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[henmonarch]

Be more you in 5 steps the strengths way

When it comes to being authentic, with skill, there are few better approaches than by using the strengths approach. So today, I would like to focus on how to be more you, the strengths way. I have 5 steps to share with you:

know your values and purpose;

understand what energises you;

build a brand around that;

keep stretching, keep learning;

avoid overdrive.

Here’s my step-by-step guide:

  Step 1: Know your values and your purpose

It doesn’t get bigger than this. Your purpose is what you are here for. On earth, for the time you have. What do you want people to say about you when you’re gone? And when you’re here? For me, I’m here to create a better world, based on some of my values of love, inclusion, individuality and authenticity.

And speaking of values, they are your bedrock – your guiding principles to a way of life that you are most at home with. Most of us have a load of these, some more important than others. For me, I would add to those I’ve already mentioned integrity, responsibility, loyalty, curiosity, family and no judgement. There are more, but those will serve to illustrate.

So if you want to be more you, the strengths way, step 1, your bedrock, is to get clearer on what you’re here for (your purpose) and on your life principles (your values).

So what are yours?

Step 2: Understand what energises you

The strengths way is about recognising who you are at your most comfortable, energised and skilled best.  There are a few ways to arrive at this but most start with some kind of strengths profile and the best of these, so they say, is Strengthscope.

Alongside a strengths profiler, it’s important that you do a few more things…self strengths-spot, gather info from the people whose opinion you value the most and who spend the most time with you, and spend time with your feelings, learning to notice when you feel most alive, most at one with your life, once you put to one side the shoulds and musts and parental or societal voices.

For me, my go to, bring with, ‘(almost) always on ‘strengths are 1. Collaboration (for the connection, for finding common ground, for the sheer joy of doing things together and sharing in experiences), 2. Empathy (partly in service to deepen my connections by understanding you better, and also just to understand you for you) and 3. Leading (for building energy around a vision or a goal, to move people, emotionally and literally towards a meaningful goal).

So what are your ‘stand out’ strengths?

Step 3: Build a brand around your strengths

So knowing and labelling your key strengths – those things that energise you and that you are great at or have the potential to become great at – is a good start. But if I just met you and said to you that my key strengths are Collaboration, Empathy and Leading, that would give you something but it wouldn’t give you a huge amount go on. And it’s unlikely it would help you to see how I can bring value to your world (other than maybe collaborating with you or empathising with you). But where’s the colour, the depth, the value of all of that?

To take it to the next stage, my advice is to find your own words to describe the benefits of the strengths you bring, examples of where you’ve used them, the benefit to others and stories that bring your strengths to life.

The value of my Collaboration and Empathy for example is in really getting under the skin of how you’re going to bring your best by joining the dots of what I observe, what you tell me and what we’re trying to do together and then giving you a clear insight into what I see to work through it with you and see if it’s accurate or valuable.  I’ve built that strength combination into my executive coaching practice as an outworking of those strengths in combination, as well as into my leadership and management roles by helping team members to see and to value their strengths, skills and potential.

I am also told regularly that I have vision, that I can bring people around that vision and galvanise belief and action towards a shared goal, something that I believe is going to have a positive impact in the world. So that’s leading and collaboration combined to energise positive change.

When you know your values (your bedrock) and you know strengths (and the benefits they can bring), you can work up a brand and start to communicate it with confidence because you will be describing you at your natural, energised, confident and comfortable best. And people need to hear about that, because otherwise they may not get the full picture of authentic you and all that you bring.

How close are you to developing your personal brand?

Step 4: Keep stretching and learning

Our strengths are natural qualities that we are drawn towards using and probably have been for most of our lives. That means that, in most cases, we will have become fairly skilled in using them. But it also means that we are likely to have fallen into habituated patterns of behaviour where we are most likely to get a consistently positive outcome. And that can inadvertently, when we’re not paying attention, lead to the development of a ‘fixed mindset’ around our strengths, where we avoid risking using them in a new or more challenging context.

And yet, our strengths are our core DNA of value, they are most likely to involve the most practiced elements of our behaviour. So step 4 involves consciously planning to continue to grow and develop them to their next level of impact. Sure, this means risk, but it also means bigger potential reward and likely more confidence as we grow and develop our skills further.

For me, if I am seen already as a visionary leader then what can I do to stretch that Leading strength still further? How can I get more people around the vision? How can I learn to hone my Leading skillset? I can read, I can research, I can get mentoring and coaching, and I can take practical steps to more widely communicate my message so that more people can get value from my strengths and I can supercharge my vision.

What active steps are you taking to develop your strengths set further, so that you can be more you, but in a more skilful way?

Step 5: Avoid overdrive

Gotta love overdrive. The shadow side of our strengths. By way of example, my Collaboration in overdrive can mean overstretching my commitments and falling short on delivery of the value that I’ve promised. Antidote: pick my collaborations carefully, set expectations realistically and boundary well. And I use my Strategic mindedness strength to help bring the bigger perspective to that to avoid initiating too many collaborations for my own good and for everyone else’s.

My Leading in overdrive can look like an idea without a plan. Antidote: get a plan together that’s SMART and make sure that the right people are involved in managing it through to a successful conclusion. And that’s unlikely to be me. I choose to get other people’s help to develop a plan and stick to it and actually to manage me to bring my best and to get a good result.

My Empathy in overdrive can lead me to lose my sense of self in my connection with someone else. In the service of others, I may forget to serve myself and that can lead me to over-analyse and over-worry. Strategic mindedness to the rescue to make sure that I can keep a bigger picture perspective. And the support I have from others to give me an external view on something I’m experiencing or feeling is essential for me.

What are your overdrive risks and what are your antidotes; how can you manage them so that they don’t get in the way of you being your best you?

Those are my top 5 for today to be more you, the strengths way: know your values and purpose; understand what energises you; build a brand around that; keep stretching, keep learning; and avoid overdrive. Till next time, stay strong.

The Strengths Guy podcast is on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Google podcasts, Stitcher, ACast, TuneIn,  Breaker and Soundcloud. If you enjoy it, please support us by subscribing and sharing on your favorite platform.

Via https://www.strengthscope.com/be-more-you-the-strengths-way/

source https://thasma.weebly.com/blog/be-more-you-in-5-steps-the-strengths-way

[henmonarch]

Strengths in the community

In today’s podcast we talk to a truly tremendous human, who is doing a whole range of positive work in the community both in the UK and in DRC in Central Africa, Christian Bless.

We discuss Christian’s story: setting up Solola Bien, a TV show in DRC, the community group Boys 2 Men in London and most recently, Greaterself – a consultancy that aims to help African businesses bring transformation in workplaces through the recognition of strengths and self-awareness.

  We talk about Christian’s personal learnings about strengths and what he has learned about strengths at their best, overdrive risks, and the role that strengths have played in his various ventures up to now.

We also look at what more can be done, and by whom, as regards community work. What’s needed and how can people help, what can they do?

This is a genuinely inspiring podversation, giving us a personal trip around Chris’s various community and business ventures. To find out more about Christian’s community projects, please check out the following links:

https://www.sololabien.co/ https://www.youtube.com/c/SololaBien https://www.instagram.com/sololabien_realtalk/ https://www.instagram.com/king_blessc/

 The Strengths Guy podcast is on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Google podcasts, Stitcher, ACast, TuneIn,  Breaker and Soundcloud. If you’ve found this podcast valuable, please support it by subscribing and sharing it.

Via https://www.strengthscope.com/strengths-in-the-community/

source https://thasma.weebly.com/blog/strengths-in-the-community

[henmonarch]

Gender equality feminism and strengths

 A Podversation with Abbigail Leeson

Today’s conversation is with our Strengthscope intern, Abbigail Leeson. In her time with us, Abbigail has been focusing on building the Strengthscope practitioner community and has provided a lot of creative and research input to help with that.

In her time with us, Abbi has also been upskilling and upknowledging the team at Strengthscope on an area that she is deeply passionate about: feminism and she has run a session with the team entitled ‘a short history of feminism’ which has superb and got amazing feedback from the team.

In fact, the feedback was so good that I really wanted to feature Abbi on the podcast and to get a wider audience for some of this great content, plus have a conversation about how and where we can take action to level things up for women in the workplace.

We discuss her passion for feminism and what should workplaces be prioritising right now around sexism, feminism and inclusion. And, of course, the role that strengths and Strengthscope can play in equality for women.

  I just want to finish with a shout out to one of Strengthscope’s charity partners: Womankind Worldwide. Womankind Worldwide strengthens and supports women’s rights organisations and movements and resources they need to challenge oppression and change the lives of women, in the home, the workplace and the communities they live in.

At the very least, I would encourage you if you’re listening today to take a look at the amazing work they do at womankind.org.uk; you can listen to a podversation I had some time back with Alicia Luther-Jones, Philanthropy Manager which gives you even more of a flavour. And if you like what you see, of course, you can take action and/or donate to further their cause.

Thank you for listening today and until next time, stay strong.

 The Strengths Guy podcast is on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Google podcasts, Stitcher, ACast, TuneIn,  Breaker and Soundcloud. Please support it by subscribing and sharing it.

