with people without words. They are very important if you want to get through to people with more than just words and you want them to know, like and trust you. So learn to   communicate non-verbally. 

Just to a recap:

1. Eliminate distractions – Put your phone away, do not get distracted by what is around you, pick a quiet environment to meet with people.
2. Maintain eye contact – Make sure you do not let your eyes wander and just look at the person that you are talking to.
3. Be expressive – Use your smile, use your eyes, use your hands and be expressive 
4. Be observant of the person you are speaking to. Look at their body language, look at their posture and try to very subtly mimic or mirror their posture so that they feel comfortable with you and they feel like you are on their wavelength.
5. Watch your body language.  Do not use body language that is overly aggressive, confrontational or creates a barrier between you and the other person.

If you can follow these five tips and practice them, you are going to be well on your way to connecting with others and having them know, like and trust you. Focus, observation and body language can go far beyond what you can accomplish just with your words because as we all know, “Actions speak louder than words.”

If you would like to learn more about effectively growing in your leadership, why not check out our FREE Goal setting guide. See below for details.

https://leadcommunicategrow.com/free-goal-setting-guide/

5 Steps to Set Goals that Work

In this blog I want to talk about the importance of connecting before you try to lead. What do I mean by this ? What I mean is that a great many young leaders or beginning leaders will try to take charge of a situation or take charge of a team before they have put in the effort to connect with and build relationships with the team. 

Prefer to watch the video, click here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0xwFrfgnAQ&t=167s

I was chatting with a friend recently and he has got a new boss. His boss is much younger than he is and he is in a team of people who are very experienced as they have been doing the job a long time. This very inexperienced person has come into the team and has spent the first two weeks laying down the law, telling them what is acceptable and what is not acceptable.

He was shocked to find that the team were not too happy about that and the team were not willing to be cooperative with this new leader. So he came back to them and said, “What do I need to do to be able to work with you guys?” “What is it going to take for you guys to work with me?” One of the things they identified was that he needed to take the time to connect with the team and get to know them before he started barking orders at them and writing the rules and the regulations for them. 

If you do not take the time to build personal connections with the people you are trying to lead, they will never follow you. People follow people. They do not follow positions, they do not follow titles. It does not matter if you have a title and a pay packet to go with it, people follow people and so you need to take the time to actually build those positive relationships with your team, staff or organization so that they can know, like and trust you. 

There is an old sales term that applies to leadership as well, “Your people need to know who you are, they need to like who you are and they need to be able to trust who you are before they will follow where you want to take them.” That is going to take effort on your part and it is going to take time. So here are a couple of tips on how you can do this effectively.

1. Get to know your team.

The first thing to do is, get to know your team. Get to know your team personally. Ask them how they are, ask them what they do, understand their job. Do not start trying to tell them what their job is or how to do their job better. Do not even try to tell them that you are an expert in their job, even if you are. Just ask them what their job is. Say, “Tell me what you do here, tell me what you understand about the organization”. 

Also get to know them as people. Find out about their families, find out how many kids they have, ask them how long they have worked in the organization, what they do on weekends, what their hobbies are. Take an interest in them as individuals. I would suggest that you do this for the first couple of months before you start trying to establish your own position and getting them to buy into you.  You first need to show them that you are buying into them. 

2. Learn to engage with the team regularly.

The second thing you need to do if you are trying to connect with people is, learn to engage with them on a regular basis. Do not just sit in your office and hide away in your meetings. Take the time to actually go and interact on a daily basis. Go and say, ” Hello” to your team, ask them how they are doing, wish them a great day. Just for five or ten minutes every day connect with your team, and talk to them. This will work wonders for getting them to buy into you. What you are doing is saying, “Nothing is more important than knowing that my team is ok”. 

When you show your team that you care about them above profits, money, systems or meetings, whatever it might be, then they are more likely to say, “Hey you know what, this guy is the real deal or this lady is the real deal, we want to get to know them.” Do not try and cast vision the first minute you meet them. Get to know them and show them that you care.

3. Be transparent

The third thing you need to do if you are going to connect with people is this, you need to let them in on what is going on, be transparent. Do not be secretive about the way you are processing. Now it does not mean you have to tell them everything. I understand that there are stages and there are different levels of information but at least let them know the direction you are heading.

Give them information about what they should expect, give them information about what you are thinking but then ask for their feedback. Say,  “Hey, I was thinking about doing this, what do you think? I would love your feedback”. What you will find is, very often they will value the fact that you took the time to ask them but sometimes they will have a better insight of the organization or a better insight of how that will affect the organization.

