Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Negotiation – a key management skill

Wednesday, June 9th, 2010

Negotiation is a key skill. Most of us practice negotiation almost every day whether it be in agreeing the time our children should come home, selling or trading in our car or ‘haggling’ in a marketplace on holiday. In the main we use our skills and the processes of negotiation sub-consciously.
Negotiation is an interactive communication process that takes place whenever we want something from someone else or another person wants something from us. By developing negotiation techniques we can enhance our effectiveness, i.e. achieve what we aim to achieve more often. Through negotiation training we can also improve our inter-personal and communication skills.
We are running a two day programme called “negotiation – raising your game’ in Edinburgh in September.
By the end of the workshop participants will;
• understand the basic negotiating concepts underlying all negotiations.
• develop an understanding of total package negotiation using an analytical model, casework and exercises
• analyse, experience and learn to manage the team roles in the negotiating process.
• develop and practice the use of skills required in successful negotiations

Skills and techniques are developed by working through real life case studies. Participants have the benefit of getting feedback on areas of strength and opportunities for improvement from the programme leader, other participants and can self review through watching a video of their negotiation practice.
Please get in touch if you would like more information.

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Leadership is defining and enabling the culture

Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010

In my view leadership is about creating a vision and inspiring followership. A critical part of which is to create the right environment or culture where people feel inspired to work collaboratively towards a common goal.

In the past 25 years, the concept of organisational culture and the positive impact that it has on business results has gained wide acceptance. Simply put, the culture is the way things are done around here. It is the norms, expectations, symbols and guidelines that enable or inhibit employees to engage and align to the strategy of the business and deliver their best performance.

Over this time there have been many studies which have shown the correlation between managing the culture and business performance. It is possibly the most critical factor determining an organisation’s capacity, effectiveness, and sustainability. It also contributes significantly to how customers and prospective customers perceive  the organisation’s brand image and brand promise.

I am often asked what leaders can do do manage the organisational culture more effectively.

It is a simple process but one that needs leadership and management input and should be reviewed each time there is a review of the strategy or business plan.

  • As part of the strategy review process – define the culture that will enable success.
  • Conduct a quasi gap analysis – where are we now against where we want to be
  • Create a route map of those interventions that will move the culture closer to the desired state
  • Evaluate results – over time, it is possible to both assess impact of investment in for example development and/ or correlate the investment in culture on bottom line results

In the recently published 10th annual survey of  ”UK’s Best Workplaces’  compiled by The Great Place to Work Institute found that:

  • Europe’s Best Workplaces grew their revenues by 15% on average, in the midst of the recession;
  • Sickness absence in the UK’s Best Workplaces was 30% lower than the national average saving those organisations £20,760 per 100 employees per year;
  • Almost 90% of employees in the UK’s Best Workplaces believe that management is open and honest in their organisation, against the national average of 55%

Solid justification for managing organisational culture. Please do get in touch to share your experience or if you would like more information.

Posted in Business Coaching, Leadership Development, Management Development, Training, Uncategorized, organisational culture | No Comments »

The Advance Consultancy wins “New Business Award 2009″

Friday, December 11th, 2009

The Advance Consultancy is almost 3 years old and what a 3 years it has been.   We’ve grown the business with an established client base and built ourselves a solid reputation throughout Scotland.  Like many people, I can be my own worst enemy, not realising the positive value that can add to a business, but constantly focusing on our weaker points and where we want to improve.

You can therefore imagine my surprise and delight when we were awarded “The Women in Business, Shona Sibbald New Business Award 2009″ and I would like to take the opportunity to thank all of you who have supported us over the last 3 years.

The Future

We believe in growth and change andthis year, the way that we have delivered our programmes has changed and adapted to the new business environment our clients have faced. We are much less about individual contribution and now place a much greater emphasis and focus on team working and team performance.  High performing teams have an aggregate profile that gives them a core strength to deliver results beyond what each of the individuals could deliver on their own.

We have developed a unique process where we produce a comprehensive team picture with a detailed map of how to achieve greater success through understanding the cores strengths and limitations of the team and how these can be used to improve performance.

