Often, we are both the leader and the manager, and equally, we can have two people, particularly with matrix management as well, is that we can have somebody who is our line manager in terms of that operational transactional stuff, but equally, we could be reporting to somebody who is displaying real leadership qualities as well. So it’s about recognising really and thinking about yourselves as well in terms of your leadership and management behaviours because often we don’t turn the mirror to what we’re sending out and that’s why 360-degree feedback or feedback from your team and creating that psychological safety within your team can help you to really understand how you behave as a leader and a manager.

So if we think about the key differences which we’ve looked at, and if we think about Peter Drucker’s quote, ‘Management is doing things right, leadership is doing the right things.’ So leading, to guide us on our way, especially by going in advance. So our leader will be the one who will be leading the team, going on in advance, doing the right things ethically and with that vision. Then the manager is really to handle or direct that with the skill and the transactional skills to make that happen. Harvard Business Review say managers are measurers and leaders are catalysts, but I think actually we can be both. I think it’s about recognising that there are leaders and there are managers and I’m going to talk about that kind of, are leaders born or are they made, and there are different schools of thought around that.

My belief is there are leaders at every level of every organisation, even from the playground up, we can see those skills, we can see that style and that behaviour. Is that something that people are born with and they just build on that in terms of their career and how they interact with people, or is it something that actually they can be made if they’ve not got those natural leadership styles? I’m going to just drop that one into your thought pattern to be thinking about and that’s something we’ll unpack later.

Okay, so I’m just going to show you all these different Post-it notes in terms of these different, what do they do, and just get you to pick out some of the things that really resonate for you in terms of some of those keywords. I put a couple of interesting ones in there just to see whether they evoke something in you. So, as you look at these, if I was going to say to you, I want you to virtually go and pick a Post-it of one as a leader and a Post-it of one as a manager, what would those two Post-it notes say? If you want to pop those into the chat, Andrew will very kindly shout them out.

We’ve had two people say that a leader has the vision, and then Melissa said empowers and develops as her two.

So empowers and develops being the leadership style rather than management?

I think for leadership, we’ve got inspires. Somebody said a manager plans. They’re coming through thick and fast here. A leader disrupts and takes risks.

Interesting. Yes, good.

A manager avoids risks. Leadership accepts, leadership innovates, management organises. A leader empowers, a manager organises, leader vision, manager empowers, manager delegates, a leader risk takes, shapes culture.

Any more for any more?

A leader motivates, a leader avoids conflict from somebody, and then a leader shapes culture. Apologies if I haven’t said everybody. Oh, a manager checks budgets.

Yes, excellent. Interesting. Has anyone picked uses conflict at all?

Not that I can see. They came through very quickly there, but not that I can see.

Okay. I’m going to pick up on some of the stuff around conflict. A chap called Patrick Lencioni who wrote about the dysfunctions of a team. He basically flips all the good stuff on its head and talks actually about a team that has real psychological safety is able to feel comfortable to actually share if there’s something that could create some conflict because it’s dealt with and it’s worked through in a trusting environment.

So sometimes when we see the word conflict, it feels like it’s going to be negative, but actually it’s about saying if people feel psychologically safe within a team to be able to say what they need to say or admit to their mistakes or maybe say something that might be a little bit controversial, but it’s handled in the right way because the team have that safety, then actually conflict can sometimes be a good thing because if we’re suppressing how we really feel, then actually what happens with that is it bubbles underneath and can then come out in a more intense way if it’s not nipped in the bud, so to speak. So that’s a really interesting one to be thinking about, but I think you’ve all really grasped those differences.

So just to take you to the difference between a leadership and management model. Obviously, managers are very task-oriented, transactional. It’s about doing things right. They’re looking at events and tasks. It’s about rational thinking. They’ll be the ones who instruct people to do what they need to do and have that cognitive intelligence to do that. Relying on authority, using what we call the push approach.

So if you’re someone who’s involved in using a coaching style of management, you’ll know that a coaching style of management is about pulling, is about enabling the person to come to that solution or reach that goal. Whereas pure management is more likely to be that push approach, that almost telling rather than asking, and managers really want to enable to ensure that we have the status quo and that things are working well.