Via https://www.strengthscope.com/gender-equality-feminism-and-strengths/

source https://thasma.weebly.com/blog/gender-equality-feminism-and-strengths

[henmonarch]

How to share your leadership vision in 7 steps

Via https://www.strengthscope.com/how-to-share-your-leadership-vision-in-7-steps/

source https://thasma.weebly.com/blog/how-to-share-your-leadership-vision-in-7-steps

[henmonarch]

Authentic leadership and the role of strengths

A podversation with Rebecca Newton

In this podversation, I talk with Dr. Rebecca Newton, organisational psychologist lecturing in Management Practice at the London School of Economics, and faculty member teaching on the Accelerated Leadership Program at Harvard Law School. Rebecca is also CEO of CoachAdviser, and an adviser, executive coach and facilitator of leadership development programmes. She is a Senior Visiting Fellow at LSE; and before that, Rebecca was a Visiting Fellow at Harvard University.

 Bec is a regular contributor to the Harvard Business Review and Forbes, serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Change Management, and has facilitated executive education for LSE, Duke CE, the University of Cambridge and Harvard Business Publishing. Rebecca is the author of Authentic Gravitas: Who Stands Out and Why.

We discuss

her career journey and how she got to where she is now

how she uses the strengths approach

her recent activities in the world of gravitas, its importance in leadership development and how to get it

the biggest challenges faced by people trying to develop gravitas

authenticity and its role in self awareness well being

how she dealt with strengths in overdrive

female empowerment, and

her recent collaborations with Brene Brown at LSE

You can find out more about Rebecca on her LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-rebecca-newton-b3b29220/

Her website, Coach Adviser: https://coachadviser.com/

Her book is available on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3x7FodO

You can find The strengths guy podcast on all major platforms – Apple podcasts, Spotify, Google podcasts, Stitcher, ACast, TuneIn, Breaker and Soundcloud. Please support this podcast by subscribing to get it at the start of the working week!

  Via https://www.strengthscope.com/authentic-leadership-and-the-role-of-strengths/

source https://thasma.weebly.com/blog/authentic-leadership-and-the-role-of-strengths

[henmonarch]

Building your stakeholder engagement strategy

Stakeholder engagement – what and why?

In my coaching and development work with senior execs, there is one activity that I can guarantee will always form part of our conversations, almost certainly more than once. And that’s stakeholder engagement. From forming a stakeholder engagement map to a stakeholder engagement plan or strategy, these discussions are almost always central to the success of our work together.

The reason? Everyone needs to know who their key stakeholders are, as well as the needs and expectations of those stakeholders, so that you can work out best how to work together so that you can each get your needs met. At leadership level, the stakes often get higher, and unmanaged or even unknown stakeholders can become a reason for projects to hit turbulence and for careers to get stalled.

What’s the secret to doing stakeholder engagement well?

On the flip side of that, if you follow the principles of stakeholder engagement that I outline today, you will be much better placed for success in your current and your future leadership roles, because you will have clarity on the important people around you – how they operate, their agendas and their expectations and how you can develop functional, mutually beneficial relationships with them. Today’s blog then is about developing your stakeholder engagement strategy.

This activity is particularly important during transition for leaders – either in the lead up to a role change, change of employer or even change of career; just after the transition is made; and also when change happens within an organisation due to restructure or changes in senior management. But refining your stakeholder management strategy is a worthwhile exercise at any point because without it, it’s likely that the network of people and the relationships around you will have shifted without you realising the consequences.

Is this politics, or is it relationships?

Another point to make here which brings up inevitable baggage is the word ‘politics’ – not Big P politics but the small p version. There aren’t many leaders I’ve worked with who would say that they enjoy politics, in fact the majority would say that they ‘avoid politics’ or ‘don’t play politics’. I get that, there’s something about the word that conjurs up images of shady characters scheming in darkened rooms, plotting the downfall of this or that person. Yep, that can happen, but you can take more control over those conversations if you’ve done the work, if you’ve figured out the people a bit and worked out the ‘give and get’ between you. And that comes down to honing your skills of observation, empathy, good communication and influence – which are all good foundational skills for leadership anyway.

When I work with leaders who are considering making the transition into senior exec roles or who have recently landed there for the first time, there’s often a note of regret in their voices when they realise that an increasingly large proportion of their time is going to be taken up by managing relationships, doing politics, influencing their stakeholders to get sponsorship for their projects or team and in particular working with people who they don’t necessarily feel have arrived in their senior exec positions on merit, but who have instead built a power base by being political. And I get that too. But that’s the world, it’s not a meritocracy, at least not for much of the time.

Learning from the relationship-building opportunists

I remember attending an event about 20 years ago – a development centre – I was an assessor, a psychologist observing people’s performance in various simulated tasks and then giving them feedback on what I was seeing. The idea was that this would give senior management an objective read on their talent pool…those people who had been identified as having the potential to move into exec roles in the next few years.

So me and other assessors (psychologists and line managers from the client organisation) sat in rooms observing scenarios and behaviour all day and giving some feedback on performance at the end – both to the project sponsors and to the participants themselves. Part of the day also saw some very senior leaders coming in to talk about their experiences of leadership and just to show their faces to the people going through the centre.

I distinctly remember at breaktimes and at lunch how there were some behaviours that I was observing that had nothing to do with the assessments we were making. A small number of participants during the non-assessed parts of the day were seeking out informal social moments with the senior sponsors who were there – meeting, greeting, making themselves known, even maybe honing their elevator pitch about their aspirations for a leadership role and it hit me like a lightning bolt that this form of influence…around the edges, in the cracks, where the opportunities arose…these were the moments that could have the biggest impact on someone’s later promotion chances.

Maybe even more so than acing the development centre. Is that fair? Is that playing the game? Well it is the game. At least part of it. As humans, we all have needs – to connect, to feel important, to be appreciated, to be safe and supported. And it was the development centre participants who were fulfilling some of those needs for the senior sponsors at the event who might have ended up being the most memorable to them. And if nothing more, those participants were taking the opportunity to start to build relationships with senior folk who may be able to help or support them at some point later.

How can you make those opportunities? With a stakeholder engagement strategy

Now if all this feels a little unsavoury (and if I’m honest, it did to me 20 years ago) it doesn’t have to – what I’ve learned is that you can fully live your values and still take or make the opportunities you need to build the relationships with your key stakeholders that will help you in your career and role. That’s how I support my coachees: how to do stakeholder engagement your way so that it sits right with you.

First up – build your stakeholder engagement map

OK, here’s the How To – starting with creating your stakeholder engagement map (see below). Lowest left box = Low influence and Low quality – you don’t need to put much effort in here. Top right box is High influence and high quality (‘Enlist support’) – these people can be your sponsors and supporters who make the biggest difference. Low influence and high quality relationship stakeholders (‘Keep happy’) – these people need some contact for the relationship to remain positive but they’re not going to be super important right now in actively helping you move forward in your role or career. The final box is High influence but low quality relationships (‘Deepen relationship’) – these are important stakeholders who at this point you may not have spent enough time with in order for them to be sponsors or supporters.

 Once you have your grid, you need to start populating it with actual people and my advice here is to ‘be exhaustive’ – get everyone down and when you think you’ve finished, think again, think more broadly, maybe even outside your department or business area or even your organisation until you have everyone included.

Your stakeholder engagement map is unique to you – now to put it to work

Everyone’s grid will be different – for some people there will be a lot in ‘Keep happy’, but actually when they look at their high influence boxes, they see far fewer – this is comfort zone territory in stakeholder engagement…typically you’re spending most time with people you like and who like you but who aren’t making a big difference in terms of influence over your work.

In other grids, there will be a lot of people in ‘Deepen relationship’, particularly if you’ve recently moved role and there are a lot of new stakeholders to get close to.

Formulating your stakeholder engagement strategy – first prioritise your key stakeholders

Whatever your map looks like, you’ll need to prioritise your relationships now – what do you need to do and most importantly, with whom? Ask yourself who are the handful of stakeholders whose support you really need to achieve your goals and aspirations? Yes, this group may well include your line manager but you will almost certainly need to look beyond that relationship to broaden your visibility.

What can you do to improve the quality of your relationships?

When you’re clear on that priority group, be honest with yourself about the quality of your relationships – are there any people in your shortlist that you don’t get on with? Ask yourself what specific differences in style or interests, what obstacles or challenges might there be that are getting in the way of an improved relationship with them? Also, think beyond that direct connection between you and the stakeholder…think also about the people close to them and whether it might be worth you developing a better relationship with them as those influencers may help build your currency with the key stakeholder in time.

How can you find common ground and build on it?

When you think about how you can start to deepen relationships with your key stakeholders, think about how you can use your strengths and values and their strengths and values to build common ground between you.  It’s also worth thinking through what their needs are – business and personal – and how you might be able to meet those needs. And to work on your leadership brand if you haven’t done so already – I talked about that last week at Season 10, episode 9, so take a listen for more tips.

Go through this process for each of your key stakeholders and then decide on what actions you’re going to take to get the relationship to where you’d like it to be.

Checklist for your stakeholder engagement strategy

Here’s my checklist for your stakeholder engagement strategy:

Be clear on why this person is one of your priority stakeholders – what do you want from them?

