Do you think you can?

The one thing that’s so noticeable when I visit clients these days is how people tend to talk up the fact tha

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t there are so many problems in the economy and that there’s too much to cope with.

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t for a moment think that many of the things that people are dealing with are not monumental but it strikes me that continually talking about them in this way is a form of self hypnosis that mesmerises us into thinking we’re not going to cope before we even begin.

Right now there’re a lot of self help gurus out there plying their 10 easy steps to success and riches. One can become very cynical especially in these difficult times. But the one thing that seems to make a lot of sense is the plain old fashioned self fulfilling prophecy that Thomas the Tank Engine has been using successfully since 1942 to haul the train up that hill! He was chanting “I think I can … “ long before “Yes We Can…”

In the last years since the invention of the MRI brain scan it’s become possible to actually map what goes on inside our heads in our neuro circuitry and what hormones get released when we think certain thoughts. All very fascinating, especially if you like to understand the science behind the art. But it all confirms what Thomas always knew, that self talk becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. On top of that what is now evident and can be measured, is the energy that is consumed by negative thinking and released by positive thinking.

So the one thing single thing that can make a huge difference to coping with change is thinking and talking positively! It sets your brain up for absorbing new information and it releases a whole lot of energy to help you up the learning curve because of course, new habits requiring new neural pathways in your brain don’t just happen. They require energy a lot like Thomas hauling the train up the hill. But the more you persist, the easier it becomes.

And here’s the thing, you’re talking to yourself anyway!! - about 50,000 messages per day - so you might as well tell yourself good things and make yourself feel good to boot.

Don’t just take my word for this, try some action experimentation. Agree in your group or just among a few of you to spend a week where you only talk positively about change and your own ability to cope, giving yourself and each other only positive messages. You can contract between yourselves to alert each other when you fall into negative speak. And then see whether it has an effect or not. Does it become easier to implement a change and overcome the obstacles and do you feel more energised. We’d love to get some feedback ……

Incredible Connections = Incredible Innovation

Why Innovation is Important

From the time that South Africa opened its borders to world trade after the long period of isolation, we’ve faced fierce competition at home and internationally. Time and again it’s clear that responding to these competitive pressures through innovation is key to success in the 21st century. And people like working for successful companies – that’s where the best talent goes!

The activities in an organisation that require innovative attention are broad ranging. From strategic direction, to products and services, processes, opening new markets, utilisation of new sources of supply and new organisational forms – it’s quite a list! And innovation implies not only inventing new solutions but bringing them to fruition and implementing them. It touches every aspect of organisational life. But right at the heart must be a value set and collaborative culture that can allow innovation to flourish. The HR department have a key role to play in enabling this culture to emerge.

Innovation – Creation to Implementation

Different organisations approach innovation differently. There may be one creative designer generating a product or a team of people working creatively together on complex solutions. Either way, implementation of new ideas relies on the co-ordination of multiple activities and processes. This all requires collaboration. The problem is that collaboration is in tension with its opposite, competition and competition has been the lifeblood of our economic order.

Collaboration and Emotional Intelligence

Focusing exclusively on competition has unintended consequences that are incompatible with innovation such as fear of taking risks and challenging the status quo, lack of trust, being territorial and blocking information. This has the effect of reducing the amount of knowledge flowing back to the organisation from customers/ clients i.e. it’s the opposite of client centric and severely reduces a company’s ability to react quickly to the market.

On the other hand, co-operation that sits at the foundation of collaboration rests on high levels of trust, sharing information freely, being willing to learn from each other, helping each other and sharing resources. These are the qualities that make for a quick response time but it requires individual members of teams to be secure in themselves and their self worth. This gives the courage to take risks, to trust others and to take personal responsibility for their own work.

Where a company needs completely novel ideas to emerge teams must involve a diversity of members across various gaps: the education gap, the skill gap, the function gap – the division, age, culture, gender, race, personality and thinking style gap – the list goes on! In this day and age, there may be a time and distance gap, as teams may very well stretch around the globe and not spend much face time with each other.