Whereas if we go into leadership, leadership I think is very much about the people. It’s about understanding who you’ve got in the team, how you motivate them, how you inspire them, what they need to do because we’re all very different in terms of our behaviour and our mindset. Leaders are what I call transformational and I’m going to talk you through the transformational engaging leadership model in a moment, and they’re about doing the right thing. So the values, the ethics, the vision, the purpose, what’s our why? They may be more able to communicate that and then the manager will make sure that that happens, but they’re the visionary one that will communicate it. So inspirational and visionary. They listen and listen to empower. I always call the leaders that I’ve had the pleasure of working with, it’s very much about, how did that leader give me wings to fly, and often recognise that your talents lay beyond actually the role that you’re doing and they encourage and empower you to be the best you can be, but also be even better and develop to then go on to bigger things.

Leadership is around that emotional intelligence about understanding each other. It’s about leading through others, asking people rather than telling people, and using what we call that coaching, that pull approach, enabling the person themselves to come to that conclusion of what they need to do, and very much around risk-taking.

Just before we move on, Hilary, we’ve had somebody in the chat saying the description of a push approach to management doesn’t sound like great management.

Well, yes, I get that. I think sometimes though – I’m picking up on some of the earlier discussion – it’s not about micromanaging as such, but sometimes as a manager, we have to almost instruct and say, right, this needs to happen and whatever we feel about it, it’s still got to happen. So it’s almost saying actually this is what we need to do rather than what do you think we need to do because it just has to happen because it’s transactional. Does that make sense?

We’ve just had another question. Is management only about managing tasks or does it and should it also include people management?

It does include people management. I think managing your people is one of the biggest things because if you don’t manage your people, the tasks won’t get done, but I think this is where managers become leaders in terms of them managing people. Does that make sense?

As you can see it in the middle bit here, there’s that crossover between management and leadership, and I think when you’re managing people, that’s when you’re using your leadership style in terms of understanding, empowering, having that emotional intelligence, using that coaching approach to get the best out of your people, because they’re intertwined for me. There’s that coming together in terms of, so there will be managers who have absolutely fantastic leadership skills. They might not recognise them as leadership skills, but leadership skills are very much about ensuring that you get to know your people.

If you think about situational leadership with Hersey and Blanchard. Ken Blanchard is about different strokes for different folks. It’s really about understanding who you have in the team and who you are as a person, and how do you need to flex your style, management and leadership style, to enable you to get the best out of that person. Does that answer that question for the person? So I think it’s about, we get that there are different things we do as a manager and a leader, but actually, managers are leaders and leaders can be managers. Does that make sense? You have to blur the lines because you can’t sort of say, right, I’m a manager, I’m a leader, because actually good managers will be leaders in their behaviours as well, and we have lots of leaders who are managers.

Yes, that makes sense to Laksha who’d asked that question. One final question just before we move on. Somebody’s asked, are there negative traits of a leader?

I think there can be. I think it’d be interesting for us to maybe have that discussion about what would be the negative traits that you’ve seen in a leader? I suppose some leaders, we’re going to look at some role models in a moment and there will be some people who see themselves very much as a leader but actually their behaviour is, because I think if you flip some of the leadership behaviours on their head, if you think about it, leaders are very charismatic and leaders can be quite influential, but are they doing that for the bigger, the greater good, or are they doing that for their own personal gain? I can think of a few politicians right now, but I’m not going to get into politics. I’m really not, and that’s why I have chosen a couple of people when we’re looking at role models, but I think we need to appreciate that if the leadership is for the greater good of what we’re trying to achieve as an organisation or vision for our team, then that’s good leadership.

If it’s leadership where people are using their charismatic leadership skills to be able to manipulate or influence in a way that isn’t for the greater good, then I would consider that to be negative leadership skills, and we’re going to think about the good role models and the not so good role models. So I’ll be asking you the question, what are the people who you aspire to, because we do role model, we look at people and we think, as we’re going through our career and I’ve done it myself, I’ll look at somebody and go, I want to be like that person. What is that person doing? How are they behaving and how is that making me feel? Because that’s how I want to make the people I lead and manage feel.