What are their objectives, their needs, their values? And how aligned or different are yours? (think about how you can leverage common ground and overcome differences in your agendas)

What are their strengths and what might these look like in overdrive? And yours? (this helps in thinking about how to develop the relationship in a way that’s going to work best for you both)

What are you going to do to build the relationship? (like ask for a meeting or a chat, talk about a project, get their advice, suggest they could be a mentor for you)

Think about how you can add value to them (this can help shape your offer when you meet)

Before you connect, prep what you’re going to say (at least to some extent) and think through what you’d like as an outcome – short term and longer term

Make it happen.

Good luck building out your stakeholder engagement plan and your stakeholder engagement strategy. Even if you just end up developing a relationship with one or two more people than you’re doing right now, that will help. Relationships are what makes the world go round after all.

 The Strengths Guy podcast is on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Google podcasts, Stitcher, ACast, TuneIn,  Breaker and Soundcloud. Please support it by subscribing and sharing it.

Via https://www.strengthscope.com/building-your-stakeholder-engagement-strategy/

source https://thasma.weebly.com/blog/building-your-stakeholder-engagement-strategy

[henmonarch]

How to build your personal leadership brand

In my executive coaching work, I often spend time with leaders working on their values as the principles they work to and which others need to understand. We also spend time on the strengths and skills that mark them out as unique.

For some leaders we also talk purpose – what difference they want to make and what legacy they want to leave as a leader. And for other leaders, we work on their gravitas and building a strong reputation – how they can be seen as credible, confident and trustworthy.

In this podcast, I combine all of these elements into one activity which will help shape your communication of what’s important to you and how you can make an intentional positive impact as a leader.

Today’s podcast is all about building your leadership brand.

A leadership brand helps you in several ways:

To differentiate yourself in competitive internal and external marketplaces

To increase your visibility in your organisation and make others aware of your value

To ensure people have a clear sense of who you are and how to work with you

To become more self-confident and self-motivated as you gain self-awareness and clarity about what you have to offer and how that marks you out as positively different.

Building your leadership brand pyramid

Onto the activity. There are plenty of ways of doing this but my favourite is to use a pyramid – practically, there’s more space to capture what you need to at the fat end but the shape also shows the importance of the base layers as providing you with strong foundations for your leadership proposition and legacy, which sit at the pointy end. So first thing is to draw a pyramid with four layers or levels.

“Who I am” – Values and attitudes

Values and attitudes are the bedrock of your leadership brand

The base level includes the core values and attitudes that guide your leadership. I recommend James Clear’s list of values as a good starter for inspiring your own values list. Try and keep it as a relatively short list, say 7-8 and do use your own language.

Think about the things you truly value and hold dear, the way you feel that the world should be, the behaviours or actions in others that anger you – all of these point to your key values and attitudes. This is important because everyone’s values are different – they come to us from our upbringing and from our experiences through life.  We can’t assume that anyone else sees the world in the same way that we do.

So think about the people who work for you – would it help them and you if they knew what you valued? Think of this list as a ‘survival guide’ or playbook in working with you – if the people who work for you act in alignment with your values, you’re more likely to see them in a positive light. And if they do something that is out of alignment with your values, they can expect that it won’t sit well with you.

It’s very important therefore to capture these as the bedrock foundations of the other brand elements.

“What I bring” – Strengths, skills and experience

Strengths, skills and experience are the ‘features’ of your leadership brand.

Second layer are your strengths and skills and expertise – if you thought of yourself as a product, this level would contain your ‘features’. Your Strengthscope Standout 3 strengths sit here, along with the leadership skills that you want to bring to your role, whatever they may be – strategic vision, networking and relationships, project management capability, flexibility, critical analysis – whatever your gifts and talents and features are.

If you’re not 100% sure, you can always ask for feedback from others who know you well.

Where do they see you at your best?

What do they see as your greatest leadership strengths and talents?

“The difference I wish to make” – Your leadership legacy

Your leadership legacy communicates the benefits of your personal leadership brand.

If the second layer up included your product ‘features’, this layer includes the ‘benefits’ of those features. Think of this level as the difference you want to make and/or the leadership legacy you want to leave.

Try and get this down to an inspiring ‘statement of intent’ around your core purpose. A couple of examples: ‘I create environments where teams thrive and I support each individual to reach their true potential’ or ‘I build and deliver strategic plans which always create measurable value for my organisation’.

It needs to evoke emotions in you (and possibly others, but mainly you because it is intended to stimulate you towards action) and it should be something that sets you apart as being different.

“My essence”

Your essence gives you a strong leadership brand promise.

OK, top and final layer is your essence – when you are at your best and most energised and the reason others would follow you. 10 words max, ideally fewer, in fact the fewer the better. The idea here is to capture a statement that when you say it or others hear it, it will inspire the kind of people who you would want around you to get around you.

Think of this as a leadership brand statement or a brand promise if you like.

 What’s next: developing your leadership brand management plan

So that’s quite a bit of work, it’ll take time to hone.

Once you have, say the words out loud to yourself (particularly those in the top two layers) and test your own reaction. Does what you have sit right with you? Does it feel like you? Can you own it? Or does it feel awkward, does the language not quite work for some reason, might you just feel embarrassed if you were asked to describe your brand in this way to your team?

Then do some more work until it feels right. It will be a mix of the now and the future, of what you have attained already and your aspiration and ambition for your leadership future.

Make sure it’s sufficiently ‘now’ that it represents a reasonably accurate picture of how people will experience you today – they need to be able to recognise you. But make sure it has a future-focused perspective too, so that you have something to move towards, space to grow into.

Once you’re happy with your leadership brand, you’re going to need a leadership brand communication plan. So I have some reflection questions for you to ask yourself which should help.

How close are your stakeholders’ perceptions of your current leadership approach to your ideal leadership ‘brand’? What do you need to do more of, less of, or differently to close the ‘gap’?

So these questions are getting you to think about your behaviour and what others see in you day to day that will lead them to conclude that your brand is aligned with the human in front of them. And we all have work to do on that.

Do you need to make your values more visible or talk to more people about them? Do you need to communicate the value that your strengths and skills and expertise can bring? And to whom? And who knows about the legacy you want to leave right now, and who would you like to know?

How will you communicate your leadership brand to colleagues, direct reports and other stakeholders?

Once you’ve worked out where your gaps are in terms of people’s perceptions right now and how you would want ‘brand you’ to be seen, you can get to work on a comms plan, a brand management plan, that will help you get the right messages to the right people in the right ways.

For example – translating your values into leadership behaviours and behaving consistently with them. Talk to your team about your values maybe at an all-hands meeting, where you ask them to share theirs too or maybe 121 with your top team.

What about your legacy and your essence – ideally you would want more senior folk to see and hear this so work on an elevator pitch that you can switch on if you get the opportunity to be in front of your plus ones, plus twos or plus threes.

What immediate steps can you take to start communicating and living your leadership brand right now?

Finally, start taking steps today. Small actions can make a big difference but you’ll need to make those actions habitual and repeat them consistently over time if you want others to shift their current perceptions or to solidify a view that they may of you already.

In conclusion: the benefit of working on your personal brand as a leader

Strong personal brands are not built overnight, they take a long time to build. It’s worth it though, as all great brands produce strong results in terms of improved demand, perceived value, reputation and results. I hope you’ve this blog useful. If you have, please subscribe on your favourite platform (button below) and share it with others who you feel might find it useful. ‘Till next time, stay strong.

You can find this podcast on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Google podcasts, Stitcher, ACast, TuneIn,  Breaker and Soundcloud. Please support it by subscribing to get it at the start of the working week!

Via https://www.strengthscope.com/how-to-build-your-personal-leadership-brand/

source https://thasma.weebly.com/blog/how-to-build-your-personal-leadership-brand

[henmonarch]

Using strengths to drive inclusion and equity a podversation with Derek Appau

Today’s podversation is with Derek Appau, the founder of Limitless Personal Excellence. Derek specialises in accelerating career progression, job satisfaction, leadership development and creating inclusive cultures.

Derek also has his own podcast channel – Passions N’ Professions – (available on Apple Podcasts here) about people who have taken what they loved and turned them into what they do as a profession.

Some of the things we discuss are:

The strengths approach and the use of psychometrics in the context of creating more inclusive, equitable and diverse workplaces and cultures.

How we can use strengths and psychometrics to level the playing field for individuals from an ethnic minority background.

How strengths and Strengthscope can change the narrative around inclusion

Along with some personal stories from myself and Derek

Thanks to Derek for taking the time to appear on this weeks podcast. I highly recommend checking out Derek’s Passions N’ Professions podcast and you can find the Limitless Personal Excellence website here.

If you like these podversations, it would be great if you subscribe and leave a review. I really do enjoy getting the feedback (good and bad). Find it on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Google podcasts, Stitcher, ACast, TuneIn,  Breaker and Soundcloud.

  Via https://www.strengthscope.com/using-strengths-to-drive-inclusion-and-equity-a-podversation-with-derek-appau/

source https://thasma.weebly.com/blog/using-strengths-to-drive-inclusion-and-equity-a-podversation-with-derek-appau

[henmonarch]

Diversity of thought for leadership teams

Via https://www.strengthscope.com/diversity-of-thought-for-leadership-teams/

source https://thasma.weebly.com/blog/diversity-of-thought-for-leadership-teams

[henmonarch]

What is strengths based leadership (and how can you get it?)

What is the research telling us about strengths based leadership?

