The learning ear

This conversational video with Jacky Leonard video emphasizes the importance of intentional learning to become better at anything.

Focusing on the being before the doing is crucial to align with one's purpose. Having a coach or mentor is important to guide intentional learning and avoid embedding poor practice.

Practicing with guidance from a skilled coach or mentor is more effective than practicing alone. A good coach or mentor should provide feedback on what individuals are doing wrong and right.

Celebrating what individuals are doing right is just as important as correcting what they are doing wrong. Spotting what individuals are doing right and telling them about it is essential for growth and development.

The most senior leaders are often forceful, confident, and more often than they admit, lacking in the skills that get the very best from their own senior colleagues.

How many have been prepared for critically significant positions - or is it assumed that because they are so important that they must have all the skills needed? Managing such leaders is a skill rarely seen. At the very top of an organisation is there too much leading and not enough managing?

Are the most senior leaders performance reviewed, development needs analysed and supported to gain the skills that unlock talent around them? Are very senior leaders resistant to accepting they have development needs at all?

How many have the humility to seek help and to recognise the superior skills of colleagues without feeling that makes them seem less credible?

This learning conversation with Rebecca Norton focuses on how, often with great difficulty, it is possible to influence and even to manage conflict escalation. In a situation where escalation is inevitable, prevention may not be possible.

That said, a skilled conflict manager can exert influence over the process, so they do not become a powerless victim of events that are beyond control.

Rebecca introduces the 'STOP' model, which is a practical guide to making this happen.

In this second of two recordings I discuss with Jacky Leonard some of the incidents, variations and learning from the many hundred times I have used this wonderful activity - particularly in a conflict management and negotiation context.

Our first recording was an explanation of the process and one page task sheet - if you would like that document let me know.

Here with Jacky Leonard I briefly explain how to use this wonderful conflict management; negotiation; leadership and/or team working activity.

We will very soon post a follow-up video all about the learning I have gained from literally hundreds of times I have used this, and the variations that can add further value.

If you prefer the visual experience, and to see the documentation, go to my YouTube channel.

Let me know if you would like the task and scoring sheet for the Reds and Blues activity - I will be pleased to email this to you.

Here Rebecca and I discuss the low value of post learning event (not necessarily a course) material, and notes made during that event.

Do we ever do more than skim over workbooks or any other documents after we return to work? How can we make the reflections and action notes made during an event really make involvement worthwhile as measured in what we do long-term as a result?

What can we do in advance of an event to ensure we are ready to make the most of this, and will we get for instance line managerial active interest and support to make the best use of time away from the workplace?

When to persist, and when to give up, or at least pause?

What are the issues that influence sticking with something longer than we ought, and that help us make the right decision to stop investing time, energy, emotion and more?

With Rebecca Norton I scratch the surface of this very significant issue.

As ever, a lot of really powerful emergent learning here, showing yet again that this interactive, conversational method of professional development really works.

A deliberately provocative statement of mine (not Rebecca), and I believe it to be true.

Here we explore the possible reasons for this, and I remain firmly attached to this outrageous generalisation at the end of our latest 'learning conversation'.

Here with Jacky Leonard I start work on a truly significant issue. Amidst so much talk about 'lifelong learning', we explain the powerful idea and reality of 'becoming' a professional (anything), and that once we feel we have 'become' an expert that journey ends.

So, the true lifelong learner is a deliberate practitioner, and has the humility to accept and welcome a perpetual developmental path to better, and never perfect practice.

Certification and accreditation has value, this is in our view, no more than a point of departure - do too many see this as their arrival, and lose the appetite for further learning?

Come on, we pass a driving test, THEN we learn to drive. We know this, and surely we know too that this relates to our professional development.

This learning conversation with Rebecca Norton focuses on how, often with great difficulty, it is possible to influence and even to manage conflict escalation.

In a situation where escalation is inevitable, prevention may not be possible. That said, a skilled conflict manager can exert influence over the process, so they do not become a powerless victim of events that are beyond control.

Rebecca introduces the 'STOP' model, which is a practical guide to making this happen.