So we will consciously look at their behaviour, but also subconsciously, we’ll take on some of those behaviours and go, and that’s how I want to be because I want to make people feel like that when I’m leading and managing them. Does that make sense? So we are going to think about that and that’s a good opportunity for you to really think about good leaders and actually what are the not so good leaders, and equally the managers. I think all groups use the word micromanagement, which is a real negative of managing. Good managers will do all of those things, but they will actually inspire and motivate that person to be the best they can be, who they manage. That’s leadership as well, but if they’re micromanaging and they’re disempowering that person, then unfortunately, that’s when it becomes where they might have to use the push approach, because I know from experience that if you’re micromanaged to the point that it disempowers you, you then get to the point where you’re in overwhelm because that person’s taken that ability for you to prioritise, plan, know what you need to do, and your confidence is impacted by that.

So good managers won’t micromanage. Good managers will set out very clearly what transactional stuff needs to be done and they’ll monitor and they’ll have milestones and support from a wellbeing perspective. But if they micromanage that person’s day-to-day, then that just disempowers that person and their confidence gets knocked and their ability to make decisions if they have to.

I’m going to talk about permissions people and I’m going to talk about forgiveness people as well when we look at communication, because I think it’s really important when you’re leading and managing a team to know that there are some people who sit in the world of permission, i.e. if you don’t give them permission to do X, Y, and Z, they won’t do it until you’ve done that, and equally, there are people who we call our forgiveness people. So they will just go and do it and then they’ll go, ‘Sorry, should I have not done that?’ So that’s something to think about in terms of your management and leadership style, because if people are empowered and they have the permission to know that they can make that decision, they will go and make it. That’s the pull approach.

Unfortunately, micromanagement can disempower somebody to the point that you’ve then got to say, no, you have permission to do that. So, very neatly, brings me on to role models. Yes, I did toy with putting Michelle in, but I thought, no, I need to go for somebody else. I have to say, all the way through COVID, Jacinda for me, just made me want to go and live in New Zealand. I was like, I want this woman to be my prime minister. Everything she did was just really aligned with who I would aspire to be and I was absolutely gutted when she decided that… I appreciated what she needed to do for her and her family, but was gutted for New Zealand, really, as were a lot of people.

Okay, in terms of Barack Obama, I always think about how did he make people feel? What was the feedback in terms of people that he worked with? I like to use the analogy of, I help put a man on the moon. You’ve got someone, I think it was JFK going around NASA and was talking to somebody who was sweeping the floor and he said, ‘What do you do?’ And he says, ‘I help put a man on the moon.’ I’m sure everyone’s heard of that story before.

For me, true leaders are people who recognise everybody’s contribution, no matter where they are in the organisation, and equally, they enable people to really understand the difference that they’re making and that their role, in local government we called it the golden thread, how do we know from the thread, from the top down through the organisation, how do we know the difference that we’re making and how do we get that feedback, in terms of by me doing this that’s made that happen over there, because sometimes it’s easy to lose sight of that. I think real leaders and role models enable us all to be valued, to understand our purpose, to understand what our why is. So we’ve looked at those observable skills and attributes of the person that you’ve identified and I think we resonate with some of that behaviour that comes back to us. So just put in one buzzword of an observable skill and attribute of the person that you’ve identified.

We’ve had authentic as the first one.

Yes, lovely.

Driving.

Oh good, like that one.

Passionate, enthusiasm, empowering, personable.

Yes, interesting. Thank you. Keep those coming and we’ll record those as we go along, and then I’m just going to move on to a chap called John Adair. The reason why I’m moving on to him is it’s very much about us understanding how all these different things align with each other. So a real action-centred leadership model is about looking at not just the task that we need to complete, but actually how are we maintaining the individual and also the team, and looking at how those three actually interlink with each other.

The reason why I wanted to put this in is, often, we have people who can be what we call task focused, and then we have people who can move what we call people focused. It’s very much the task focus, that’s where they’ll go to first and then they’ll consider the people focused behind that, and equally, people-focused people will go straight to the people and the team and the individual, but actually might lose sight of the task. It’s about really understanding that those three models interlink and really understanding about what those kinds of responsibilities are within this model. You can see the management and leadership stuff and how they all link together.