Strengths based leadership is getting a lot of interest these days and rightly so. What we know from the research is that when leaders enable the strengths of their teams, there is a large spike in engagement (Gallup) and that this can also lead to significant increases in productivity when taken into performance management conversations (Corporate Leadership Council). So the strengths based approach – managing and leading by focusing on others’ strengths – makes a human difference and a business difference. Other findings include:

Leaders with one or more outstanding strengths are twice as likely to be ranked in the top third in terms of effectiveness. Zenger, Folkman and Edinger, Oct 2011, Harvard Business Review

No two leaders share the same strengths and weaknesses and attempting to mimic the strengths of another leader can’t be sustained over the long term. Rath and Conchie, 2009

Leaders who use their strengths effectively and develop positive leadership behaviours are rated as more effective. Strengthscope research, 2017

The chance of someone being actively disengaged when their manager plays to their strengths is 1 in 100. Gallup research

  What does it mean to be a strengths based leader? Identify your highs and lows

Most importantly, a strengths based leader recognises that they have leadership strengths – unique qualities that energise them and that they are skilled at using (or have the potential to become skilled at using).  Those leadership strengths will be unique to them – we know from Strengthscope research that the chances of having the same Top 7 Strengthscope strengths in the same order as anyone else is 1 in 1.3 billion, so it stands that every leader has the potential to bring unique qualities into their leadership role.

Strengths based leaders also know that they have vulnerabilities – specifically, the potential for their strengths to go into overdrive and to have areas of non-strength which drain them – potential leadership weaknesses if you like. More on that a little later.

So what role do leadership competencies have?

In a world still geared towards all employees meeting competency requirements, that recognition that the strengths based leader has highs and lows instantly marks them out as different from a leader striving to be well rounded, to meet each and every competency requirement laid down by their employer as their sole aim.

When you know your strengths and your risks as a leader, you better understand how to achieve competency standards in a way which is more energising, and less draining or risky for you, rather than feeling you’re going to need to twist yourself into all sorts of shapes to meet the competency requirements of your employer.

Making space for others to flourish

There are other benefits – as a leader if you acknowledge you have vulnerabilities, that you’re not great at everything – that means there will be space for others to stretch and develop and grow because you will need their skills and strengths to support your aims. And you won’t try to do everything on your own. You’re much more likely to need and learn the art of delegation and partnering because you know that you simply don’t have the strength to do everything and anything. And you’re ok with that.

Stepping into your unique brand of leadership

The biggest benefit though is that by identifying where you do have strengths, you can work on your own brand of leadership and in time, you can become a master of that like no one else can. Literally. It’s a career’s worth of work to do that – if I look at my standout 3 strengths of Collaboration, Empathy and Leading, I need to remember to walk the line every day between relationship building, being part of a team and enjoying that collegiality and togetherness, listening to and understanding others’ challenges and supporting them on their journeys (that’s the Empathy). And I need to combine that with providing clear, inspiring leadership for everyone by communicating the vision, clarity on direction and purpose and holding people to account for delivery (that’s the Leading).

I have to dig deep for the holding to account. I need preparation to give constructive feedback well – it’s not natural for me, but I use my Empathy to remember that people value honesty and clarity. I use others’ Efficiency to follow processes we have for feedback through our performance management process and I use my Critical thinking to prepare exactly what I want to say before I go into a “courageous conversation” type meeting.

Five tips for effective strengths based leadership

Strength based leadership is about being self-aware, being real, authentic, being prepared to be vulnerable, to make mistakes, to own those mistakes, to be human and to own that. And it also means being comfortable with the idea that no one will lead like you, stepping into that space with confidence and making the impact that you want to make.

So what can you do to increase the extent to which you lead with strengths in your leadership role? How can you become a more effective leader, through strengths based leadership? Five things:

1. Use your strengths

Firstly, know and remember your strengths and use them every day. Exercise them, become familiar with them, talk to others about them, stretch them. Actively work on your leadership brand so that your stakeholders, your colleagues, your team, your customers, know who you are as a leader – what drives you, your values, your strengths, what should they come to you for, why should they be led by you. Have a listen to my podcasts at Seasons 1, episodes 11-12 on how to build your personal brand (part 1 and part 2).

2. Limit your risks

Second, to become a more effective leader, become more aware of your risk areas – where are your overdrive risks? What drains you? And what, actively, will you do about each?

I know that sometimes my Optimism and Strategic mindedness strengths can combine and overdrive and that might lead me to get complacent about a plan or a project when I should be checking in more regularly and making sure things are on track (that’s a leadership overdrive risk). I know also that I need to rely on others for processes and project plans that I should be following because Efficiency and planning drain me (so that’s a drainer, a potential leadership weakness, a vulnerability – others know it and that’s ok).

3. Get feedback

Third, ask for feedback from colleagues on where they see your strengths, when they see you come alive and be at your very best. If you’re using Strengthscope, the 360 and leader modules make this process easy but even when using those and definitely if not using them, actively asking your colleagues for feedback on where they see you at your strongest can be enlightening, reassuring and sometimes surprising, so go get the feedback.

4. Develop effective leadership behaviours

Fourth, and there’s more, much more on this to share, develop effective leadership behaviour. The strengths-based leadership model we’ve developed, integrated into our strengths based leadership profiler StrengthscopeLeader includes to share vision, spark engagement, skilfully execute and sustain progress. Strengths knowledge and application aren’t enough, to get the most from your strengths, you need to cultivate positive leadership behaviours too.

5. Help others play to their strengths

And finally, once you’re on your own strengths development journey, you can best enable other people’s strengths. There’s more on this topic at my podcast on Maximising strengths in others – the art of great leadership at Season 5, episode 11.

If you’re interested in a broader perspective on leadership, please take a listen to my podcast on The future of leadership at Season 8, episode 1.  Thanks for listening today. If you liked today’s podcast, please subscribe on your favourite platform using the button below – when more people subscribe, the podcast gets more visible and more people get to listen and I’m really keen to share more widely.

So please give me a subscribe click. Thank you. Till next time, stay strong.

You can find this podcast on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Google podcasts, Stitcher, ACast, TuneIn,  Breaker and Soundcloud. Please support it by subscribing to get it at the start of the working week!

Via https://www.strengthscope.com/what-is-strengths-based-leadership/

source https://thasma.weebly.com/blog/what-is-strengths-based-leadership-and-how-can-you-get-it

[henmonarch]

Empowering women a podversation with Roohi and Nida Mohiyuddin

In this podversation, Paul Brewerton, the strengths guy, talks with sisters Roohi and Nida Mohiyuddin, two inspiring women who have just launched Nu(pw)R, a new business designed to empower women through a unique three stage process.

Roohi and Nida tell their story – what led them to set out on their journey and what difference they hope to achieve in the world.

They tell us about their programme – The Confident Empowered Woman – and provide some tips and advice on how women can

shut down their inner critic,

break down their barriers to success, and

turn their strengths into superpowers.

This is a very exciting podversation, what Roohi and Nida are doing is timely, powerful and hugely helpful for women seeking to build their confidence and become empowered. And it’s not only for women – everyone can take a lot away from this podversation.

To find out more about Nu(pw)R and the Confident Empowered Woman, please visit their website https://nupwr.co.uk/ I strongly recommend that you do.

 There is also a lot of powerful content on their blog.

The following appeared first on https://nupwr.co.uk/10-essentials-for-being-a-little-bit-happier-mbg-way-bgn/:

10 ways to feel a little bit happier

Happiness is about living each moment with love, joy, and gratitude. It is about appreciating the now and all it has to offer. Happiness should not be about chasing moments, it is right in front of us if we only open our eyes to it.

Happiness is often described as a state of mind. However, during tough times in your life, this can be hard to put into practice. Often in crisis, the focus is simply about trying to process events and feelings, which is important.

Happiness isn’t stagnant or consistent. As humans, we experience a range of emotions, which are all equally important as it makes us who we are. These experiences allow us to learn, grow and appreciate both the good and bad times in life.

I wish I could tell you the secret ingredient to happiness. The truth is there isn’t one. Happiness is about cherishing the beautiful moments in life. It’s about staying present and being appreciative, not attaching it to a certain event or goal. It is different for everyone.

Happiness cannot be earned or owned, it is not about what we own or have, it is simply about being content with what we have and where we are.

It is important to remember that you do not have to be happy all the time. That is unrealistic. But there are a few things you can do to be a little happier regardless of what is going on around you.

Making little changes in your day can help you deal with harder times head-on. You have everything you need within you to overcome any difficulty you may face. So embrace challenges knowing that they will pass, that you can get through it, and it will be OK.

1) Express Daily Gratitude

Practicing gratitude daily is crucial for setting your mindset for happiness. Being grateful is so powerful. There is no right or wrong way for expressing this. or any strict guidelines or limitations.

So how does it work? Practicing gratitude is a really simple exercise and can be done anywhere at any time. You could simply state three things you are grateful for before going to bed, which ends the day on a positive note. It could also be a beautiful way to start the day.

You can make a note of the things you are grateful for in a journal which is a great way to keep a record of it. You could say the things you are grateful for out loud or share them with those you love.

Start simple. Be grateful for the simple pleasures of life, the things that make you smile, and all the amazing things around you. Try to be grateful for something different every day.

Expressing gratitude allows you to see the beauty in the things around you which allows you to shine a little brighter everyday.