Our clients have given great feedback on the positive impact that this approach now has on increasing team performance and effectiveness and it is fantastic to see that our approach, style and the results we achieve are being recognised by the business community at large as well.

Kim

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Are you missing an opportunity to improve performance?

Tuesday, October 27th, 2009

Most of us have two roles at work; our functional responsibilities for example, Accountant and our role as part of a team. I find it fascinating that when we recruit or assess performance, even for the most senior roles, the focus on our team role is very often secondary and is assessed very subjectively based upon gut feel about how the individual fits with everyone else and how they fit in with the culture. As you can imagine the real risk here is that everyone in the team is very similar in outlook, background or experience. This misses the point that difference and diversity can bring great value.

A colleague and I have developed a suite of diagnostics called Team Dynamix to assess team ’shape’ and identify their strengths and limitation in delivering their business objectives. The tool has both qualitative and quantitave elements and we are getting great feedback on the value of the report and recommendations. One client, a research organisation gave us the following feedback -

We now truly understand that the the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. We have promoted and valued team working for a number of years but it is only now that we can see it delivering results.

I firmly believe that people want to work as part of a team but that they can’t do their best work unless they understand the team dynamic, the strength and contribution of each individual and how ang gaps will be managed. We are trying to build some case studies and good examples of high performing teams and how this has been achieved. Please do tell me about your own experiences.

Thanks

Kim

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Posted in Business Coaching, Leadership Development, Management Development, Uncategorized, organisational culture | 2 Comments »

Are the symbols in your organisation supporting your culture?

Friday, July 31st, 2009

A friend was telling me that he thinks that the motivational pictures that you often see in training rooms are naff. In fact, he believes that because they are perceived as insincere they have a demotivational effect.

Symbols in business have a very powerful impact. Think about the large M of McDonalds or even a Coca – Cola glass bottle. They are instantly associated with the brand and what that particular business stands for. Businesses often make a massive investment in their brands and imagery and also in the marketing of them to heighten customer awareness.

What often goes unnoticed is the more subtle symbols in the workplace and the impact that they have on employee behaviours and attitudes. I have a client who wants to shift the culture to one where people feel empowered to make the right decisions for customers. This is a well thought through proposition and they have calculated the return they expect to get on the investment on development.

Everyone is talking about it but the change is not happening as quickly as they had hoped. In walking into the offices there are signs everywhere, you know the sort – don’t do this, do that, put it here etc. Within the work environment there is almost no opportunity for empowerment. These signs have now been removed; some replaced with more encouraging statements and slowly the signs of change are apparent.

I am very interested to hear about symbols and there impact in your organisation.

Thanks

Kim

Posted in Leadership Development, Uncategorized, organisational culture | No Comments »

Transfer learning for better results

Monday, July 27th, 2009

One of the good things, I think, that has come from the credit crunch is an increase in the popularity of business coaching. I’ve spoken to a few of our clients to try to understand why they are choosing to invest more in coaching now when spending is often reigned in and most state that it’s because 100% of development activity is focused upon the individual client and delivers results for them as well as their business.

The current economic climate has required many businesses to change – often requiring them to deliver the same or better results with less resource. Many of our clients have given very positive feedback about the value of exploring different approaches and scenarios as well as planning how they will implement their response to confidential issues.

Sustainability is really important to us at The Advance Consultancy and although it sometimes goes un-noticed I think that the coach plays a vital part in helping the individual learn new tools and frameworks to shape their thinking, visioning and planning in a way that increases creativity and gives courage to take appropriate risks.

It’s great that today’s business leaders are realising that coaching is a very effective process for increasing skills and effectiveness within the workplace and delivering results.

Kim

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The Advance Consultancy – Leadership Development, Management Development & Business Coaching

Monday, June 22nd, 2009

Welcome to the blog!  Please bookmark it in your favourites if you are interested in the latest updates from the world of leadership and management development.  I’ll also be updating everyone on business coaching news and the dates for our next human resource networking events.

If there are any other bloggers who would like to link up, please leave your URL in the comments section and I’ll add you to the blogroll.

Kim, The Advance Consultancy

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