Part two of a two part narration of slides:

David Clutterbuck's definition of a mentor

Five roles for a mentor

Five sources of mentoring success

Six key actions of a mentor

Six essentials to look for in a mentor

Six ways to mentor Seven personal attributes of a mentor

Eight characteristics of a skilled mentor

Eight indicators of an expert mentor

As in part one, so much to cover, even briefly, and so very little time.

A short narrated slide show:

Definition of a mentor - David Clutterbuck

Five roles for a mentor

Five sources of mentoring success

Six key actions of a mentor

Six essentials to look for in a mentor

Six questions when seeking a mentor Part two has more...

When Rebecca suggested we discuss joy I didn't grasp the power this has as a motivating, performance enhancing force.

There is nothing abstract within this brief overview, it's about how as defined by Brene Brown, joy is very different to happiness, and that an absence of both so often leads to underperforming, clock-watching workplaces.

The ability to prompt more joy within a team, to make happiness more likely is I now see, a key leadership skill, probably too often overlooked because the direct impact on productivity is rarely realised.

I got a lot of insight from this, and I hope you do too.

In over 40 years in the business world only two leaders with whom I have worked closely have really, truly impressed me. Only two have been so very different and very much better, measured however you like from the rest.

During this short conversation, with a lot we can explore further soon, Rebecca Norton quizzes me on this rather poor leadership return from so many years in contact with people in the role, and yet not getting near my 'big two'.

As ever, this learning conversation prompted insights and thoughts through interactive reflection and articulation way beyond any solo thinking can get near. I found myself suggesting that the driving force that my two did so well was that they led 'in context', meaning that although both had joined an organisation in a familiar sector, they both, either intuitively or consciously stopped themselves simply transplanting past successful ideas and actions into a new situation.

It's so easy to treat any new role as a template, to do what I feel football managers do so often (sometimes not for long before being found out), and disrespectfully drop into a role, maybe with some familiar faces in tow, and expect the past results in a very different present.

This was truly powerful learning for me, I wonder if it prompts any thoughts?

Learning in whatever context, has differing value.

Low difficulty, low value learning is not challenging, nor, often is it worth doing, as the return is negligible. Low value difficult learning, and difficult for a multitude of possible reasons, is even less worth doing - why struggle to achieve so little?

Then to the higher value options in the matrix. High value, low difficulty is the attractive box, where strong returns accompany not particularly challenging efforts.

The final option is high difficulty, high return, where I have found the most return on investment often lies, as the stretch is greatest.

There is so much in this simple model. It is dynamic - in any coaching conversation for instance, all four boxes could be in evidence during 30 minutes.

Sharing the model with a learner or a client helps clarify intentions and navigate the way to mutual outcomes. This is not a polar extreme model - at any time we may be operating at a marginal position and moving from one box to another, other times deliberately working at the far end of a box.

In this learning conversation with Rebecca Norton a lot 'though never in the time all, options and issues around the use of this model are explored.

I hope you find this of use - do get in touch if I can help further.

Second of two narrated slide shows

Six things leaders of high performing teams do well

Six measures of a high performing team

Eight signs of a great team

Eight indicators of a fully functioning team

The best teams are rare and special. Here I briefly cover some of the most significant ways in which the best teams are so very different from the rest.

Part one of two: Narrated slides covering very powerful team working issues.

A definition of a real team - Jon Katzenbach

Three signs of superb teams

Three measures of high-level team working

Four parts to the Tuckman team development model

Five signs of a dysfunctional team - Patrick Lencioni

 

I hope this helps, subscribe to my channel for regular uploads

Here I very briefly overview the four 'I's

Individual - Specific, unique people have development needs, not groups

Intrinsic - All life, and especially work, is inherently developmental

Iterative - Learning is not linear, it requires persistence to get past setbacks

Incremental - Small, apparently insignificant, sustainable movements are the key to improved performance

An extended learning conversation on giving feedback with Rebecca Norton.

Here we dig deeper into very practical and powerful feedback issues.

Hear my shorter feedback episodes here if that meets your needs.

This episode is also summarised with timings - message me if you would like this emailed.

Here in part two of two, I focus on practical application issues:

The SIMPLE feedback model

Seven rules for giving feedback

Eight guidelines for giving feedback

Ten tips for giving personal feedback

Ten golden rules for giving feedback

 

Listen to the first part of this two element series.