Unfortunately, there are many research studies that show that people collaborate most easily and naturally with people that they perceive to be like themselves. So once again fruitful collaboration requires high levels of emotionally intelligence; an appreciation of others’ talents, an ability to engage in meaningful conversation and to manage conflict constructively.

Emotionally Intelligent Executives

Encouraging emotional intelligence in an organisation and especially in the executive team is central to the emergence of a collaborative and therefore, innovative culture. Lynda Gratton of London Business School from her research for her book, “Hot Spots” claims that executive behaviour is the single most important lever in the creation of company culture. The senior team’s mindset and basic assumptions direct the practices, decisions and allocation of resources in an organisation and their behaviour is the reference point for others. If they’re seen to be supportive of each other and work as a team, others will follow suit. Creating a culture that entices talented people to want to give their time, energy and creativity to an organisation is an executive responsibility. It’s, therefore, important that an organisation’s leadership strategy takes full account of this in recruitment, promotion, succession planning and development initiatives.

HR Processes and Culture Change

Although senior leadership behaviour is the key lever, company culture is the outcome of all the interrelated practices, processes, routines and habits that enable and reinforce it. It’s not possible to put resources directly into ‘culture development’ but cultural change can be achieved through aligning all the processes in the HR value chain.

HR Strategic Role

Tampering with the company culture is not to be done lightly. After all, if the current culture is highly competitive it will likely have attracted talented people who thrive on competition. That will be the hallmark of success for its leaders. In attempting to switch horses to a collaborative culture one may find that it’s not nearly as attractive to some of the key mission critical people in the organisation.

The trick is not to be either, or but to be able to marry competition and collaboration. Changing practices has to be done in a totally conscious manner with the full implications of the changes laid out. This is the strategic role of the HR person. She must be able to articulate the assumptions that underpin, the implications that are likely to follow and the potential unintended consequences of changes. The research indicates that it is a journey well worth exploring.

L. Gratton, Hot Spots (San Francisco: Berett-Koehler Publishers Inc, 2007)

M.M. Capozzi and J. Simpson, “Cultivating Innovation: An Interview with the CEO of a leading Italian Design Firm”, McKinsey Quarterly, February 2009

10 Tips for Tough Times

In tough times the work of leaders just gets harder. Morale, motivation and performance take a beating and sleepless nights abound trying to hold it altogether. But it’s still your job to keep everyone around you inspired and upbeat. We all know that confident and optimistic leaders produce better results but how do you keep on seeing the glass half full when there’s so much negativity around? In our one day workshop we offer you 10 tactics to maintain your resilience through the turbulence.


train your brain
The latest findings in neuroscience show that optimism and a positive outlook can be learned and maintained. The quickest results come from an experience that engages all the senses. pamon consulting specialists in leadership development and coaching have teamed with andamojo events management to bring you a fun and exciting experiential workshop where you will quickly learn 10 tactics that you can apply in the workplace and self coach to keep yourself at your peak.



for further details please contact:
Amanda Moore
And A Mojo - Events Management
Cell: +2779 548 8485 E-mail: training@pamon.co.za
10 Tips for Tough Times is offered as an in-house development programme for middle managers
Maximum: of ten delegates per group
Cost: R10,000 per day (excludes VAT, venue and catering)


when you leave the workshop you will:

• Have simple techniques to retrain your thinking and emotions
• Understand how to manage your environment to maintain positivity
• Know how eating, sleeping and exercise affects your mood
• Notice how your mood effects your colleagues and use this knowledge more purposefully
• Take with you a personal plan to practice what you learned

Power of Relationships Part V

An approach for diagnosing and improve our key relationships

“Imagine having 10/10 quality relationships with each of the people on your relationship map. The motivation, the learning, the performance opportunities that this will unlock are for me the most inspiring outcome we can achieve together” General Manager

I am sure we can all think of examples of how a strong relationship has unlocked great performance for us or for our business. Let’s look at how we can take the model and look at our key relationships to see how we can evaluate them and either understand what makes them strong, or identify where they may be improved. This can be done as an individual exercise to decide which areas to target for improvement in relationships, or to prepare for a discussion with each individual about the quality of your relationship as you see it, and to agree areas for improvement.

