Category: Mentoring

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Book Quotes Coaching High Performing Teams Influence Judgement Leadership Mentoring Networking Personal development

Why Dale Carnegie’s How to win friends and influence people is my all time favourite book?

I was 20 years old working for a US software company in the Uk and I was lucky enough to land a boss who was keen for me to develop. He recommended a 12 week Dale Carnegie course based around the book: How to win friends and influence people. The book changed my life and my career trajectory.

I have read the book numerous times and even thought the book was written in 1936. The lessons are as relevant today as they were then.

Each chapters headings are critical leadership skills and life skills. We should teach this to children at school.

My favourite chapters of all is don’t criticise, condemn and complain, followed by seek to understand before your understood.

The book is full of real life stories, that really challenge your thinking and actions. A must read for enjoying life and really developing great friendships and rapport.

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Book Quotes Coaching High Performing Teams Judgement Leadership Legacy Mentoring Personal development

How do you develop a high performing team?

Are you in a team where you feel you belong? you loved getting out of bed every day and connecting with your peers, they inspired you, you felt safe to share your vulnerabilities, felt safe to challenge the norm and together you delivered outstanding results?

Patrick Lecioni’s story of the Five dysfunctions of a team, is about the foundations that have to be in place to be a high performing team. As a leader your role is to create a safe environment for the team to express themselves without judgement and actively encourage the team to challenge, so the team can develop and remain highly engaged.

Here are the seven steps for you as the leader to build a high performing team:

  1. Build the strategy for the year ahead together with the team. Why is this important? buy in, engagement, influence, debate and ownership. https://angelalovegrove.com/2019/11/25/how-do-you-construct-and-deliver-strategy/
  2. Once the strategy is in place. Reviewing progress(monthly/quarterly): what’s working and not working, is essential with the team. Celebrate every success along the way, as the motivation for the team is critical. When parts are not working; Ask the team why they think it’s not working? what should we do? Amend the strategy and don’t forget to share the learning. At the back of the book 5 dysfunctions of a team, there is a survey and action plans on each of the 5 dysfunctions, use this with your team quarterly to see which area of the 5 dysfunctions need attention.
  3. On the bus/off the bus. If the commitment of an individual or individuals is not there, tackle the situation head on. What is the issue? Is it behavioral? Get on top of this quickly as having a detractor in the team can slow the whole team, even if they are outstanding performers. Toxic individuals can bring a whole team down.
  4. During Covid19 my business coach delivered a 6 week team coaching session on resilience. The lessons from these sessions was it created psychological safety for the team, we all shared more that we had done in the last 6 months, the result was more trust than you can ever imagine. https://angelalovegrove.com/2020/06/03/just-completed-a-6-week-resilience-team-coaching-during-the-pandemic/ Highly recommend running or getting an external facilitator to run team coaching on resilience.
  5. Another lesson during Covid19, the importance of regular 30 minute check ins without an agenda. Time to catch up and share, more recently the challenges for the team in Melbourne.
  6. Personal development plans for each team member. Tailoring to the ability and need of the individual. This is critical for motivation and development. Being able to clearly articulate the difference between average, above average and excellent with clear examples of what they need to deliver helps them understand how they can be more successful.
  7. Work with your team members to find internal and external mentors. This is so powerful, there are many times I have had individuals looking to move into different areas of the business and I have found them a mentor in that area and within 12 months they have secured a role.

Diversity is key to the above being successful. If you have inherited a team with poor diversity, here are some additional steps that you will need to take:

1. If you are in a corporate with a graduate program, go and introduce yourself to the Graduate talent manager, find out why graduates would find coming to your part of the business interesting and become a “destination for graduates”. They really know how to shake up a culture with their drive and curiosity.

2. Find talent in other parts of the business looking for a challenge and secure them on a secondment to deliver key components of the strategy. This is a true win/win in business for the individual and for the company.

