It might seem a bit dramatic to say that this innocuous little connector has changed my life, but it’s certainly made a big impact in a specific part of my life.

Let me explain…

When I run a courses I often stay in a hotel and deliver the training in a different hotel or venue.  This involves me transporting my equipment for the day from one place to another at the start of the day.  And bringing it back it back again when I’ve finished for the day.

No problem there, I hear you thinking.

Well, not generally.  I’m quite a low-tech presenter and don’t always use slides, therefore don’t need a laptop.  However,  on occasions when  I’m travelling on the London Undergound and I’m carrying my laptop, course notes, flipchart pens etc etc in a bag that isn’t light (but is secure) the weight can be considerable.  I like my laptop and have no reason to replace it except that it’s quite heavy.

Result:  I find myself grumbling about the weight of stuff I’m carrying around and often end up with aching back or shoulders as a consequence.

Not any more…

I was looking at something on my iPad one day and wondered whether I could use it in place of my laptop when I have a slide presentation.  Hmmm.  No HDMI port and I don’t want to gamble on a venue having wireless connection (although many do)

I did a little research on the internet and I found the above.  It provides me with an HDMI connection to my iPad and also allows me to connect it to power at the same time.

No more lugging the laptop around.  No more aching shoulders.  No more grumbling from me.

Now, I don’t expect you to be inspired by my little connector (I’m guessing you might have known this was possible long before I did), but I would encourage you to think about the places in life where you’re putting up with something that isn’t a massive problem but is a niggling issue.  By giving it some focused thought and taking action, can you change the situation for the better?

Or even change your life….

On the evening that I went to the cinema last week, I was tired, somewhat stressed and – if I’m honest – a bit grumpy.

By the time I was getting in my car to come home all that had changed. ‘Conclave’ is a wonderful film!

Yes, I went to see it because it stars Ralph Fiennes and Stanley Tucci.  Plus it’s set in my favourite city in the world (I’m very keen to make another trip there now).

I was not expecting it to be quite as brilliant as it is…

Magnificent performances form all the lead actors.  Wonderful, intimate photography – lots of close-up shots.  A plot that delivers a few unexpected twists.  And some very thought-provoking messages.

This is what stayed with me…

“…the sin of certainty.  Certainty is the enemy of tolerance…”

I think I’m going to see it again, to relish the experience and possibly retain more of the lovely words.

Wilma and I are in Wales and for once it’s not raining! Join us for a wide-ranging conversation that includes a film review, some musings on religion, the increasing informality of business and life and the AI granny.

 

This week’s inspiration is a pop song.  I heard it on the radio and it’s been in my head for days…

M People’s ‘Search for the Hero‘ is on my playlist of songs with uplifting lyrics.  It’s important to me to play music that has an upbeat message and positive lyrics.  We all know how powerful words can be, so if you’re going to sing the same few lines to yourself over and over and again, they’d better have a positive impact!

Looking for a video to share, I realised that this track was released in the period of my life when I didn’t have a tv, so I’d never seen the official music video.  However, YouTube wasn’t letting me share that one, so this is the best alternative – recorded live at the Euro 96 Extravaganza.  What can say except – I WAS THERE!

Enjoy!

 

I’m back from a business trip to Dubai, Wilma is surrounded by water in Wales. In this episode we’re talking about the need to visit the highest places, Wilma shares another tale from her travels in South America and we discuss the power of Nature in all its glory. Somehow, from there we find ourselves discussing the reason why management has become difficult and debate the label ‘human resources’.

 

Amazingly, there are no reference books this week! But if you’d like to read the article mentioned, it’s here:
https://www.peoplemanagement.co.uk/article/1894065/pressure-why-squeezed-middle-having-hard-time

It was just one slide.  One I’d created at the last minute and slotted into the deck ‘just in case’.  I was surprised then, when all of the delegates mentioned it when we were reviewing the content of the session.  It had, apparently, challenged their thinking, given them new ideas and made them see just how important team meetings can be.