So defining the task, making the plan, allocating the work and resources, checking performance against plan, adjusting the plan because the goalposts will move as we go along. Maintaining that discipline, but also building that team spirit, encouraging, motivating, giving that real sense of purpose. I don’t know if any of you have read, or you can watch him on YouTube, Simon Sinek, or Sinek, people pronounce it in a different way. He looks at what’s our why, what’s our purpose, and the core purpose is really understanding who we are, what’s our own purpose, but also what’s our purpose within the team, and are we working to that purpose? If we don’t know what our purpose is, then often that’s when teams can become quite fractured, if that’s the right word. It means that we’re not all pulling together towards the same end goal.

A good leader will appoint what we call sub-leaders. They know they can’t do everything. So they’ll ensure that they empower and enable people within the team to work to what we call their best skills and use those skills to add value to the rest of the team. They ensure that communication and that safety to have that communication, which sometimes can be challenging, but it’s safe to be challenging. It’s also about recognising that actually we’re all human, we can all make mistakes and it’s about how we support each other to work through those mistakes. Have you got your team’s back when they make those mistakes and do people learn from that? I have this lovely fridge magnet called there is no failure, only feedback. So we make a mistake, as long as we learn from it and we do something differently, then actually it’s not a failure. So, in my world, we don’t have failure or mistake. We have, okay, that didn’t work as well as I wanted it to. What have I learned from it and what am I doing differently?

Then the leader will also look at this, who are we from an individual perspective, because for me, if each individual within that team isn’t at their best or isn’t being supported or isn’t being recognised and appreciated, then you only need one person in the team to take the rest of the team out of kilter. So it recognises each individual’s abilities, develops that individual and often develops the individuals beyond that particular team role as well and gives them that opportunity. When I look at the transformational leadership behaviours, you will see from that how it’s about really showing that genuine concern about that individual and ensuring that they’ve got what they need. If we think about leadership qualities, I’m going to talk you through the transformational engaging leadership models.

Now, I had the pleasure and the privilege to work with Professor Beverly Alimo-Metcalfe when I was in a large council, Wigan Council, a few years ago, and we brought the transformational engaging leadership programme into Wigan to work with our senior leaders, and these were the 14 behaviours. Now, Professor Alimo-Metcalfe worked quite closely with Bernie Bass, and they did quite a lot of research within the NHS and around women in the NHS around transformational and engaging leadership behaviours. So Beverly is Head of the Real World Group, and I’ve picked this model. There are hundreds of leadership models, a bit like there are other supermarkets that we can shop at.

I’ll talk about a couple of other leadership models, but this was one that particularly stood out for me in terms of my values as a leader, and one of the biggest ones was about showing genuine concern. As we’re leading and managing people in our teams, understanding and showing that genuine concern for the individuals within our team, that enables that person to really understand that they’re being valued as a human being. It’s about being accessible. It’s about people being able to come to you if they need to, to let you know if something’s going on, to feel safe if they’ve made a mistake, to admit to that and work through. It’s about enabling them to be the best they can be, and picking up on what Rebecca was saying earlier about her example of that inspirational person for her, really giving the team wings to fly and recognising those real strengths and bringing those out and really appreciating and recognising.

Encouraging questioning, we all have to be curious. We want that ability as a team for everyone to bring their thoughts around how we can do things, their questions, their curiosity, and their adaptability. It’s about being honest and consistent, and you probably know yourself, there’s nothing worse than being managed or led by somebody who is inconsistent and we don’t always think of being honest. Now, I always say appropriately honest here. Sometimes as leaders, we get information that we know at that point in time, we can’t do anything with it, but sometimes is it about saying, actually, this is as much as I can tell you and when I’m in a position where I can tell you more, I will. There’s that thing about integrity and about understanding that we are being true to ourselves in terms of how we work. It’s about moving forward together, building that shared vision.

