Growth strategy for the 21^st century

Whatever problems you are currently facing, there is one skill you can develop quickly and easily which has the potential to give you the answers and business growth you are looking for. And that is quite simply to develop your listening skills.

If you can be better at listening to your prospects or customers, you develop a deeper understanding of their needs and how you can meet them. If you have employees and learn how to listen to them better, you develop a deeper understanding of what is happening on the ‘front line’ and what needs to happen for your staff to be happier and more productive. But more important than any of that, if you can develop your skills at listening to your self, you will clarify your thinking, make more sense of your thoughts and become crystal clear about what you want for your business and what needs to happen to achieve the success you desire.

So how can you develop your listening skills? One way is to experience and learn more about a process called ‘Clean Language’, otherwise known as extreme listening. Clean Language was devised by counselling psychologist David Grove during the 1980s and 90s – David looked at ways of helping clients work on their desired outcomes or goals by focusing on the words they used and the meaning they attached to them.

The effect of this approach is that it brings clarity to your understanding of your desired outcome and how you might get there and when this work is carried out in peer mentoring groups it can be even more powerful. The business owner can work on their own problems and growth strategies, as well as hearing and learning from their peers.

If you would like to know more about how Clean Language and how peer mentoring groups for Business Owners can help you achieve your desired outcomes please call me on (07551) 303835 or e-mail me at allison@macintoshwright.co.uk for a free 30 minute consultation

I interviewed a couple of dozen business leaders, ranging from first line operational managers to board members whose time is usually spent on more strategic matters.

Business Challenges – the results

The results varied. Much of what people were saying I already knew but other things came as a bit of a surprise. For instance leaders seem to struggle with managing what has become known as “ the Facebook generation”.  It seems you don’t have to be very old to feel a gap between you and younger members of your team who have different views on the world of work and what they expect out of it, let alone their approach to using technology.

Unsurprisingly, however, the biggest challenge faced by each individual, without exception, was the current economic climate and more specifically the fast pace of change prompted by both global uncertainty and modern technology. As one respondent succinctly put it  - the problem isn’t that my children are coming in to a business world different to the one I entered thirty years ago, it’s that my youngest is coming in to a business world vastly different to that of his older sibling.

Effective Leadership – the solution

So how do you deal with that? Well one company I spoke to had already identified the key to their future business success as listening. Listening not only to their customers but also to those on their operational front line, to others in their industry and to global events which may have a knock on effect to their business.

And this of course is all music to my ears because what I am passionate about is showing business leaders how they can be more productive by developing their listening skills. Listening better to themselves which helps them clarify their thinking and become crystal clear about their vision and direction (which in turn helps them communicate better with their teams).  And listening better to their teams to help them become more productive.

So how do I do this? I use a process called ‘Clean Language’, otherwise known as extreme listening. Clean Language was devised by counselling psychologist David Grove during the 1980s and 90s – David observed that other therapists would distort their clients’ language and felt that this ‘robbed’ them of their true experience. To further explain, if coaching is about helping people find their own solutions to their problems, then Clean Language does this in an extreme way. Firstly, once you have identified the clients goal or desired outcome your focus is then on developing the clients understanding of the words they have used in a way that gives them more clarity around what they want. A simple example would be if someone said “I want to be rich” the facilitator would explore with them what they meant by rich. Does that mean piles of gold sitting on either side of you or does it merely means having enough time to spend with family and friends?

Secondly we talk about the client’s metaphors as if they were real and build a full three dimensional metaphoric landscape of their desired outcome. For instance “I am floating on a cloud” you would then ask “What kind of cloud is that?”, “Is there anything else about that cloud?”, “Does it have a shape or size?” etc etc.

The net effect of this process is that firstly it brings clarity to the clients understanding of their desired outcome and secondly having the metaphoric landscape embeds the vision of the goal, brings it to life and makes it feel more real.

In short, Clean Language uses metaphors to unlock the unconscious mind and act as a tool for clarity and change.

If you would like to know more about how Clean Language can help you or your teams achieve your desired outcomes please call me on (07551) 303835 or e-mail me at allison@macintoshwright.co.uk for a free 30 minute consultation

Change of boss?