Team meetings.  Part of the cultural fabric of your organisation. A key activity for any manager or leader.  A highlight of the working week. No?

At a time when few managers receive training in how to run a team meeting and not many have good role models they can observe doing it, there is a danger that team meetings become a chore, a bore or they exist no more!

And yet, bringing your team together for a meeting should be an integral part of creating a winning mindset, fostering a sense of belonging and keeping close to what’s going on with your people.

Here are my tips for a successful team meeting…

 

Clear purpose

Before you run any meeting, there should be a clear purpose.  Its even more important for a regular meeting.  Is your team meeting an opportunity for each person to talk about what they’re working on, ask for ideas or help and get some kudos for recent successes?  Is it just about the boss giving essential notices?  Do you have time for non-work-related items?

Ask yourself this question:  how do you know when it’s been a good meeting?  If you find that a difficult question to answer, it might be time to revisit the purpose of the meeting.

 

Regular day and time

My preference is always to hold my team meetings on the same day at the same time.  Put it in your calendar as a recurring meeting and make sure it happens when it’s supposed to.  This signals to your team that the meeting is important.  It maximises the chances that everyone will be there – because they know when it is.

Also, it creates certainty (the C in the SCARF model, remember) and that’s very important. Especially if your organisation is going through some changes or uncertainty, your regular team meeting can be a rock to cling to.

If you’re not sure how often or how long, start with a weekly meeting for 30 minutes.  Do that for 4-6 weeks and review.  Make it longer or shorter, make it more or less frequent after that based on experience.

 

‘Just enough’ time

It’s your team meting so you can decide how long it’s going to be.  I know some leaders who hold daily meetings that last just ten minutes.  I know others who have a weekly two-hour meeting.  The ideal length is just enough time to do everything to fulfil the purpose of the meeting – and no longer.

Part of the reason some people dislike team meetings is that they drag on and seem not to achieve anything.  Yours can be different.

 

Everyone contributes

It’s a team meeting.  Make sure every person in the team contributes.  I often start my meetings by going around the table (or screen) and asking each person the same question.  Often, it’s something like ‘What are your three highlights of the last week/month?’

Part of the art of running a meeting is to spot who’s waiting to speak, to invite input from anyone who’s been particularly quiet and to ensure that the same voices don’t dominate every discussion.

 

Rotate the chair

Sometimes, leaders stop running team meetings because they resent the time it takes to prepare a good meeting.  The simple solution is to rotate the chair.  Let a different person in your team run the meeting each week.  It’s great development for them, it ensures there are lots of fresh ideas and it reduces the pressure on you to make every meeting a success.

Yes, you’ll need to support the person who turn it is this time.  You might need to make time to hear their plans beforehand and to debrief afterwards, but only the first time.  Once everyone gets their confidence, you’ll see a significant change in your workload around team meetings.

 

Include team development activities

As well as using the meeting to handle business, it can be fun occasionally to include some team or personal development activities.  You might need a longer meeting for this, so plan it well in advance and make sure everyone knows.

It could be a guest speaker, or an online training session you can do together.  One leader I know often selects a book, article or TED talk and asks his team to look at it before the meeting.  Then they spend an hour discussing the topic.

You might do some ‘knowledge transfer’ within the team. Ask someone with a specific expertise to run an introductory session for the rest of the team.  Or a masterclass.  Whatever will be of value.

 

Celebrate successes

Everyone loves to feel a part of a winning team.  Celebrate individual and team successes.  I don’t mean organise a party every week, just make sure that successes are acknowledged and that people feel good about what they have achieved.  When the team chalks up a big win, that might be the time to take everyone to lunch.

Small rewards can be as meaningful as big ones.  Never underestimate the power of simply telling someone what they did well.  They know it, but now they know that you know it too.