Networks are really key in terms of this model. So it’s enabling people to be part of those wider networks, and obviously you being here today, you’ll be a part of this network. It’s about resolving complex problems and it’s about facilitating change sensitively. It’s about recognising that we all work through change in very different ways and at a very different pace. Then it’s about engaging the organisation, supporting that developmental culture, inspiring others, focusing that team effort and being decisive. We often have to make those real tough decisions as a leader and a manager, but as long as we can show why we’ve made them and what the consequences are and how we need others to engage with that decision, if we’re doing all those other things, then we’re more likely to get the buy-in because we’ve got the trust in order to do that. Okay, so one of the key things that Beverly said is, ‘We’re human beings, not human doings.’ Look for the human behind the behaviour because often if people are coming with stuff, we are holistic 24-7 people, whatever’s happened to us before we log on of a morning will impact on how sparkly we are for the rest of the day and then what happens to us in the day.

So all that kind of wellbeing stuff. It’s about acting out and displaying traits of honesty, trust, enthusiasm, having pride in our team, doing the right thing. It’s about that ability to connect and be in tune with each individual and having that consideration, and then it’s about that intellectual stimulation. We want to challenge the team to be creative, to think differently, to be independent, to bring all their skills and expertise and ideas and curiosity, and then it’s about inspiring the team to develop and move them to higher levels of performance and transform them into leaders. As I was saying earlier, it’s about giving them those wings to fly, but actually, this is just one model and there are lots of other models, situational leadership, like I talked about before with Hersey and Blanchard.

We’ve got thought leadership, which is one of the key, more recent ones and also convener-led leadership. So there’s lots of models out there and we could spend all day just looking at different leadership models.

[END OF TRANSCRIPT]

What’s a great team? It’s a group of people who can operate in such a way that they accomplish more than the sum of the total of the individuals. So Mr. Peter Honey, who’s a real team guru, and he talks about this, example by a leading academic, spent years researching management practice and team dynamics, but it’s really about understanding that in order to be a great team, it isn’t just about the individuals, it’s about how they come together and how they bring their skills and expertise, how they bring their behaviours in terms of supporting each other. So it’s always the sum of the total of the individuals.

When I talk about engagement later, often if something’s happening and there’s one individual within the team who’s maybe not as sparkly as they can be, it’s how can that impact on other people as well. So we are going to talk about how different team behaviours can impact. Then I’m just going to drop in Katzenbach and Smith and they talk about a high performing, so what takes us from a team to a high-performing team? So there’s that group of complementary skills who are committed to that common purpose and that goals and that approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable. So it’s about real high-performing teams, totally understand what’s their why, what they’re trying to achieve, how they’re going to achieve it and actually how they’re all mutually accountable as individuals within that team. So they’re committed to one another’s personal growth, and as a result of that, they will outperform all other like teams. So it’s about them wanting to support and develop each other. It’s not about that competitive edge for them to be better than their counterpart, if that makes sense.

Okay. So I’m going to drop a couple of these models for you to have a look at and then just say I’ll leave those with you for you to do your research into the ones that really resonate for you, but very much about common commitment of goals and purpose. Having those performance goals and knowing the expectations, having those complementary skills and mindset that we all bring together to become this high-performing team and that real mutual accountability, and that’s what takes it from what we call good to great. So if you’re someone who wants to think about what makes us go from good to great, there’s a great book there. I’m going to say Jim Kerr, but I will check the author of that. The book is called ‘Good to Great.’ I think it’s Jim Kerr or is he in Simple Minds?

Anyway, moving on. So I want you to think about that. What are the characteristics of a high-performing team? What are the things that you see in your high-performing team that really enable you to take that team from good to great? Okay. Maybe just pop a couple in the chat for me, just so I can see that you’re really recognising your characteristics within your high-performing team.

Through mutual respect for each other. A non-blaming culture.

Oh lovely. Yes. Love it.

Motivated, happy, enjoying what they do, supporting each other. Enabling mutually supportive culture.

Lovely.

 People expressing their ideas freely. Well balanced and trusting each other.