The starting point is to prepare our relationship map – this is a list of the people critical to achieving success in our roles. There will probably be 6-10 of these who represent your key relationships. Consider the quality of relationships you need to deliver real performance benefits. Assign a score out of 10 to each relationship, considering the four elements of the model individually, and then together. Where does the relationship sit against each of the elements and when you consider the relationship as a whole? Anything scoring less than 8/10 probably needs some work. Consider how you feel differently about a relationship that is 5/10, 8/10, 10/10.

Now think about these two questions:

· What are the barriers I face in building a real relationship with this person?

· How can I accelerate breakthroughs in this relationship?

Working through each element can help identify barriers and focus areas to work on for improving the relationship. We can ask ourselves, “Do I appreciate this person and their context? Do I show this person that I respect him/her? Do I put everything on the table with this person and keep my promises to this person? Do I approach this person with positive intent? In each case we can also ask what it would take to improve the relationship?

Having done this preparation it is then possible for us to either start taking actions from our side that we feel will improve the relationship, or if we wanted to extract maximum leverage we could have a discussion with the person to share our views and jointly identify areas for improvement. Having shared our view, we can ask: “Where do you think our relationship is against the elements? Do you trust me? Do you feel we are aligned? How do we take our relationship forward to 8/10, 10/10? How can we continue to enhance our relationship?” Recognise that you may need to ‘give’, as you may be on someone else’s list!

As we have seen in the earlier section on current thinking about relationships, they need to be developed and nurtured over time and that it takes hard work and effort. If you do have some relationships that are rated lower, do not feel that you have to get them to 8/10 or 10/10 immediately. You can build the relationship by initially moving, for example, from 5/10 to 6/10, and then continuing in small steps. Also bear in mind that it is only your own behaviour and perceptions that you are in control of – the other person will pick up on the shifts you are seen to make.

It does take some courage and potentially risk-taking to enter into this dialogue with people, particularly where there may not be a strong relationship currently, but in my experience the payoff is huge in terms of relationship and performance breakthroughs.

Final thoughts

“Each person we interact with is rich with possibilities. By holding open these possibilities for them we can create new realities rather than get stuck in the current one” General Manager

Relationships are two-way streets – it takes two to have a relationship and both need to be equally invested. It takes commitment – you need to invest not just for the short term but for the big outcomes. It will not be a smooth journey – there will be moments of tension, hard to have conversations. There can be no pulling of punches with regard to difficult conversations. We have to translate all the benefits of great relationships into breakthrough performance. Great relationships which don’t deliver great performance aren’t great relationships.

There is no limit to how great a relationship could be when there is positive intent – and it doesn’t necessarily take a long time to create a great connection. There is also the possibility of re-evaluating people of whom you may have formed a poor impression in the past. The key is having the courage to really connect with the person. It is also important to spot and challenge complacency in a relationship – an apparently ‘great’ relationship can hinder breakthrough, challenge, etc.

The power of an organisation committing itself to having amazing relationships across the whole organisation, and with all external partners is something to give careful thought to. Imagine the potential for unlocking performance breakthroughs and growth if everyone is focused on the breakthrough outcomes that can be achieved together, on bringing out the best in everyone they come into contact with. We should ensure that everyone in our organisation has the freedom and courage to work together to achieve great results, and that together with our external partners we can identify what maximises value to each other’s businesses and deliver on that.

Leaders have a major role to play both in maintaining their own relationships, but also in stimulating the creation of personal networks and friendships that encourage others to value the relational element of the organisation and the maintenance of networks within and beyond their organisations.