They might be able to help you tweak things and make a better decision so include them in the decision making and get their feedback. Keep being transparent with them and you will find that they start to buy into you. 

So these are three things that you can do to connect before you try and lead. 

• Take the time to get to know your people before you start trying to lead them. Get to know their job, get to know what they do, get to know their personal life.
• Secondly, take the time every day to engage with them. Go and say hello, wish them a happy day, ask them how their night was, how their weekend was. Engage with them on a daily basis. 
• Lastly, be transparent and invite people to participate in your decision making. Share with them what you are thinking. Ask them for their feedback, ask them for their opinion and let them know the direction you are heading so that they can actually evaluate that and be part of the process.

So these are three things that I think you could do to connect before you try and lead. I hope that has been really helpful. If you have got friends or colleagues that you think will benefit from this, send them a link and we would love to get them involved as well.

If you would like to learn more about effectively growing in your leadership, why not check out our FREE Goal setting guide. See below for details.

https://leadcommunicategrow.com/free-goal-setting-guide/

5 Steps to Set Goals that Work

I want to talk to you about paying the price. At every level of leadership and at every level of influence and responsibility there will be a price that you have to pay. Until you recognise that and learn how to manage it, you will never grow in your leadership. Leadership expert John Maxwell says this, “In order to go up as a leader you need to give up.” There is always a price to pay at every level of increase in your leadership. As your responsibility increases, so too does the cost of your leadership or the price you have to pay for that level of responsibility. As your influence goes up, the toll will go up and you have to reckon with that reality.

Prefer to watch the video, click here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VP_7lnpP2KY

Many times, young leaders or people who are not leaders, think that leaders get all the perks and advantages but fail to recognise that there is a huge cost and a huge toll to pay for those levels of responsibility and commitment. So I just want to talk about the three things that you have to keep in mind if you are going to learn how to pay the price and continue to grow in your leadership and become more effective.

1. Accept that there is a price to pay.

2. The cost gets higher with the more influence you have.

3. Leadership takes a personal toll on you.

Accept that there is a price to pay.

The first thing is this, you have got to accept that there is a price attached to your leadership. There is no such thing as leadership without cost. There is no such thing as influence without a penalty and there is no such thing as responsibility without a toll. What I mean by that is, that every level of your leadership, every level of your growth, every level of your influence will require you to give something up. It will require a sacrifice of you, it might be longer hours, it might require you to move to another city, it might require you to do some things that you did not want to do, for the short term, so that you can get the long term outcomes. It might require you to give up doing one activity that you were really passionate about for the sake of the bigger picture.

You might find that with the increase in influence,  you also get an increase in criticism. That is very true. Sam Chan talks about this and says that leadership is pain. When you lead you are going to get criticism, you are going to get opposition and that is a cost; it is a price that you have to pay.

So the first thing you need to reckon with as a leader is to accept that there will always be a cost. Where I see many leaders get derailed – and I know when I was first developing, this is one of the things that used to really hold me back, whenever I hit adversity, opposition, or had to pay a price for what I wanted to do, I would get indignant or feel like it was not fair. I would think, “Why am I not getting a break ? What is this opposition ? Why are people coming against me like this?” Why do these things happen to you?  Well, I will tell you why, because you are a leader and you want influence and you want to grow in your influence. 

The reality is this, it is going to happen. I had to get to the place where I recognized that no matter how high I go in my leadership, no matter how long I am a leader, I am always going to have to reckon with opposition and pay a price. Then I was able to actually steer my path with more focus and a little more ease. If all you ever do is complain or get indignant when things go wrong or things come against you as a leader, you are never going to level up. You will never be given extra responsibility. So, accept the fact that pain, opposition and penalty is a part of leadership and it is the part of leadership that must be paid if you would like to go to that next level of responsibility.

The cost gets higher with the more influence you have.

The second thing you need to understand is, the cost gets higher with the more influence you have. You may be a beginning leader or a middle level leader and you may think that things are going to get easier if you get the top position. You may think, “If I could just get that job, then I would not have so many problems”. Think again. More responsibility equals more problems. In order to continue growing in your leadership, you also have to be prepared to pay a much higher price, the higher you go and you will have more opposition. You will have more challenges to deal with, you will have more conflict that you have to navigate and work through, that is the cost of leadership.

Sam Chan says this, “In every organization there will be 10 percent devils that you have to reckon with.” No matter how much you grow, you are going to still have 10 percent of people who will oppose you; so,  if you are in an organization where you are leading 100 people, well, you have got to contend with 10 people that may make life very difficult for you. You may look at somebody that has got an organization of 10,000 people and say, “Oh if only I had their organization I wouldn’t have these problems.”  Think again.  They have probably got a thousand people they have to deal with on a regular basis that are problematic or difficult. The cost always goes up and you have got to not only accept it but also be prepared to pay the price as your influence grows.