Yes. Brilliant. They’re some lovely characteristics, and they’re what takes the team from what I call good to great. So these are some of mine. Common sense of purpose, clear understanding of objectives that focus on our research priorities, mutual respect, mutual trust. Have you got that psychological safety within the team for people to admit if they’ve made a mistake or for them to have that, what could feel like a challenging conversation, or to know that you’ve got their back as a leader. That willingness to share knowledge and expertise. I’ve worked in teams where the competitive nature of the team has meant that some members have felt that their knowledge is power, so they’ve held back their knowledge instead of putting it out there for the greater good of the rest of the team.

A range of skills and abilities, a range of styles of behavioural and mindset styles. We have people who are very much about opportunity. We have people who very much have risk in their mindset, and it’s how does that balance out? That willingness to speak openly. Then one of the big ones for me and sometimes we miss that is that real celebration and recognition of achievement. Do we celebrate and recognise people’s achievement within a team? Do we make sure that they know that they’re making a difference? So what would the benefits of that be for you?

We’ve got good results. Easier to manage.

Yes.

Great results again. They get on with things, they want to do well, they don’t leave you and they want it to work. Happy team. Meeting team goals. A happy work environment.

Lovely. Thank you.

Growth has been said. Also security as well. Security that things will be done well.

Yes, I’m really pleased that someone’s put that in because depending on your mindset, some people really run a real key security value, and if that security and that feeling of not being secure isn’t – it’s there in their value, value security isn’t being served. Often people can jump ship because they’re not feeling that they are being secure in what they’re doing. So I’m really pleased someone’s brought that up because that’s really important for some people.

Things around feeling like it’s fair and equitable and that people are being treated appropriately. We can’t always, as a manager, leader, treat people the same because we’re all different human beings in terms of what their needs are. If we think about the empathic, showing genuine concern bit, but if we’re able to be creative in how we support people as individuals, then what happens is there’s a bit of a knock-on effect. So if you’ve got somebody struggling and you enable them to get back on track to do what they need to do to become the great performer they are, what that shows the rest of the team is if they’re ever in that position, you’d do the same for them, and that creates that psychological safety. It creates that, you know, where people’s security, where people’s needs are being met as an individual within the team and people feel safe, should they have a wobble. Okay. Thank you.

Okay. So I’ve got success, achievement, long-term sustainability, an outstanding experience for our stakeholders, be those internal or external. We’re all doing things for our stakeholders, be they within our organisation or outside or even within our team. Enhanced reputation and enabling people to have that creativity and innovation because I personally believe that if we’re under pressure, we’re being micromanaged, we’re not in a happy team, there’s something going on, our ability to be creative and innovative will go out of the window. So if you have that real high-performing team, then they will be able to have that space to be creative and innovative. Put my teeth in.

That enhanced agility and ability to respond. So being proactive rather than reactive, that real sense of, ‘I want to share my knowledge and skills because I don’t see you as a threat. I see you as a colleague,’ and a collaborative approach and that real continuous learning and development. So we’re continually looking to how we can be even better than we are already.

Okay, and then I’m going to take you through, and this really rounds up the team stuff here is the seven steps for creating and sustaining. So we really need to think about why am I here? If you notice, when it’s resolved, this is what we get when it’s unresolved, this is what. So I’m going to take you to the dark side and then we’re going to end on a positive. So if our why isn’t served, then people are uncertain. They have that fear and disorientation about what are we here to do as a team? If you resolve that, you’ve got purpose, team identity and you’ve got that membership. People feel part of a team, feel part of that end goal and they’re going to get to it.

Equally with the trust, if that’s not there, there’ll be caution, mistrust. We’re all have that kind of facade that’s not how it really is. If we resolve that, we’ve got that mutual regard, we’ve got that forthrightness and we’ve got that reliability. That goal clarification, if we don’t know what we’re doing, then irrelevant competition, scepticism, apathy. If we resolve it, we’ve got those explicit assumptions, clear integrated goals and a real shared vision. How do we do it? So who, what, where, how, when, wow, and there you go. If we don’t know how we’ll do it, then there could be that dependence. So somebody who doesn’t know what’s within their gift of how they’re going to do that, they might sit back and wait for that. So it’s about setting those real expectations and giving people the permission. Equally, they could resist against it as well, but if we resolve it, everyone knows what they need to do. They know they’ve got the resources in which to do it because sometimes we give people things to do but don’t necessarily give them the tools or the environment in which to do it and they’re unable to make those decisions.