John’s work life had become increasingly difficult since he acquired his boss 18 months previously.  Although his boss showed an interest in John’s personal development, the occasions when they got together were few and far between and John became more and more frustrated at his lack of progress. Eventually he decided that rather than keep ‘banging his head against a brick wall’ he would be better off elsewhere and after being approached by a competitor, accepted an offer of a similar role where he knew the boss was someone who put her team’s personal development as a priority.
At first all was well and John settled in to his new role quite quickly. After some initial ‘hand holding’, John was ready to be let loose with his new responsibilities but that never quite happened. For whilst his new boss was happy to give him as much time as he needed on his personal development, her style also included keeping tight control over everything that was going on, getting involved in even the tiniest detail of the team’s activities. This didn’t suit John at all, who had got used to his previous boss’s style of letting him get on with things. Ultimately, John ended up with someone else he considered a ‘bad boss’, but this time for different reasons.

Coping strategies
John realized that after two ‘bad bosses’ in a row, maybe it was time to look to himself to see what changes he could make rather than try yet another boss. Having such a detailed scrutiny of his work was never going to suit him so we worked on coping strategies to adopt whilst he stayed the length of time in this role which would look reasonable on his CV before moving on. And during that period he would be able to take advantage of the personal development opportunities available to him.
And this week another of my clients has developed coping strategies for his  own set of  circumstances. He is ready to step in to the role of his boss who is retiring at the end of this year. Everything is in place for a gradual handover, however, in the last few months the boss’s behaviour has started to change and not in positive ways – blocking initiatives he would normally have agreed, picking up on minor points, demanding to be involved in issues he has previously shown no interest in. My client realizes this is all probably because his boss is fighting the inevitable and has worked out some ways of both keeping his boss ‘on side’ for these remaining months and keeping himself happy when that doesn’t quite work.
And as a leader in business, you could find yourself at either end of these problems, so if you would like to know how YOU can deal with a bad boss OR if you would like to be the sort of boss who can help people look to themselves to change rather than blaming others, call me on 07551303835 or email allison@macintoshwright.co.uk for a free 30 minute consultation

Creating the Vision

The key difference between a Manager and a Leader is that the Leader sets the vision, then the Manager manages the journey towards that vision by controlling the processes and people necessary to make the journey a success.

For a leader to create a vision, they need to have vision, to see what comes after the thing that comes after the thing that comes after today. And in order to have vision, they need to challenge the norms and challenge the now. To understand why we do what we do today and what needs to be different to make change happen – Mikhail Gorbachev, for instance, who introduced ‘perestroika’ and ‘glasnost’ which changed the world.

Manager to Leader

So if you are a manager looking to move towards leadership, my suggestions for starting are:-
-          create a vision for your own area of responsibility – one that your team can follow

-         empower your team. By self definition, a leader has followers. And if the vision is to be achieved it needs to be shared effectively, which means empowering your followers. And the way to empower is to listen and trust

-         build relationships with your team which will result in them believing in your vision and make it easy for them to follow you. Building those relationships can include:-

• being open, let them see your vulnerability
• be fair, they might not like your message sometimes, but they will accept it better if it is coming from the heart
• filling up the bucket of goodwill between you. When you need to ask for extra effort or have bad news to deliver, the success of your delivery will be easier if your goodwill bucket is flowing over. And the way to make that happen? Give praise when due, celebrate success, listen to people, show them you understand and care and give them what they want as far as possible.

-         look for ways to influence the vision created by the leaders in your business – get used to challenging

-        have robust processes and procedures in place that ensure the smooth running of your business.  In his book ‘Coaching High Performance Teams’, Grant Ledgerwood quotes one of Nelson’s Trafalgar Principles – ‘Practice and drill can turn every challenge into fluent strength’. In other words, the more stable your operational base, the more you are freed up to be pro-active. And pro-activity is a key element of leadership.

-      have courage. One of our best known leaders, Richard Branson, says “My phrase over the years has been – Screw it, just do it, because to succeed as a business leader, you must have the bravery to give it a go. One needs resolve and conviction to overcome hurdles and give people confidence to follow you.”

If you would like to know how YOU can move from Manager to Leader, call me on 07551303835 or email allison@macintoshwright.co.uk for a free 30 minute consultation