It is worth creating the space and putting in the time to make relationships work well. I would encourage everyone to make a commitment to identify and significantly improve your key relationships – both internal and external.

Power of Relationships Part IV

A model for diagnosing relationships

“How

has a deep relationship unlocked great performance for me and/or my business?”

In this model we can view the elements of relationships as pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. This model can be helpful whether we are starting a relationship, diagnosing where a relationship is or trying to identify breakthroughs in a relationship. We can use it to think about where we are on each dimension. The four pieces of the jigsaw are interpedendent – all four components have to be there – we need to connect genuinely with people on all of the four dimensions to have a chance of a great 10/10 relationship. The model can be applied to all our relationships – internal, external and outside of work:

There are four elements: Understanding and Empathy; Respect; Trust and Candour and Positive Intent.

Understanding and empathy

This requires a deep appreciation of the other person and their context. We find it difficult to really step into another’s shoes, and rarely see the world from another person’s point of view. We sometimes decide what somebody is like without probing their deeper motivations and goals, and can be dismissive of people whose emotions, feelings and reactions are different to our own.

The core assumption to have in this area is that people are difficult to understand. We must work hard to empathise with feelings that we ourselves don’t experience. The reality is people are very quick to intuitively judge people, very quick to put people in boxes.

Respect

People are really quick to pick up the amount of respect we have for them. In Psychology they refer to it as the ‘waiter test’, which is to look at how somebody deals with a waiter in a restaurant. We should ask ourselves – how do we relate to the vast bulk of people – do we show that we respect people? We should remember that respect has to be earned.

A further dimension of respect is that relationships can be difficult if we do not feel good about ourselves – so the respect is not only towards others, but to ourselves.

Positive Intent

The core assumption behind this mindset is that relationships are not about winning and losing. We should go into relationships with the positive intent of creating mutual advantage, of seeing the possibility in the other person, seeing what you can do for them, and being there for the other person.

Trust and candour

When you have deep understanding and respect, you’re in a position to be very open with your views and emotions. In real life we often hold back from it, don’t want to take the risk or face differences directly. So candour is an incredibly powerful aspect of real 10/10 relationships. The other element here is the consistency between agreed and actual behaviours. Trust is built not through words but through actions. It is difficult promises kept in difficult situations that build trust.

So the core assumption behind trust and candour is: do you care so much that you put everything on the table? And do you behave consistently – do your behaviours match your actions?

In summary then, using this relationship jigsaw we can go beyond the work content to understand one another’s circumstances, motivation and feelings. We can demonstrate respect for the person, not forgetting that it’s a two way street - for them to feel confident in you, you need to demonstrate you feel good about yourself. And the hardest of all is to care so much that you don’t care what you say, and put everything on the table.

So if this model resonates for you, it can be used when you consider the quality of any relationships you have. You can use it to think about the relationship by asking yourself where you think the relationship stands against each of these dimensions, where you think they should stand in order to have a really strong 10/10 relationship, as well as what can be done to improve the relationship.

Contributed by: Graham Louden-Carter formerly a senior Group HR Executive at Diageo PLC and currently visiting tutor at Henley Business School and an independent consultant. Contact him at: glc_philipshaye@btconnect.com or +44 7889 097150

Power of Relationships Part III

The issue of trust in relationships

“Trust is a huge issue and it can only be built through relationships” HR Director

There is considerable survey evidence from reputable organisations showing that levels of trust in business leaders are at the lowest levels and workers feel they operate in low-trust environments. Just look at the furore surrounding the banking crisis over the past year, and the current attitudes about banker’s bonuses!

Trust within business has also declined due to the prevalence of organisation changes – downsizing, restructuring, etc. This has created a great deal of job insecurity, and resulted in a more competitive and potentially impersonal climate. The impact of this has been for people to deliberately distance themselves from their colleagues because of the competition for jobs, and the fear this produces. This is another reason why organisations should be placing more focus on ensuring they have trusting organisation cultures and are emphasising the building and nurturing of strong relationships amongst their people.