  2) Great things take time to build – Don’t give up

Remember everything takes time, effort, and commitment. Be patient with yourself and enjoy the process.

Whether you embark on a new fitness journey, learn something new, or start a new business remember to be consistent and accountable.

Set yourself small goals you can work towards and big ones you hope to reach in the future. Vision boards and goal lists can be a great way to motivate you to keep going.

Waiting for happiness, as if it is something that happens to you, will only lead to disappointment. Be happy with what you have and remember you will get to where you want to be. Enjoy the journey and experience, because it is equally as important as the destination.

3) Say “yes” to thinks that feel right (Don’t overthink everything)

Try not to be overcautious about everything. Trust your instincts and believe in yourself.

Your instincts can be a great indicator of when to take the leap and try something new or when to let loose and enjoy a new experience.

If someone wants to take you out and it feels right, go for it. If a new job opportunity comes your way and you know it’s what you have always wanted to do, take it. If moving to a new city or far away in the countryside is what you need, then do it. Don’t let the fear of change hold you back, do whatever feels right.

  4) Be generous and give back

I find the best way to feel instantly happier is by helping others in times of need. Whether it is someone that could do with a smile or a chat or someone that is really and overwhelmed reach out.

Putting a smile on someone’s face can be instant gratification. Making someone’s day a little better and easier can be really rewarding.

Babysitting while a new mum gets a nap, buying someone a hot meal when they really need it or checking in with people with a simple phone call is easy to do but could mean the world to them.

A kind word or a connection on the street with someone through a smile can go such a long way if they are having a bad day. I truly believe what you give comes back to you.

Be aware of your own needs and ensure that you are taking care of yourself too. You can only give if you are at your best.

Click here to read the remaining 6 Ways to Feel a Little Bit Happier on Roohi and Nida’s website.

 Thank you to Roohi and Nida for taking the time to appear on this weeks podcast. Look out for more podversations in the months ahead.

Get the The Strengths Guy podcast on all major podcast platforms.

Find it on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Google podcasts, Stitcher, ACast, TuneIn,  Breaker and Soundcloud. Please support this podcast by leaving a review and subscribing to get it at the start of the working week!

 Related posts:

The energy lifeline – plotting your year ahead

Managing your mindset in tough times – the path of possibility

Why you should be directing your learning towards your strengths

Via https://www.strengthscope.com/empowering-women/

source https://thasma.weebly.com/blog/empowering-women-a-podversation-with-roohi-and-nida-mohiyuddin

[henmonarch]

Managing millennials a podversation with Rebecca Christianson

Introduction to Rebecca Christianson – Thrive People Consulting

Rebecca’s been building her own people consultancy for some time now. She’s an Executive coach and an expert on innovative People & Culture practices as she worked as an internal P&C senior leader and Executive for over 15 years. She coaches senior leaders to focus on mind-set shifts to thrive, using a strengths based and neuropsychology approach. She has a psychology background and is endlessly curious about people.

  Rebecca also partners with People & Culture teams to provide strategic advice on developing a People strategy, undertaking culture and capability assessments to enable organisations to understand how their change effort are progressing and is experienced at resetting People and HR teams. She is super passionate about harnessing the power of Millennial leadership capability and that is why we are here today.

Managing millennials – introduction

The focus of this blog is on working with and leading millennials. Now I just want to say before we get into this that it is of course true that categorising people in big groups like ‘millennials’ can be problematic if we end up making sweeping assumptions about literally everyone in that group just because they happen to be categorised in that way.  What we know though is that the social/economical/technological/political context and experience that people born between say 1980 and 1996 was different from those who came before and after. And that context may well have had a shaping effect on those people which makes a difference to the way in which they engage with work, in general, and with big individual differences of course. With that health warning delivered, over to Rebecca…

 Paul: Who are Millennials?

Rebecca: Millennials or Gen Y’s are those currently aged approximately 25-41 years old. US and UK age ranges vary for this cohort.

From a career journey perspective, they range from those who have a few years work experience up their sleeve to those ‘old millennials’ like me who have been in senior leadership and Executive roles at a young age for the last 5-10 years.

Paul: Why is it important to be having this conversation on Millennials now?

Rebecca: Millennials now comprise of 25-40% of the workforce and research tell us that we will be 60-70% in the next 10 years so our voice will only be getting louder in the workplace.

I have worked across multiple sectors in Australia, the UK and Europe in senior P&C roles and I have experienced first-hand the frustrations Millennials have with the current working world. They are demanding that we shift to the new world of work.

They are voicing their dissatisfaction and showing it with their feet by leaving organisations in droves. According to US research, the average tenure for someone under 40 is 3 years, whereas for those over 50 years it is 10.1 years.

Paul: How are their work expectations different from other generations?

Millennials often want some of what other generations want, however there are 4 differences in this cohort of people:

They have very high expectations of an organisation and their leader – they voice these confidentially and frequently

They have a stronger loyalty to their self first – they have seen their parents be dispensable by organisations and therefore put their needs first.

Shorter timelines against which they want their needs met – they are more impatient and want changes to take place quickly.

The confidence to move if their needs are not getting met – they back themselves more and are willing to move to an organisation they believe values them more.

Rebecca: What are the strengths of Millennials? How are they unique from other generations in the workforce? What does the research on strengths tell us about Millennials though?

Paul: In 2017, Strengthscope undertook extensive research on workplace strengths with an expert statistician, using a sample of 47,000 employees from our Strengthscope® database.  Strengthscope® measures 24 work-based strengths divided into 4 categories: Emotional, Relational, Thinking and Execution strengths.

Strengths are universal. Strengthscope® strengths were found to be consistent across countries and regions. Across 26 countries and 5 geographical regions, differences in scores across 24 work-related strengths were found to be negligible. This tells us that the strengths Strengthscope® measures are universal and not affected by people’s country of origin.

Generations don’t differ. Across 6,000 baby boomers and 11,000 millennials, no meaningful generational differences were identified. This means for all the talk of workers changing markedly from generation to generation, what energises and strengthens people is actually consistent over these generations…people are not changing, at least not as fast as the world around them.

Rebecca: Despite there being no statistical difference in the strengths across generations, millennials have much higher expectations that their strengths be utilised in their role and will often leave if this is not the case. They want to feel happy and energised by the work they do.

Paul: Why is taking an employee experience (EX) approach with engaging and developing Millennials important? What is EX in simple terms? How have you used EX principles to co-design people solutions in the workplace?

Rebecca: EX is adopting principles from customer experience. Put simply taking an EX approach is treating your employees like important customers, segmenting them, understanding their needs and designing bespoke people solutions. It includes the co-design of initiatives to increase ownership and engagement.

I use an EX approach when designing leadership programs – ask the leaders what they want to get better at and ask their direct reports what they want their leaders to dial up to help understand what topics to cover in the program. Doing this engages everyone in the process, it is not pushing content onto learners and is a great part of the communications strategy to promote the program. Leaders love being asked and you receive much better feedback on the programs.

Paul: If I am a Millennial, what can I do to be more effective within organisations? What are my ‘watch out’ or development areas?

Rebecca:

Emotional intelligence – they are still learning about themselves as they are earlier in their career, they are learning their strengths and how to be more agile by dialling their strengths up and down.

Increase their ability to influence and have impact – they cannot just influence through technology. They need to learn how to have more patience with those who are resistant to change and learn how to take people on a journey. They are easily frustrated and can give up on people, or ignore key people in an organisation due to their perceived negativity on an issue.

Organisational savvy – they need to better understand how to balance being very values focused and also understanding organisational context / politics. They have a tendency to ‘fight’ the organisation / management on decisions they disagree with and demonstrate activism behaviours. They need to learn how to stay true to themselves, but be practical and willing to compromise on matters.

Under value role consolidation – they love the buzz of the learning curve in the first 12 months of a role, then often want to change roles soon after the 1 year mark. They don’t understand the value that comes when you are nailing a role as you can mentor / coach people in your team which helps develop key skills to be a manager in the future.

Impatience – this is an overarching trait that can be a barrier across many of the areas I have mentioned previously. As Simon Synek said, anything truly meaningful in life like career satisfaction and strong relationships take time to nurture.

Paul: If I am a leader/HR leader, then what do I need to look out for with my own assumptions / judgements?

Rebecca: Seeing Millennials as too relaxed, or non-corporate = actually they want to work in authentic workplace without the corporate nonsense and façade. They want their leaders to be real and care about them.

Seeing Millennials as lazy as they often won’t work long hours = actually they value their work life balance, they have many interests outside of work and won’t sacrifice their wellbeing for a job / organisation like has been the case with other generations.

Seeing Millennials as too honest/critical – they actually have a desire to improve the status quo.

Paul: Rebecca, thank you so much for taking the time to share your insights into working with, and managing, millennials. It’s been fascinating, revealing, real and practically very helpful too. Thank you! For more from Rebecca, please check her article here.

Get the The Strengths Guy podcast on all major podcast platforms.

Find it on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Google podcasts, Stitcher, ACast, TuneIn,  Breaker and Soundcloud. Please support this podcast by subscribing to get it at the start of the working week!

 Related posts:

Are you getting the most from the diverse strengths of your employees?

