This month I have been explaining the benefits of proactively managing your employees engagement as the recession begins to lift.
You can read the whole article here in the HR Networking Magazine.
Kim
Posts Tagged ‘Business Coaching’
Proactively managing employee engagement
Monday, July 26th, 2010Top tips in selecting a coach
Monday, April 19th, 2010Business coaching is one of the most effective ways to develop. It’s 100% focussed on you, your goals and your performance. When you search for business coaches in your geographical area, the result will be literally thousands of coaches, how do you select the right one?
The following are some top tips to ensure that you select the right coach for your purpose.
• Be clear about your goals and what you want to achieve.
• There is often confusion about business coaching and mentoring, do some research to ensure it is business coaching you want.
• Use your network, can anyone recommend a great business coach.
• Check out experience, qualifications are important, however, in my view relevant experience is paramount.
• Successful business coaching relationship is based on trust. It is a reality that we human beings often base trust on gut instinct. Meet a few to establish who has the right chemistry with you.
• Coaching is not a quick fix. Discuss your requirements with a business coach to ensure that both agree a programme that delivers sustainable change.
• The role of the coach is facilitator. They provide a good measure of challenge, balanced with support. Success is therefore down to you. Do follow up on actions.
Business coaching or training – which is best?
Thursday, February 11th, 2010We are often asked which is best coaching or training. Keen not to be seen to sit on the fence my answer is ‘it depends’. Business coaching is extremely valuable particularly for senior managers or executives who have a specific agenda. The coaching relationship offers 100% focus and attention on their agenda proving them the opportunity to scenario plan and test out options in a safe and confidential environment.
Relevance is very important to successfully transfer knowledge and improve skills. For this reason, we tailor all of our training to meet the specific needs of the business and the participants. An added benefit of training is that there is a sharing of experiences and as well as developing from the course the participants can develop with the support of the others.
My answer is that it depends because we always aim to extend learning and support the effective implementation of the new skills back in the workplace. We all know how easy it is to leave a training course with an action plan of things to do differently but back at our desk there is a mountain of work to do and somehow our action plan slips down our priority list. We often suggest that a short coaching programme follows any training intervention to help participants apply their new knowledge and skills in their day job.
The feedback has been fantastic with many participants saying that a combination of coaching and training is best.
What is your favourite management book?
Like many people I follow a number of blogs on topics that interest me most; culture, leadership, business strategy etc. However, I just can’t quite walk past a bookshop without having a browse and I spend agencies reviewing Amazon’s sale every time I get an email alert.
I have to confess to having lots of favourites, one of which is ‘The Iceberg is Melting’ by John P Kotter. This is a simple fable about a colony of penguins and their initial resistance and then reaction to change. It brings to life the other Kotter books on effectively leading and implementing change. An easy and fun read.
Please tell me what your favourite business book is by logging into our website at www.advanceconsultancy.co.uk and filling in the contact us section. I look forward to hearing from you.
Kim
Are you missing an opportunity to improve performance?
Tuesday, October 27th, 2009Most 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
Do you create the opportunity for best performance at work?
Thursday, September 10th, 2009One of my clients was telling me that she was concerned that one of the top performers in her team is perceived as lazy by her colleagues. To me, this seemed to be a contradiction, however, she went on to explain that this person regularly takes time out during day whilst others are busy ’slogging away’.
Over time, we have moved away from traditional manufacturing and now rely on our brains rather than our hands to work. Have we changed our working practices to perform to the best of our abilities?
The conversation above suggests not and indicates that unless we are seen to be doing something we are not working. In our modern knowledge economy, thinking is not seen as working.
There is a mountain of research to show that we are most productive and produce better quality when we work in short bursts. Equally having the freedom to think and reflect is the best way to be innovative.
This sparked my interest and I talked to a sales team. Interestingly, the two top performing sales people took time to reflect, think and plan. What was most interesting was that neither of them did it during work time. One did it whilst jogging and the other when he got home every evening.
How typical is this? I am very keen to know how time spent thinking is seen by you or by your organisation. Please let me know your thoughts.
Transfer learning for better results
Monday, July 27th, 2009One 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
Organisational Culture – it could be affecting the success of your business?
Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009Welcome to my new blog where I aim to stimulate some interesting discussion and debate around leadership development, management development and business coaching in general. I’m going to kick off with Organisational Culture as this is something we’ve been heavily involved with over the last few weeks.
First things first, why would a business want to assess its organisational culture? Well, typically the businesses that come to us have recently undergone a period of change and are now trying to refocus on the behaviours and culture that will drive success into their new structure: there is a massive amount of research indicating that successful businesses consciously manage their desired culture.
Although this is not a new concept in the business arena it does seem that many businesses leave their culture to chance. We firmly believe that there are many tangible benefits in terms of increasing employee engagement and alignment. There are some businesses that have demonstrated a close link between their culture and their business success. Feel free to read an overview of our approach to Organisational Culture on our website. In the coming months, as we progress our assignments we will be adding case studies of the work that we do and also feedback from our clients.
In the meantime, I am looking for case studies of businesses and leaders who actively manage their corporate culture if you can help please post a comment with a link to your research or contact me directly through the website .I hope to be able to analyse these (alongside our own experiences) and write a summary report. I will happily send anyone who contributes a copy of our report. I look forward to hearing from you.
Thanks
Kim,
The Advance Consultancy – Leadership Development, Management Development & Business Coaching
Monday, June 22nd, 2009Welcome 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.