Trust is a huge issue, and can only be built through relationships. A major driver of trust is authenticity, which Goffee and Jones define as consistency between words and deeds. They believe that leaders who do what they say are more likely to be seen as ‘genuine’ and therefore authentic. In addition they believe that authentic leaders communicate a consistent underlying thread – they display a ‘real self’, which involves a comfort with self, which is perhaps the hardest to attain.

As Gurnek Bains points out, people have learned to be inauthentic and so have those around them. Many feel a need to create distance between themselves and others at work. As a result, people are losing both the willingness and skill to build authentic relationships. The uncertainty created by relentless organisation change leads inevitably to a rise in destructive political behaviour. For many, therefore, surviving organisational life requires self-protection strategies and wariness in building any real connection with others.

An overly competitive working environment where friendships fail to develop is one of the major sources of stress at work and one of the key reasons why talented employees leave a company. The leading edge relational companies work hard to create belonging cultures that allow people to be authentically themselves, and they reap substantial rewards in the process. They also focus on developing people’s ability to develop strong, trusting relationships. This enables them to create alignment, execute effectively and instil the confidence in others to take risks.

Contributed by: Graham Louden-Carter formerly a senior Group HR Executive at Diageo PLC and currently visiting tutor at Henley Business School and an independent consultant. Contact him at: glc_philipshaye@btconnect.com or +44 7889 097150

Power of Relationships Part II

Some leading thinking about why organisations need strong relationships

“Other people aren’t just a part of our environment, they are our environment. We are the most relational species on earth...... Everything runs through relationships” Gurnek Bains

As leaders we are involved in a wide range of activities, but the most important of all is managing people, interacting with colleagues and with our external partners. Forming interpersonal relationships is a basic, inherent and inescapable part of being a leader. As Goffee and Jones, in their book “Why Should Anyone Be Led by You?” say, we need to recognise that one of the three foundations of leadership is that it is relational. Leadership is not something you do to others, rather you do it with others. They point out that one cannot be a leader without followers - leaders are actively engaged in a complex series of relationships that require cultivation and nurture.

Gurnek Bains and his colleagues at YSC Business Psychologists, in their book Meaning Inc., show that when they look at those companies they would regard as iconically successful over recent years, all have organisational cultures which are both demanding and relational. This relational culture is evident in a range of companies across many sectors – including companies like Southwest Airlines, Apple, Google, Gap, Virgin, Goldman Sachs and Orange. They believe that these organisations have recognised the importance of a relational culture and are reaping the benefits by being ahead of the curve.

They also list the following business benefits when relationships are great:

· Consistency without process is possible. Process is important, but companies that excel in this area use relationships as much as possible to substitute for process.

· Strong relationships and trust are the precondition for nimbleness, risk-taking and innovation. In all the companies that are leading edge, their relationship cultures create permission for people to take risks.

· Great relationships are the key to effective execution – they are not the only enabler, but they play a huge part.

There are also a number of personal benefits:

· Relationships create a platform for your own personal growth. When relationships are great, people give you the gift of feedback, which can help you grow.

· Relationships can energise you and provide a sense of support. When you have great relationships the burdens are shared.

· Great relationships create a sense of belonging. We are a relational species and have a need for attachment. Work is for many people becoming a place where they can get this sense of belonging.

· Relationships sustain us, and make our journeys enjoyable and fulfilling.

Bains and YSC also point to the importance of businesses partnering with external stakeholders – customers, suppliers, community organisations, regulatory bodies, etc. We all have important external relationships, and making these relationships powerful is critical to maximising value. Just as it is possible to identify how our internal relationships can improve, so it is possible to do this for our external relationships. The key is to find common purpose and mutual advantage.