4 Key tips for engaging employees

How to set expectations at work (and everywhere)

Via https://www.strengthscope.com/managing-millennials/

source https://thasma.weebly.com/blog/managing-millennials-a-podversation-with-rebecca-christianson

[henmonarch]

Self-management and personal productivity in the digital era

Whoever you are, today’s tech is pretty mind-blowing. But we humans are adaptable creatures, and tech acceleration hasn’t all happened in one go, and we’ve pretty much kind of sort of managed to keep pace, adapt and get the best from what’s out there as it’s evolved.

  Why do we need self-management?

However, our tech-enabled world has come at a price. It can be genuinely challenging to deal with the pace and volume of information coming at us day to day, to sift and sense-make, to stay focused and not distracted, sticking with things for longer than 30 seconds, seeing through the dopamine-laced design of much of the tech that surrounds us.

That’s really hard. And to a lesser or greater extent, it’s affecting our sleep patterns, our relationships, our stress levels. I’m not an anti-techer (although I’m not an early adopter either, I kind of want to see evidence that something works and is valuable I jump in). I’m all about Netflix and iPhones, Spotify and FitBit because I feel that tech genuinely enriches my life. But with all those potential distractions surrounding you, how can you improve your self-management game to keep on top of your personal productivity and stay in control?

How can you improve personal productivity with all this going on?

I’m going to make this punchy because there’s a lot we could dive into but I want to stay focused. And if you’re interested in this topic, my back catalogue has quite a few ideas. To select just two: How to do a digital detox was my third ever podcast, way back at Season 1, episode 3. The more recent Making homeworking work for you at Season 6, episode 12, has some practical tips on managing your homeworking routine to stay productive.  Both of these are worth a listen for more.

Today, I’m going to focus in on some practical tips for digital era self-management and productivity. Including:

Remember who’s in control, you or the technology. Even though the technology is designed to keep you interacting, you still have the power of choice how much to use it.

Being present in the moment and learning to push away distractions.

Prioritise true human connection. Although the pandemic is making it harder to connect in person but we can still use technology to connect with friends, family, work colleagues in more meaningful ways.

Build digital self management habits. Building good “digital detox” habits, such as no tech in the bedroom or at the dinner table, can be a great start at escaping the constant distraction presented to us by technology.

Remember who’s in control

Which is easy to say and much harder to do. But at the end of it all, Netflix doesn’t control you, you don’t have to binge-watch a series just because it’s feeding you a new episode after 10 seconds and you just can’t seem to find the remote in time to pause it. Your fitness tech isn’t demanding that you go out for a run or that your resting heart rate needs to be X bpm. Yes these technologies are all designed to nudge you, remind you, gain your attention, ultimately to gain a maximum share of your interactive hours.

You paid for them, you know where the off buttons are, you can pause them whenever you like. I remember going without FitBit (and Strava) for a few weeks and just running free – no strap on my wrist, no record of where I’d been or how fast I was running, no biofeedback. It was wonderful, it helped me reset and when I went back to both, it was a choice and it reminded me that I was in control.  Remember that you have choices, you are the boss of the tech and not the other way round. If it’s helping you live your best life, genuinely, good, that’s a win. If not, switch off and reset to stay productive and happy.

  Be present

With homeworking on the increase and tech distraction turned up to 11, being present is harder than ever. But, I can’t emphasise enough what a positive difference building a practice around being present will have. What I mean by this is stopping everything a few times a day and making a conscious choice where you’re sat (or even better out in nature) to allow your senses to take in everything and just be fully there for a few moments. Inevitably, you’ll get distracted again by a thought or feeling or to do list item but the trick then is to catch yourself at the moment of distraction and go back to being present in the moment.

Doing that repeatedly means you get better at spotting the distraction and making a choice to push it away and move back to just being in the moment. I find that reassuring and real – being present and mindful isn’t about being a superhuman “Zen God” where you’re never distracted. In fact the distractions are helpful. That practice is at the heart of self-management, self-control and in the end, personal productivity, because you’re stretching your focus muscles each time you get distracted and then bring your focus and attention back to the moment. They’re not actual muscles obviously, they’re neural pathways helping you build self-control.

Prioritise true human connection

We’re hearing more and more about relationships being negatively affected by digital life and while it’s easy to blame invasive technology for that, of course in the end, it’s a choice for each of us. The pandemic is making it harder to connect in person but we can still use technology to connect with friends, family, work colleagues in more meaningful ways. We’ve naturally become more used to reading emotions through screens and if we’re prepared to ask real questions and to truly listen, then it’s still more than possible to connect on a human level.

Personally, I like to tell people how I’m feeling when I’m feeling a feeling if I’m meeting them through a screen because it isn’t always obvious and of course that can take a bit of courage (to say, wow that’s making me feel quite emotional, or ok I didn’t expect that feeling to be so strong) but it really helps that human-human connection that most of us naturally crave. And with more meaningful human connections, we develop more of a support network to help us stay well and to thrive when we’re facing in to more challenging times.

A quick word here on leadership in the digital era – as a leader and a manager, in these tech-enabled times, it’s important to get good at asking questions, listening, reading emotions through a screen, really connecting. I have some more tips on this and managing people virtually in my podcast on Getting the best from remote management at Season 7, episode 1.

Build digital self-management habits

In terms of self-management and maximising personal productivity, building in good detox habits through each day can be a real cornerstone. What do I mean? Well, sleep hygiene for one – making your bedroom a tech-free zone is a great start. I listen to Brene Brown’s Unlocking Us podcast channel often enough to have heard her rapidfire questions at the end of each show a few times and one of the questions she always asks her guests is ‘what do you have on your bedside table?’ and every time people have such interesting answers. I don’t. I have a bottle of water.

That’s it.

No tech, no TV in the room, blackout curtains, done.

Boring. And, for me, the best way to set myself up for a good day ahead as many days of the week as I can.

Sleep aside, I’m also talking here about building habits, routines and even household rules about when and where tech is ok and not ok. No tech at the dinner table. Or maybe even upstairs. Taking regular breaks during the day from any technology. Getting into nature. Being able to close the door (or the lid) on work. These are mini-breaks, not full-blooded attempts to digitally detox, it’s more digital self-management.

In conclusion

That’s it, I said today’s blog would be short(er) and punchy(er) so there you have it. To maximise your personal productivity and self-management in the digital era, remember who’s in control, be present, prioritise true human connection and build daily digital self-management habits.  Till next time, stay strong.

You can find this podcast on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Google podcasts, Stitcher, ACast, TuneIn,  Breaker and Soundcloud. Please support it by subscribing to get it at the start of the working week!

 Related posts:

Managing stress and change – controlling the controllables

Managing your mindset in tough times – the path of possibility

It’s all fake news – learning to unbias what you see and hear

Via https://www.strengthscope.com/self-management-personal-productivity/

source https://thasma.weebly.com/blog/self-management-and-personal-productivity-in-the-digital-era

[henmonarch]

Building resilience in 5 steps

No related posts.

Via https://www.strengthscope.com/building-resilience-in-5-steps/

source https://thasma.weebly.com/blog/building-resilience-in-5-steps

[henmonarch]

Dealing with negative feedback

Feedback is a two-way street

Way way back I blogged and podcast on giving and receiving feedback, both positive and negative, at season 1, episode 4. The main focus of that podcast and blog was on giving feedback well, but I touched on receiving feedback well too, specifically I talked about the importance of being respectful, listening well and asking clarifying questions. So do please go back and have a listen particularly if you’re looking for a simple effective method for giving feedback well.

In this podcast, though, I go more in depth on dealing with negative feedback that comes your way in terms of its emotional impact, how to respond to it and how to potentially act on it.

  I’ll be bringing in personal examples to illustrate what I mean. I’ll be drawing on examples of dealing with negative feedback from work and home for this podcast because both are relevant and just as important and high stakes as one another, because emotions and well-being are involved, often of both parties.

What do we mean by ‘feedback’?

First up, when I say ‘feedback’, I’m talking about something that someone says to or about you that relates to something they’ve experienced in the way that you’ve behaved – something you may have said or done.  When people ask…‘Can I just talk about something that happened in that meeting?’ or ‘I’d like to talk about something that’s not quite sitting right with me…’ or the more obvious, ‘Can I give you some feedback…?’, you know that they’re likely to be about to offer you an observation about something you’ve said or done that has had an impact on them.

So my tips for dealing with feedback, particularly feedback that has emotional weight to it are to prepare for it, ask for examples, don’t take it personally, sit with it then decide and finally to ask for it.

1. How to prepare to receive feedback

First of all, preparing yourself for feedback. Most humans, when faced with a sentence like ‘Can I give you some feedback…’ or ‘I’m not very happy about something I’d like to talk to you about…’ will perceive what’s about to arrive as a threat, and that’s likely to trigger an automatic defensive response of fight or flight or freeze.

This is a totally understandable and natural response so don’t worry if it happens to you. It’s like you plus pretty much everyone else, ever. However,  going into an automatic survival mode probably won’t make you as receptive as you might be to hearing the feedback and asking questions, so the preparation I’m talking about is to try and get yourself into an emotional state that will allow you to receive the feedback well. Try to allow the person giving you the feedback to be heard and to ask clarifying questions to make sure you’ve heard it right.