Your leadership will usually be capped at the point that you are able to successfully cope with the level of opposition or level of conflict you are facing. When you are not prepared to work beyond that level of conflict then you will probably put a lid on your leadership and not go any further.  That is ok if you are happy at that level. If you want to keep growing you have to be prepared to deal with the level of conflict at the level that you advance to because it is only going to keep going up from there.

Leadership takes a personal toll on you.

The third one is this, leadership takes a personal toll on you. The more responsibility you get, the more influence you have. The more people will expect of you individually as a person. One of the things that I find with leadership – and I am certainly not at a level where I am under huge public scrutiny- but as my leadership has grown, there are always people that want to take a price from you personally. They either want to criticize you personally, slander you, tell lies about you, say things about your family even if they do not know your family. This is the price you pay for being in a position of influence. 

You have to learn to deal with that stuff with grace, humility and integrity. Do not fight back, do not retaliate, do not gossip about other people. Keep your own integrity as the personal cost goes up. You need to keep your cool because that will affect your credibility with others. If you do not, there is a personal toll and it will affect your family as well and so you need to manage your emotions and measure your responses. Work on it. At whatever level you can handle the pressure of conflict and criticism, that is the level of leadership you will grow to.

There is nothing wrong with saying, “This is as much as I am able to take, this is where I am going to stop”. We all have to make that decision for ourselves. Do not complain about not getting opportunities to go up. If you want to rise higher in leadership, grow up, accept more responsibility, be an influencer and be prepared to take the hits.

If you are not prepared to pay the price, then be happy with where you are. However, if you are prepared to pay the price and prepared to do the hard work of navigating it and becoming a more effective leader under pressure, then what you will find is that you get bigger and bigger responsibilities and opportunities to influence others in your leadership. 

So those are my tips for understanding the price attached to leadership. There is always a price you are going to have to pay, so you better accept it. You better learn to understand that the price always goes up. Learn to understand that there is a personal toll and you have to navigate that well.

I hope that was really helpful for you, make sure you share it with someone that you think would also benefit. 

If you would like to learn more about effectively growing in your leadership, why not check out our FREE Goal setting guide. See below for details.

https://leadcommunicategrow.com/free-goal-setting-guide/

5 Steps to Set Goals that Work

In this episode, I am going to show you how a little known observation by a man named Cyril Parkinson, in the 1950s, can help you get more done in less time.

Prefer to watch the video, Click here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VP_7lnpP2KY

We are going to be thinking about Parkinson’s law and how it affects your ability to manage your time and productivity. In the 1950s, there was a British civil servant named Cyril Northcott Parkinson. He was commissioned to study civil service and figure out why so many projects within the government departments were blowing out in time. They were taking much longer than they were meant to and wasting a lot of money, a lot of productivity and many man-hours. 

Parkinson observed a whole range of government departments over a period of time and after his observations, his conclusions were that with any of the projects that they were asked to do, the success of the completion of the project was determined by the time constraints that were put on it. Basically he said that the productivity expanded or contracted depending on the time limits.

If there was a short time frame put onto the project then everybody worked at a much higher rate of productivity. If there was a longer time frame or there was no specific  time frame for the completion of the project, workers would delay the project and take longer to finish it. Very often, they did not complete the task until a specific time limit was put on it. This became known as Parkinson’s Law.

Simplified, Parkinson’s law says, work expands or contracts to fit the time constraints that are put on it.

So how does this affect you in your productivity? You’ve probably noticed that there are certain things that you work on that never seem to end. You work back late and keep working until you are too tired to work any longer. Maybe you’re having trouble balancing your work and your life commitments. Maybe you spend too much time at work or maybe, you’re bringing your work home because you don’t get it completed during the day. Then you find yourself working at night. I know this is true of teachers. When I was a school teacher, this was a problem. 

This might be a problem for business owners as well. The work never seems to end. This can affect your relationships, your health and well-being and also increase your stress levels. So, I want to show you how to apply Parkinson’s law to your work balance and help you to become more productive and have more time for yourself and your family.

1. Put a time limit on your work.

We’re going to use Parkinson’s law as a bit of a guide, so the first thing you need to do whenever you’re working on any kind of project is this, you must put a time limit on it. If you went to university or you remember your high school days, very often when you had assignments you may have  noticed that students  tended to leave their work or their assignment till the very last minute thereby shortening their time limit. Why? Because they knew that this shortened time limit made them more productive. 