 

Finally…

If you’ve read this article and you’re thinking it might be time to refresh your team meetings, may I suggest you share the article with your team and discuss with them how you might give your meetings a new lease of life.

 

This time we’re in my kitchen…

Wilma’s feeling a bit smug (and we find out why), I’ve been watching the Test match and the conversation meanders around our enjoyment of watching people performing well, the joy of learning and seeing other’s learn, the ‘female’ approach to marketing and promotion and the way that nothing stays the same…

 

 

 

As part of a Leadership Development programme, I’ll often ask people, ‘are leadership and management the same?’  Usually, people are agreed that they are not the same.  When I ask what they see as the difference between leadership and management, it gets very interesting…

I have had the impression recently, that management is falling out of fashion.  Or at least, the term has taken on a different meaning.  To many people, ‘management’ means micro-management.  Younger staff aspire to be leaders but don’t want to be managers.

What???

It’s true, this may just be a reflection of the clients I’ve been working with lately.  But it has really made me think again about how I talk about leadership and management.

As ever, I like to define my terms.  There is a myriad of definitions of both leadership and management, I picked these as being simple and I agree with them:

“Leadership means the ability to guide, inspire, and influence people to work together to achieve a common goal.”

I like this definition because it highlights the social aspect of leadership.  It’s about the impact a leader has on a group of people.  It’s also about working towards a common goal – in the absence of a goal, no leader is needed. It’s easy to see why this appeals since influence is fast becoming a major currency of success.

“Management means the process of planning, organising, and directing the resources of an organisation to achieve its goals.”

This definition works for me because it’s all about the resources of an organisation.  Those resources may include people, but the term also encompasses time, funds, systems and processes, assets, strategy, data and creativity.

So why would that not appeal?

I wonder whether it just sounds too much like hard work.  Good management requires that you keep track of information, you think ahead (and let’s face it, planning really has gone out of fashion!) and make decisions. You are accountable.

In these definitions, Leadership sounds much easier that management, doesn’t it?

In reality, I think it’s much harder to be a good leader that to be a good manager.

 

What does it take to be a good leader?

Good interpersonal skills are top of my list, closely followed by a commitment to your own development.  I often say to clients, ‘if you want to be a better leader then work on yourself’.  People will follow your lead if you are whole-hearted – in NLP terms, congruent – in setting out the goal and the path to achieving it. You need clarity about the goal, a means of tracking activity and progress and the very best leaders also have a commitment to developing their people.

 

What does it take to be a good manager?

I can best sum this up by saying that you need a commitment to quality.  A good manager gets the best out of the available resources. (Again, for all my readers who work in tech and other industries that refer to people as ‘resources’, I’m referring to the entire scope of organisational resources)

A good manager has and creates clear goals, targets and performance indicators.  A good manager keeps promises, turns up on time, plans in advance, spots opportunities to save time, money or effort.  A good manager also communicates well and takes the initiative to achieve their goals. They do a good job of every task.

 

I see both leadership and management as equally important.  I wonder whether management has fallen out of fashion because the L&D profession gravitated towards ‘leadership development’ and dropped ‘management development’ sometime in the late 90s.  Instead of running programmes on Time Management, Decision-making, Performance Management and how to run a meeting, we started offering ‘Authentic Leadership’, ‘High Performance Leadership’ and ‘Team Leadership’.  It sounds a lot more inviting, doesn’t it?

 

And yet…

Leadership without management?

We all know senior people like this.  Lots of inspiration and motivation, guiding and influencing but when someone isn’t responding to your brand of inspiration, what do you do? Yes, work on your interpersonal skills.  But in the meantime?

The leaders who don’t manage are often very well liked but don’t always deliver.  Sometimes they fall into the trap of not addressing problems and assuming that people are ‘empowered’ resolve issues, which can then drag on, wasting time and other valuable resources.

The exception is the leader who is senior enough to have people to manage on their behalf.  The higher up the organisational structure you climb, the more important it is to have good team members who can manage the people, the finance, the systems and processes and so on, leaving you free to focus on the bigger picture and providing inspiration to everyone.