  Example: carving out space to hear the feedback well

This isn’t easy but there are ways you can help yourself. Example: my partner recently said to me that there was something that wasn’t quite right for her about the way we were sharing household duties that day and she was feeling there was too much on her. But the way she did that really helped me to get to a better place emotionally to truly hear her.

Earlier in the day I said ‘You ok?’ and she said ‘I’m not sure, let me sit with it and we can talk about it later’. In response, I had tried to get a read on what was going on for her so that I could take immediate action and had started asking her questions right in the midst of kid and work pressures, interruptions and no headspace.  But it was the wrong time.

For a bunch of reasons, my partner saying ‘let’s talk about it later’ is a really good tactic because she’s giving herself future space to work through what she’s observing and feeling AND she’s mentally carving out a future time that day when we will have a chance to talk in a connected, unrushed way not surrounded by children wanting adult input or being focused on work demands.

I’ll level with you, it wasn’t that easy for me to sit with the not knowing what was going on for her because I like taking action so that everyone’s happy. But it was the right thing to do.  When we did talk later, it was on the sofa, just us and she said exactly what she had been feeling and we both explored how we could handle the next day differently. Which we did.

We were both less stressed by that point. I could really listen, I was able to physically connect with her, we could both reassure each other and I could ask for examples. I hope that example’s been helpful. So my first tip is to give yourself the best chance of being prepared to hear the feedback, which will usually involve creating the right space and the right environment to be ready to listen and to allow the other person to be heard.

2. Understand what you’re hearing

My second tip is to really understand what the feedback means for the other person. And that might mean respectfully asking for examples or to clarify where there’s a difference of view. While the survive/defend/justify part of you might be screaming ‘But I also need to say my part! This isn’t fair! I want to be understood! When do I get to speak my truth!’, now is not the time. Get straight what they mean first and show that you’ve understood by clarifying until you arrive at the same place.

3. Take your time and sit with the feedback

My third tip is to receive negative feedback seriously, but never personally. When someone is giving you feedback, it’s rare that it will be a personal attack on you. And if it is, that’s not really feedback, something else is likely to be going on with the other person relating to their agenda only and it may need a different approach.

Sometimes, negative feedback may feel unfair, it may feel like you have been misunderstood or that your interpretation of events is very different from someone else’s. And that’s all ok. The purpose here is to get value from the feedback that’s being offered and not for your point of view to be heard, or for you to satisfy your ego.  So, assuming that you’re receiving negative feedback from someone who has positive intentions, how are you going to get the positives from it?

My advice is to sit with the feedback, let it take its time.  That might be for a few minutes if the emotional element is limited. It might though be hours or even days. Or you might think you’ve processed it and understood it, but it may actually be days or weeks later when something else happens and it’s only then that you have your lightbulb moment of realisation. Things connect in your brain and the learning insight pops out. So be prepared for that, stay open to it, stay curious and keep challenging your own defensive response so that you can keep holding that broader interpretation of events. Only when you’re ready, take the learning forward.

After all, emotions are information, not a call to action. You can also choose to not do anything with the feedback, it is fine to decide to not do anything with it, other than to hear it and to show that you’ve heard it. It is possible that two alternative ‘truths’ or interpretations of an event can co-exist and that’s ok.

Example: taking the time before deciding on action

To illustrate that, my second example is a work one. I got some feedback recently about the importance for me of boundarying – I mean making sure that I am clear on the boundaries that I have with people at work, which I find challenging because I like to share and I encourage people to bring all of themselves to work authentically. And that can sometimes be difficult for people either to do themselves or to know how to respond to me doing it.

  This feedback came via a third party – not the perfect way for feedback to come to you, but it’s often the way it happens. When I first heard it, I was definitely triggered defensively, I had an emotional ‘That’s not fair and it’s not what you said at the time’ response. But the fact that it was delivered second-hand meant that I could get space from it quite quickly and sit with it for as long as I needed.

So, a few weeks later, having had some more time to reflect and to stay curious as to what I’m noticing in other parts of my work life, I’m now in a place where I feel I’d like to act on some of the feedback and to create stronger boundaries based on other people’s likely expectations of me, so that I’m perhaps not 100% me 100% of the time with 100% of the people, instead I choose to bring the most helpful or valuable part of me to meetings or one-to-ones to try and get the best outcome I can.

I can now see the journey I’ve been on with this feedback: from shock, to self-protection, to curiosity, to acceptance and in the end to action.

4. Ask for feedback

My final tip is to ask for feedback. We tend not to get enough feedback in general, so ask for it. Warts and all, the smooth and the crunchy. Be prepared that some people won’t enjoy giving tough feedback and some won’t ever do it, it’s important to respect that. But some people in your world (often those with a Courage strength I’ve found) WILL be prepared to give you supportive and challenging feedback and that will always be invaluable to keep you humble, learning and evolving.

Finally, try to cultivate a growth mindset

For a bit more on cultivating a learning mindset, which is closely related to receiving feedback well, check out my recent podcast/blog on how to develop a a growth mindset at Season 9, episode 10.

I hope that you’ve enjoyed this podcast. if you’d like to get more from your every day, please do sign up to our emails for simple and practical hints and tips on everything strengths and life. The sign up form is at the bottom of this page. Till next time, go get that feedback!

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Find it on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Google podcasts, Stitcher, ACast, TuneIn,  Breaker and Soundcloud. Please support this podcast by subscribing to get it at the start of the working week!

 Related posts:

Decision-making: getting the best from your head AND your heart

The energy lifeline – plotting your year ahead

Why you should be directing your learning towards your strengths

Via https://www.strengthscope.com/dealing-with-negative-feedback/

source https://thasma.weebly.com/blog/dealing-with-negative-feedback

[henmonarch]

How to own your development in 2021

Why bother with a development plan and why now?

During times of uncertainty AND at the start of each year, people often focus in a little more on their personal and professional development. This makes sense, because when you’re less sure what the world is likely to throw at you, at least you can create a greater sense of control by working on yourself – making yourself more employable, ensuring your skills are transferable – as well as giving yourself a boost of self-esteem by in some way becoming a better you.

In these times, there’s also another factor at play: people taking back more control of their lives by focusing in on what they love.

What better areas to develop than those that give you the greatest feelgood, or that you’ve always wanted to stretch a little bit and do more with. Combine all this with us moving further into the New Year, when we’ve all had a little time to reflect on the important things in our lives and we’ve maybe even made a commitment to ourselves to get out there (or stay in there) and do that thing we’ve been promising ourselves we’ll do for years but have never quite been able to get round to it.

  5 ways to make your personal development plan work for you

Today, I’d like to offer up my tips for how to own your development for the year ahead. I’ll be taking you through how to:

Check in with your purpose – your personal purpose and your work objectives – to find focus for your development

Be realistic – can you keep it going, is it possible, how can you make sure that you stick at it?

Use your strengths to do it your way – whatever your development goals, how can you energise your development plan so that you can make it strengths-based and you-shaped?

Supercharge a strength – push your comfort zone into stretch in an area that up to now you may have taken for granted because there’s nothing wrong with it, so need to stretch it, right.

Bring a friend – development becomes so much more real and achievable when you have a critical and supportive friend or friends who are there for your journey.

 Tip 1. Find your purpose and link your development goals to it

My first tip is checking in with your purpose when considering your development options. When I say purpose, I’m talking Ikigai-level purpose (in other words, your life purpose, what you’re striving to achieve on Earth) – check out my podcast and blog on Ikigai for more on that which is at Season 6, episode 6. It’s called ‘Want to live longer? You need Ikigai’.

Separately, I’m also talking about your work objectives. If you can aim your development goals for 2021 towards one area and meet both of those purpose criteria (life purpose and work purpose), then great. If you need to treat them separately, that’s also fine (and is probably more likely).

First your life purpose

To the big one first, your raison d’etre, your reason for being, the legacy you want to leave the world. If you have a handle on your personal purpose and you’ve done some work on it already, great – then how might you align your development with that purpose in some way?

For example, if you want to help as many people in the world, or in your local community as possible to live more fulfilling, happier lives, you could ask yourself are there skills you could learn or knowledge you could acquire that would help you to get there quicker or with more enjoyment perhaps? So whichever way you’ve chosen to make your purpose happen, could you perhaps:

(idea 1) Learn different communication skills to get your message out more widely?

(idea 2) Could you collaborate with other people or organisations to get them on board and do you need to upskill to do that?

(idea 3) Do you need more skills or knowledge or experience to better help the people you want to help? Whatever you do development-wise, if you have purpose behind that development goal, you will stick at it longer because you will be fuelled by something bigger than you.

Next your work purpose, or work objectives

When it comes to work purpose, you can ask yourself the question again – what are the main things you are trying to achieve but this time in your role at work and how can you develop more skills or gain more knowledge or experience to better get those things delivered?

If there’s a lot of things that your work role requires of you, in order to focus your development, maybe find the most important element and find the area to develop that will give you the greatest payback, rather than spreading your development too widely and not getting the return you’re looking for in any area.

Or find the one thing to develop that will positively affect as many of your work objectives as possible. That could be an area where you feel your knowledge or experience is lacking a little or it could be an area where you are already strong but where you could get even better with some more development.

Tip 2: Be realistic about what you can do development-wise

Be realistic about what you can do, in addition to your day job and to your life outside of work.  Even if your development plan has extra oomph because you’ve linked it to your purpose, if you’ve been over-optimistic with what you’re expecting from yourself, all too quickly, you’ll end up feeling like you’ve failed because you haven’t been able to achieve what you wanted in the time you’ve set yourself.