3. Ensure the minorities are well supported and take time to understand any poor behavior. In my experience where you have low diversity of age, culture, gender and LBGT, you will have behaviors that will not be acceptable.

4. Expect to take 12-24 months to fix.

There are many leaders who believe the term “high performing teams” is overused. For me it is absolutely essential as a leader to create the environment that people can thrive and deliver outstanding results and that by definition is High performing teams.

I wish you all the best with building a high performance team.

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Coaching Leadership Mentoring Personal development Work life balance

Over thinking

Why do we read more into a situation than we need to? Why do we play the victim when we perceive we are being hard done by?

The emotional drain of overthinking can lead to a reduction in productivity as you become preoccupied by over thinking a situation.

In 100% cases when you ask questions, your misunderstanding of the situation becomes very apparent. Yet we ponder and posture on the unknown, only by asking questions does the situation become clear,

It is seen as a weakness, insecurity, time wasting and a loss of productivity by the leaders. So the simple answer is get over the situation and move on in seconds and not hours. The swifter you move the more resilient you are seen.

A male colleague of mine who has been a leader for many years says the difference between career women and other women is their ability to manage emotions in the work place. He sees a stark difference between the two.

As you age your ability to move on and not dwell on situations has shortened to a point and I can move on in minutes instead of days. Yes you will be much more productive.

Are you reading too much into a situation? have you asked the questions to understand the circumstance? Or are you playing the victim?

Top tips to help:

1. Finds mentor

2. Read mental resilience by Kamal Sarma https://www.amazon.com/Mental-Resilience-Clarity-Develop-Warrior/dp/1577316258 

3. Don’t die wondering, ask the question

4. Move on from overthinking to liberating your emotions.

 

 

 

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Coaching Judgement Leadership Mentoring

Feedback is critical for growth

Feedback is critical for growth, yet often leaders are not comfortable sharing the feedback  with the individual, often discussing individuals behaviour and performance behind their back. Frustrating if you are always working on being the better version of your self.

You may have a boss who shares remarks about your team, when you ask have you given the individual the feedback they says no. When you ask why, they say ‘ I don’t want to hurt them’. Hurting them is not having the conversation with the individual. 

Be very wary of leaders who gossip about others behaviour, but when you question them, have they had the conversation with the the individual and they say No. What are they saying about you? Worse still when the comment is a “perception” and their are no facts to support.

I treat others the way I wanted to be treated my self. Transparency and truth is a key value, therefore I will share observation for improvements because I care and I want them to improve. Always give feedback within 24 hours of the observation.

When we genuinely care about others you help them, not judge them. When we speak about others failings without them being present, ask yourself, how would I feel if I heard what was being said about me behind my back. The answer is simple don’t do it! Have the guts to have the conversation with the person you have the observation about, show them you care about them, be genuine with your conversation.

There is a great article written the Harvard Business review on What to Do If Your Career Is Stalled and You Don’t Know Why?  This goes to the heart of poor leadership, when the right coaching is not taken seriously enough and a high performer misses an opportunity on a behaviour that could have been coached to success.

https://hbr.org/2018/11/what-to-do-if-your-career-is-stalled-and-you-dont-know-why?utm_campaign=hbr&utm_medium=social&utm_source=linkedin

Feedback is critical for growth

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Book Quotes Mentoring

Eckhart Tolle- The power of now

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This book is life changing.  Why? We are all on a journey, to find meaning and peace, this book is thought provoking and challenges how we live. The book really helps you understand what is important.

Life’s meaning for me, is to help people. I love helping people, whether its to realise their dreams or overcome career obstacles, setting up a business or supporting them in a transition. I feel most for-filled and at peace with myself when I support others.

Eckhart talks to the Egotistical mind and it constantly wanting more. When we control the cravings we find peace and happiness. When we give into them, we find ourselves on the treadmill always looking for the next fix.