When people have a sense of urgency and know the deadline is coming, that’s when they tend to be more focused, work harder and faster. This is your brain’s way of prioritizing workload and prioritizing focus. You see, your brain understands that you have multiple tasks that you have to balance. So in order to help you balance your workload, your brain gives more priority to things that are urgent, because with urgency, comes deadlines, with deadlines comes consequences. 

This is your brain’s way of saying, “Come on, get on with it, there’s a time constraint here, you need to make this a priority.” By putting a time limit on your projects, what will happen is that you will be less distracted, work faster and more efficiently so you don’t go over time. So, you need to use time limits to manage your personal work –  life balance. 

Put a time limit on your work day. You need to say, “At five o’clock I clock off and I do not work past five o’clock or if you’re bringing work home, say, “At eight o’clock I finish work. I have some down time or I have family time.” Whatever it might be, if you don’t put a hard deadline on your workload and your projects, you will just keep on working and will go on and on and you’ll get exhausted and stressed. You will  miss out on the important things in your life and you will become less productive over time. So more work doesn’t equal more productivity. Putting time constraints on your workload and your projects, will actually make you more productive and more efficient. 

2. Have accountability

The second thing that you need to do if you are going to use Parkinson’s law to help you get more done in less time is this; you need accountability. You need people in your life that are going to help you stay true to those time limits, those hard barriers or boundaries that you have on your workload. It might be a family member that is able to call you and say, “Hey it’s past cut off time, you need to stop working and you need to go home”. If you have a life coach, a business coach or a friend then they might be able to keep you accountable in that regard.

You can also use your phone as a productivity tool. Have a timer or an alarm that will help to jog your memory to help with your accountability as well. So make sure you’ve got somebody or something that holds you to your time limits. Don’t let your time limits be abstract or obtuse because then your brain will know that you’re just making up the time limit and it won’t stick to it. So make yourself  accountable in some form so that you know the deadline is serious. 

3. Prioritize the workload

Thirdly, you need to understand how to prioritize workload and tasks according to your needs and the needs of others. If you work with other people in a team, what you will often find is that everybody else’s needs are more important than yours. Everybody will place their own sense of importance on the tasks that they give you. 

I used to get this a lot when I was working in the education system. I worked in a particular role where other people relied on me to get information to them. Very often people would send me an email that would say, “Hey can you get this done, I need it urgently.” So what I found before I started using Parkinson’s law, was that because they said, “Urgently,” I dropped everything else that I was doing to prioritise that request. I focused on other people’s sense of urgency rather than the work that I needed to get done. Then I would be behind on my workload and be stressed because I wasn’t getting my work done.

What I learned to do was force other people to put time limits on their emergencies or their sense of urgency as well. Most people don’t work like this; they just want you to drop everything and do their work immediately. 

So this is how I handle the priorities of other people. Now, when somebody says to me, “Can you get this done for me”?, the first question I ask is “By when do you need it done”? Usually they will respond, 

“As soon as possible.”  That’s not good enough. What I then say is “I understand that you have a sense of urgency about this but I need to know what the latest date and time is that I need to get this done for you as I have a number of priorities that I have to balance.” 

When you force them to put a time limit on it, one, it helps you to manage your time but secondly, you’ll often find that it’s not as urgent as they made it out to be. A great example of this is; I once had a teacher that sent me an email. She said “Tarun, I need this stuff urgently” So I said to her “Ok, when do you need it”? She said, “As soon as possible”. I followed up again and I said, “Give me the latest practical time to get this done, where it won’t put you under stress”. She came back to me and said that the deadline was four weeks away! So what started out as something urgent, actually turned out to be something that wasn’t required for a whole month!

That completely changed the way I prioritize my workload. Instead of dropping everything and doing it there and then, I was able to say, “No problem,  I’ll make sure that I have it to you in the next two weeks”. So they knew when they were going to get it, they weren’t harassing me and stressing about it. I knew what time I had to get it done and I didn’t have to drop other important tasks for the sake of it.

By prioritizing your workload and others and by putting time constraints on them, you will find that you get more done in an efficient manner. You won’t find yourself burning out, working long hours or burning the candle at both ends. You’ll find you are more productive, focused, happier and less stressed at work and in your family. 

Those are  my three tips for using Parkinson’s law to help you get more done in less time.

• Put time limits on everything you do.
• Have accountability. 
• Put time limits on other people’s workload as well.

 If you do this, you will find that you work more efficiently and avoid unnecessary stress. 

If you would like to learn more about effectively growing in your leadership, why not check out our FREE Goal setting guide. See below for details.

https://leadcommunicategrow.com/free-goal-setting-guide/

5 Steps to Set Goals that Work