 

Management without leadership?

You probably know a few of these too.   A manager who doesn’t lead can be successful up to a point.  If someone more senior is providing the overall goals and strategy, then the manager’s job is to marshall the people and resources to achieve the goal.   It probably involves some systems or structure processes to make sure that the right things are happening at the right time.  It still needs a lot of communication, probably less inspiration – just clarity of goals and targets. Sometimes clear methods too.

 

If I was a senior executive, which would I rather have?  Leaders who didn’t manage well of managers who didn’t lead well?  It’s a tough question and academic, of course, because the reality is that to succeed in a senior role you have to be able to do both, even if you don’t do both equally well.

What I will say, is that I would be more likely to promote someone to a senior role if I had confidence in their ability to manage.

What would you do?

 

In conclusion, I will also give this advice to anyone looking to advance in their career.  If you haven’t already, learn to manage.  Learn to manage time, to manage systems and processes, to manage decision-making.  Learn to run a meeting efficiently, make an engaging presentation, to give feedback that will be acted upon.  Learn how to do a performance appraisal, to tackle difficult conversations, to accept feedback and learn from it.

In short, if you want to be a better leader, work on yourself and your ability to manage.

 

There is something very satisfying about a wallplanner, isn’t there?  Or is it just me?

I do enjoy planning out the year ahead and getting an overview like this that I can refer to easily.  I know a lot of people don’t do this, and definitely don’t do it in August – which is when I began thinking about 2025.

Of course, one of the reason I started doing this was because I needed to book venues for events a long way in advance, so that I can publish dates with confidence and give everyone plenty of notice to get the dates in their planners.

There is more to it, though.  Running your own business is great if you like a lot of flexibility.  It can also be challenging because of the lack of external structure.  Planning help me keep the right balance for me between structure and flexibility.  Most of what is on the calendar can still be moved, but having a plan is the important part.

Here are some of the benefits:

1)  If you have goals, you need a plan to achieve them.  Being able to see the shape of the year, of each month and each week can make it easier to plan when you’re going to undertake the work that will lead to the achievement of your goals.

2)  Mapping out regular and one-off activities means that you spend time thinking about those activities.  Do they need to be done weekly, monthly?  Is April the right time? And so on.  In other words, you have the opportunity to re-evaluate how you spend your time.

3)  You make sure you get some time off.  It’s all too easy to put off committing to specific holiday dates and think ‘I’ll see how the quarter pans out and then book some time off” or even, “I don’t have time for a holiday”.  Planning now and committing to dates means you will get that much-needed rest.  It also means you can book early and get a good deal on your travel!

4) It’s fun!  Well, I think it is.  Maybe I need to get out more…

I’ll be publishing the dates for 2025 events shortly.

This quote, attributed to Archimedes, the Greek mathematician and physicist, undoubtedly relates to his explanation of the use of levers.

And yet…

Looking at it again this week, it struck me that this is true in a metaphorical sense as well as a scientific one.

When we are faced with changes, especially when we are driving change of our own volition, we need some constants in our lives to keep us steady.

To create change in the world, one needs a strong sense of self.  It enables us to stay focused on the end result and to endure the upheaval in the interim.  Without that strong sense of self, it’s easy to lose the sense of purpose, to feel cast adrift on the tide of change and to scrabble around for something, anything to cling to.

What creates the sense of self?

I think it varies from person to person.  For some it’s a personal mission, an overriding sense of purpose or a problem that must be solved.  For others, it’s the people they love and the commitments they make to those people.

It can be a simple case of daily habits and routines or everyday enjoyment of your home environment, the community where you live or a social group.  Our work, profession or role in life can also provide that ‘firm spot on which to stand’.

I invite you to consider, as you navigate whatever changes are current for you, how to strengthen your own ‘firm spot’ and how to stand there in your full sense of self.