These are three of my favourite exerts from the book:

  1. Buddha taught that the root of suffering is to be found in our constant wanting and craving.
  2. Carl Jung also tells the story of the Native American chief who said The whites always want something, they are always uneasy and restless. We don’t know what they want. We think they are mad.
  3. Peace comes from controlling the egotistical mind and also mind strategies that avoid the now: when we make the present the enemy, we feel we are being taken advantage of, neglected we need to drop the negativity the mind has created around the situation or we need to stop and speak to the person concerned and express fully what you feel. One or the other, as not doing this is a huge emotional drain.

This is a book that really makes take a hard look at yourself. Life changing

https://www.amazon.com/Power-Now-Eckhart-Tolle/dp/B0095GVWMA

https://www.amazon.com/Power-Now-Eckhart-Tolle/dp/B0095GVWMA

https://www.amazon.com/Power-Now-Eckhart-Tolle/dp/B0095GVWMA

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Coaching Mentoring Time Management

Time Management

Moving from reactive to proactive has been the key skill I have had to coach for individuals to progress in their career.

Reactive activity: Activity driven by Emails and phone calls, demand from stakeholders including customers

Proactive: developing and overall strategy, steps to achieve and setting up cadence calls. Building stakeholder relationships, focus on the projects and only check emails once or twice a day.

If you are the most productive in the morning, dont check email, allocate time for a project where we are at our peak in terms of attention and focus.

If you have worked in a customer service role where you have been responsive and reactive and then move into sales, you will need to adjust to Proactive work from mainly reactive. To make this transition look at training, reading the below book and also getting a coach.

It takes time to change behaviours but this adjustment is well worth the effort.

https://gettingthingsdone.com This is a great book to really nail your productivity.

If you are starting out in your career, learn project management skills as this will be a core skill for the Proactive time management.

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Career planning Mentoring Personal development

Tips for young women starting out in their career

carreer womenIf you are career minded and want to get on, there are 5 things to start doing now, don’t leave it too late to achieve the following:

1. Sales and Finance

Both skills can lead you to a CEO role. Rarely is the top role filled from other disciplines in a business. So nailing one or the other or both, is essential is you plan on getting to the top. Sales has had a bad wrap, but it is the best place to prove yourself by delivering outstanding results.

Action: Land a sales role or finance and get exposure to the other, by working with those teams, understand what they do and how you can learn from each other.

2. Public speaking

If you are not able to hold a room, then your career will come to a screeching holt. No matter how good you are, public speaking is key.

Action: Join Toastmasters and practice practice practice

3. Mentors

Find great mentors inside and outside the business. Ask your boss to help find the person in your organisation. Outside ask your family or friends. Once you have established contact, its your responsibility to schedule the catch ups ie once a month.

Always go prepared with questions for your mentor. This is a great opportunity to seek out advice on how to deal with situations, understand what they have done to get on in their career. Most important: Be vulnerable.

Ensure you thank and acknowledge feedback. Get comfortable as you cannot get to where you are going without feedback. It’s a lifetimes work.

4. Networking

Meeting new people, making new connections, helping them with their goals, is the only way to get on in life and business. It’s also gratifying helping others and they never forget your generosity. Use every opportunity to get out and network.

A great read, to help you learn and implement great connection with others is How to win friends and influencers people by Dale Carnegie

5. Develop an opinion on whats happening in the world

Not only develop an opinion, share and challenge others. This will build confidence. You dont have to agree with anyone, be seen as holding your own views. One of the criticisms of women by senior men, is that women don’t have an opinion on whats happening in the world.

Also look at your behaviour, ie giggly girls is not how you want to be remembered.

Good luck with your ambitions, ensure you get as much support as you can and remember to let others know your plans along the way otherwise they will fill the void with wild assumptions that I can guarantee are not going to help you. As my business coach says to me ” never die wondering” in other words ask the questions and speak up!

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Book Quotes Coaching Mentoring

The grass is never greener

grass is never greenerThere are many times in my personal and business life I have given this advice “on the grass is never greener” to others. We always look fondly at what other people have or at our past and wonder why we are not fulfilled today and the answer is that you can never be happy if you have this mindset.