Lynda Gratton, Professor of Management Practice at London Business School, in her book Hot Spots points out that we spend a good deal of our life working, and it is at work that we make friends, learn about ourselves, grow, develop and become innovative, energised and stimulated. We are able to create the positive energy that adds value to our companies by working cooperatively with others. She defines Hot Spots as places and times where cooperation flourishes creating great energy, innovation, productivity and excitement – any place or time where people are working together in exceptionally creative and collaborative ways. She suggests a formula for Hot Spots which is:

Hot Spots = (Cooperative Mindset x Boundary Spanning x Igniting Purpose) x Productive Capacity

A cooperative mindset, boundary spanning and igniting purpose have a multiplicative effect on each other. The lack of any one of these significantly reduces the energy of the Hot Spot. Working cooperatively is important for the exchange of knowledge and for understanding what others know, but innovation arises when new ideas from people in different groups and communities are brought together. Spanning these boundaries is critical. A mindset of cooperation and the capacity for spanning boundaries creates a well of latent energy in the organisation. People feel a sense of goodwill toward one another, they trust each other and are prepared to work across boundaries. But in order to release this latent energy a point of ignition is required – an igniting vision or task. – something that people find exciting, interesting and worth engaging with. Without this the energy will dissipate and its potential will be lost. Productive capacity is the extent to which people within the Hot Spot are capable of working together in a productive manner.

Gratton also refers to the work of Ron S. Burt and David Krackhardt in analysing relationships at work. Ron S. Burt, from the Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago introduced the concept of structural holes which can develop between groups or functions within organisations. When people and organisations focus only on their immediate tasks and activities, holes emerge in the social organisation, and the groups or functions lose track of other groups and functions and the external environment. He suggests the importance of brokerage in the theory of organisational networks – people connected across groups or functions who are more familiar with alternative ways of thinking and behaving. Network bridges, which connect people otherwise not connected, span the structural holes in the organisation, and result in more positive peer relationships and reputations amongst others. He warns that these bridges can delay at an alarming rate, so need to be maintained.

Both Burt and David Krackhardt, from Carnegie Mellon University were interested in Mark Granovetter’s 1973 theory of strong ties and weak ties and built on his research. Strong ties are defined as relationships which go back years, are based on trust and reciprocity and have an emotional element. Most of us have about three to six strong ties at any point in our lives. However, many of the relationships we have at work and outside of work do not have this extent of history, trust or emotion. These are our acquaintances, people we meet less frequently, with whom we do not have strong emotional attachment – these are our weak ties. We can sustain many more of these weak ties than we can strong ties since they take up less of our time and energy. Some of us have many thousands of such connections, but we devote far more emotional time and emotional resources to maintaining our small network of strong ties than to our larger network of weak ties. Granovetter believed that weak ties are often more important than weak ties and are likely to provide new information from disparate parts of the organisation.

David Krackhardt built on Granovetter’s original research, particularly regarding his acknowledgement that strong ties are more likely to be useful to an individual when that individual is in an insecure position, Krackhardt noted the strength of strong ties in cases of severe organisation change and uncertainty, maintaining that strong ties can reduce resistance and provide comfort in the face of uncertainty. He argued that change is facilitated not by weak ties, but by a particular type of strong tie. He named this type of tie a philos, which requires three conditions to be present:

· The people involved must interact with each other, the result of which is most likely to be that each will have access to information that the other has. Frequent interactions provide opportunities to exchange such information.

· The people involved must feel affection for each other, in a ‘liking’ relationship

· The people involved must have a history of interactions that have lasted over an extended period of time. There is no such thing as instant philos

The combination of these three conditions produces trust, and without any one of them trust falls apart. Krackhardt’s goal in his work was to get organisations to refocus on strong ties within the organisation, in particular to see how strong ties can become important in organisations when they are well spread out. He believed that change is the product of strong, affective and time-honoured relationships.

Contributed by: Graham Louden-Carter former Group HR Executive - Diageo PLC, currently visiting tutor Henley Business School (U.K) and independent consultant