So show yourself some kindness and set yourself up for success by being realistic with the time and energy you can devote to your development rather than setting yourself up for a fall by taking on too much and then giving up once you miss a milestone or a target.

Celebrate your successes along the way too – every step forward is progress and that’s worth remembering.

Don’t fall foul of New Year’s resolutions

At the start of each year, many people inadvertently set out with great intentions for their year ahead after having made New Year’s resolutions. But to make these stick, they need to be realistic. When we have a holiday or time to relax (for many people, that can be around the time of the Christmas break, or summer holidays, or whatever it may be in your world), we start to believe that with only some minor reorganising of our diaries, we will be able to accomplish incredible things in a way that is so different from the last time we tried it.

However, realism and past learnings can be great allies here – aim for progress not perfection and you will arrive at a development plan which you’re much more likely to stick with for longer. Imagine setting yourself some goals for the year ahead which you ACTUALLY ACHIEVE! So far then, we have the link to purpose and to make your plan realistic.

 Tip 3: Supercharge your development plan with strengths

Whatever you have created by way of development goals, there is always, literally always, a way that you can add even more zing and punch to the achieving of those goals by personally selecting the strengths you will call into action to help you. So pick from your top strengths – and if you don’t know what these are, you need Strengthscope.

I’m talking about those strengths which are going to help you the most to get your development goals met. It could be Resilience to get you charged up by a tough challenge, it could be Self-improvement to get energy from the learning and development journey, it could be Results focus to get a buzz from chugging through that development plan. Whichever strengths you call up, make sure that you know exactly how you’re going to use them from a practical POV, so that you notice when you need them and when they’re in use and how that feels different to you (if the approach is working, you should feel more energy for your development longer).

 Tip 4: Stretch a strength to supercharge yourself

Speaking of strengths, an opportunity for development that is much undervalued is planning to stretch the strengths which you’re already most comfortable using day to day – those qualities that energise you and that you’re already great at, or have the potential to become even greater at.

My tip here is to sift through your top strengths and take an honest view on that. Are there any which when you think about it are pretty much always delivering for you without the need for much effort but which also are slightly in neutral, underused…you’re not pushing them because you don’t need to, or because pushing them might feel a little risky? If the answer’s yes, then an opportunity for your development plan is to take one of your strengths by the hand and ask for more from it…potentially much more, ideally aligning it with your purpose, and your work goals. It might feel a little indulgent at first to consider developing something that is already in good shape, but all the research points towards this being the most efficient and enjoyable way of delivering greater value to the world when you consider your development options. For more on that, check out my podcast and blog on Why you should be directing your learning towards your strengths – which is at season 7, episode 6.  

Tip 5: Get a development buddy on board

Last tip: connect up with others to help keep you focused on your goals, to celebrate your successes and highlight to you if you’re going off track. To make this work, you need to find a person or people who will genuinely stick with you and who will be prepared to ask the tough questions of you when you need them to, but of course from a place of support and appreciation.

 Summary for owning your development in 2021

OK, that’s it from me for this week – my tips are to own your development for the year ahead by checking in with your purpose, being realistic, bringing your strengths into play, maybe even developing a strength, and getting a learning partner or two on board. I hope you’ve enjoyed this blog.

If you’d like to get more from your every day, please do sign up below to our emails for simple and practical hints and tips on everything strengths and life. Till next time, stay strong!

This podcast is available on all major podcast platforms. Find it on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Google podcasts, Stitcher, ACast and Soundcloud. Check out the back catalogue and subscribe to get them every Monday morning.

Related posts:

The energy lifeline – plotting your year ahead

Managing your mindset in tough times – the path of possibility

It’s all fake news – learning to unbias what you see and hear

Via https://www.strengthscope.com/how-to-own-your-development-in-2021/

source https://thasma.weebly.com/blog/how-to-own-your-development-in-2021

[henmonarch]

Learn to influence the strengths way: strengths-based selling

Podversation with Larissa Batt

This podcast will be of interest to anyone who ever needs to persuade or ‘sell’ anything to anyone ever. Which is of course everyone. And it will be of particular interest to people for whom selling in a commercial setting makes up a significant part of their role.

We chat about:

the importance of using the strengths approach in sales

the danger of overusing a particular strength

whether certain strengths are needed to be successful in sales

and 3 top tips for introducing the strengths approach into your own sales work or sales teams

  FREE DOWNLOAD – Strengths in influencing – positives and watchouts

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In this podcast, I’m going to be chatting with a colleague and dear friend of mine, Larissa Batt. At the point of recording, it is Larissa’s last day with Strengthscope – she is flying off to an amazing new role in a couple of weeks’ time and I was pretty desperate to catch her before she left so that I could get from her the good stuff on how you can use the strengths approach in a sales context.

For the last few years, Larissa has been in various senior sales role at Strengthscope and in her current role, she leads on all corporate sales, so she knows lots and lots about strengths in a sales context. We’re going to make this short, punchy and practical and I’d like to get straight to it. So here’s my first question:

Larissa, why is the strengths approach important in a sales context?

Perhaps the most important element of strengths in sales is around being true to yourself and enabling your sales team to play to their natural strengths. People buy from people and it’s very obvious if you’re being fake or trying to be someone you’re not.

This is also important for sales managers to bear in mind because instead of trying to mould your sales team to be a certain way, you should instead focus on helping them to tap into their natural energy and strengths because that’s likely to glean the best results.

Not only will they come across as more authentic to their customers, they’ll also be happier in their role because they’re going to be doing things they love and this will mean they’re more likely to go above and beyond for their customers. Research shows that by using a strengths approach at work, customer loyalty can be driven up by 44% which in turn has a result on customer profits.

What are the watchouts do you think?

The biggest watchout for a salesperson is definitely a strength in overdrive. This is when you overuse a particular strength to the point that it has an unintended negative impact. This is even more of an issue if your customer has very different strengths or energies to you so it’s important to get to know your customer on a human level to understand how they might react to certain conversations or situations.

I for example know that Persuasiveness is my strength most likely to go into overdrive in a sales context – it’s probably why I got into sales in the first place because I enjoy winning people over, but I appreciate that people don’t like to feel sold to. Instead, I dial up my Relationship building and Results focus strengths to really understand the customer’s perspective and map out a project delivery plan that’s going to get them the results they need.

Do salespeople need certain strengths to be successful?

The beauty of the strengths approach is that you can have a very diverse team who are all achieving the same results, it’s just the way they get there is different. The most important thing is to be aware of how to best use their natural strengths and that they build skills in areas that need addressing.

You’re actually better off having a diverse sales team because diversity in thought will lead to more creative solutions and if you’re building a project team for a larger bid, you’ll be in a stronger position if you have all your bases covered.

The only additional point I would add to this, is there are lots of different roles within sales – there’s business development, customer success, business partnering – and as you progress within your sales career, it’s important to reflect on where you’re happiest.

I started in new business development and it gave me some great skill-sets – it became obvious to me though that my true path was within Customer Success (otherwise known as account management) and that’s because of how important long-term strategic relationships are to me. As much as I enjoy winning that first deal, I’m not willing to pass the relationship on to another team member.

What are your top tips for people listening who want to use the approach in their own sales work or sales teams?

First, be aware of your natural strengths and how to use these to your advantage. Don’t try to be something you’re not. Ideally take a strengths-based scientifically validated assessment like Strengthscope®, but if you don’t have access to that, you can ask yourself, ‘Where do I perform at my best and at my happiest?’ This will give you a sense of where your true strengths lie.

Second, be aware of your risk areas be they skills gaps, energy drainers or strengths in overdrive and come up with a development plan to address these. Only focus on the areas which are affecting your sales, there’s no need to plug all gaps just for the sake of it. A great way to get a sense of your development points both positive and negative is to get 360 feedback and I encourage you to get it from customers as well as internal stakeholders.

Third, understand what makes your customers tick by getting to know the human as well as the organisation. This will help you to navigate the relationship and be mindful of potential pitfalls in the sales process. A question I quite like to ask in intro calls is what do you enjoy most about your job and what do you find most draining?

 Thank you Larissa. For spending time with me and in this conversation on your last day at Strengthscope. And thank you for coming to work at Strengthscope – you have left an indelible impression on me, the team and our products in your time with us. Best of luck for the future.

I hope you enjoyed this podcast. Look out for more,  based on my conversations with fascinating people over the coming weeks as I bring my Collaboration strength out and get some chats going with some folk who have a unique perspective on strengths that they want to share with you.  If you’d like to get more from your every day, please do sign up to our emails for simple and practical hints and tips on everything strengths and life.

 The Strengths Guy podcast is available on all major podcast platforms. Find it on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Google podcasts, Stitcher, ACast, TuneIn,  Breaker and Soundcloud. Please support this podcast by subscribing to get them at the start of the working week!

 Related posts:

The energy lifeline – plotting your year ahead

Making homeworking work for you

How to aim for progress not perfection

Via https://www.strengthscope.com/learn-to-influence-the-strengths-way-strengths-based-selling/

source https://thasma.weebly.com/blog/learn-to-influence-the-strengths-way-strengths-based-selling