The rest of the well known saying is “unless you water it” in other words work on the present.

Feeling content with what you have and keeping your ego is check is the only way to happiness. When we are constantly craving what others have we can never be happy.

A year ago an ex peer of mine landed a role that I thought was ideal, recently I spoke to her and she said the money is poor and environment not good, for a moment I had to check myself, as I really did think she was better off. The grass is never greener.

So to keep yourself in check, practice gratitude every day. You can write them down or just find 5 mins every day for reflection.

Also read Eckhart Toll The power of now for dealing with the ego. He has some top tips, which mean you live in the moment and stop craving what you dont need!

 

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Coaching Influence Leadership Mentoring Personal development Work life balance

Taking responsibility to how we get treated

treatmentToday I was in a coaching session with a young female I have mentored for over 6 months. She has grown so much in a short amount of time, she is also happier and equipped with skills to ensure her success. Today I asked her about how she is getting on with repair bridges that have been well and truly burned. The same question I ask her each time I see her. She had made no progress.

I asked her what was getting in the way of having the conversation. She opened up and said that it would be too painful. Do you practice forgiveness? She looked alarmed. Forgiveness is the opposite to resentful, when you let you go, the emotion and time spent feeling resentful is released into positive energy that you can use far better.

Holding on to resentment is not helpful or healthy.

It’s too painful, she repeated. I asked Why is it so painful? She replied: It was bullying and it went on for months. What did you do about it? She stopped, I did nothing, I was embarrassed. Did you speak to anyone about it? No. So you suffered not knowing what to do. Yes she replied. She went on to say I want to forget it and move on. I replied, it will happen again, I can guarantee you, so what are you going to do about it when it happens? She looked surprised and taken back. It will happen, I talked through some incidents that I had personally dealt with. As a women, certain leaders(men and women) need to assert their authority and the way they do it, is not acceptable: Humiliating, raising voices, aggressive and threatening. If they do it once they keep doing it as the boundaries have not be set properly.

These are the steps to take post incidents with people who put you down or harass you or raise voices and aggressive:

1. Straight after incident document verbatim what has happened including time and date.

2. Within 24 hours and when you are calm, take the person to one side in a room and not where others can hear

3. This is what you say: The incident yesterday where you said quote un quote, you made me feel inadequate and very uncomfortable. Your actions destroyed my confidence, something that is extremely fragile in women. I dont want you to ever do that again, do you understand me?

Once the accused has acknowledged and apologies. Say this is not going to be discussed ever again, this is between you and me. Lets move on. Confidentiality is critical as it rebuilds trust.

I promise you will never have another incident, with this person.

In that moment the lights came on and she said ” I own this, I can take control”. Absolutely you do! Never let anyone make you feel bad, people who do this are fundamentally insecure. There is no excuse for the behaviour, but you are responsible for setting the boundaries.

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Career planning Coaching Leadership Mentoring

You are worth investing in!

You are worth investing in! If you are fortunate to work in a corporate, training  and study support are available so grasp every opportunity.  Eleven years ago I started spending 10% of my earnings on personal development.  This included courses, that the company would not sponsor, toast masters, business coach, subscription to the Havard business review, Membership AICD, leadership books and more.

There is no doubt the investment pays back ten fold, but it also demonstrates to others that you are open to continuous learning and development. 

When on a panel for Women’s Agenda I was quoted:  Angela suggested we think about our future, imagine ourselves at 70, where do we want to be and what life do we want to live? If, like Angela confessed, you can’t stand to travel economy; you work back from that vision to work out what you need from your career to be able to pay for your lifestyle, maybe you need to get into corporate and work your way up or launch that idea you know will make you a fortune. Remember – you are worth investing in. https://sukishould.wordpress.com/2015/05/15/get-inspirational-career-advice/

You are worth investing in!