Okay, and then we implement it. If we don’t have all one to four in place, then often what can happen is that conflict or confusion, non-alignment, missed deadlines in terms of that implementation. So we need to have real clear processes, real alignment and real disciplined execution of what we need to do. Okay. Then we have our high performance. Okay. If that’s unresolved, then there could be overload, there could be disharmony and people feeling burnt out. So it’s about that spontaneous interaction, that synergy between us all as a team and really being able to surpass the results and reach that wow of high performance. Then really we’re going back to what I call the so what and the what next. Why do we need to continue this? It almost should be a circle actually in terms of that renewal, in terms of going back to our purpose, that recognition and celebration, that change mastery, that staying power.

People really understanding how they’ve gone through that process of creating and sustaining and how doing all of that really will give them that energy and that commitment and that real want to be part of this team. So they’re some really great things to think about in terms of that team performance model.

Okay. So I hope I haven’t blown your mind with all of that one but it brings me quite nicely onto, okay, so this is great. We’ve got all these things that we want to achieve, but underpinning all of that, as I’ve said earlier, is really about our communication and if we’re not able to effectively communicate, then all this great stuff that we’ve talked about earlier isn’t going to happen because we’re not communicating it in the way that we need to communicate.

Before I just move on to that, I’m just going to answer the question that somebody asked right at the end of the – as we went into break about do you have to be a charismatic person to actually be a great leader? Now you’re going to get my take on this, and my take is actually no. As long as you’re doing and you’re espousing that behaviour and you’re living your behaviours with integrity, and you’re doing all those wonderful things that I align to on the transformational, engaging leadership model, then actually, there are people who are fantastic leaders who aren’t necessarily classed as what I would call charismatic if you were going to say who are you going to put in a charismatic box, okay? Also if you’re doing it for the greater good, you’re doing it for the right reasons, then that doesn’t matter.

You’ve got lots of charismatic leaders out there and I’m not going to name them, but I’m sure there’s a few that have been in the media over the last few days that you could actually say, ‘Yes, they have charisma. Yes, they bring lots of people along with them,’ but are they truly espousing what I would say the integrity of a true leader? I’ll leave that one with you to think about because there are lots of charismatic people out there who believe that they are great leaders and in some respects they are, but there’s a lot of stuff they’re doing that is manipulative that could be seen as not for the right reasons. So my answer to that is and, you know, it’d be interesting to invite other people’s thoughts, but my answer to that is no, I don’t think you have to be seen as charismatic as such. As long as you’re living your values as a true leader with integrity and espousing those behaviours, then that’s a great leader for me. Okay. So I hope that answers the question.

So let’s think about how do we measure this? Have we got that clear plan and action plan? Have we got what we call our SMART or our SMARTER, as I call it, objectives? So in SMARTER I mean, are they engaging, are they exciting and are they reviewable? Do people understand what the behaviour standards and expectations are, the how are they going to do that? How do we monitor that progress? How do we look? Do we do it in one-to-ones, team meetings? Obviously don’t leave stuff till their performance review. How do we measure and evaluate and celebrate that success? What’s our stakeholder feedback telling us? What’s our benchmarking data in terms of how we need to be performing? Are we reaching those key performance indicators?

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You have a natural way that you communicate. You tend to be either what we call a thinker or a feeler, but you can do both. When we’re using our non-preferred hand, if I’d asked you to write a page, you could have done it with your preferred hand quite easily. It probably wouldn’t have taken a lot of energy. If you’d have done it with your non-preferred hand, you’d have still been able to do it, but it would have impacted your energy. So I just want you to keep hold of that, this isn’t right or wrong what I’m going to share now, we can do both, but where do I sit, again a little bit like we’ve done with the leadership style. This has come from something called MBTI, it’s a personality, it’s like what they call a typology preference analysis if you like. I use it a lot with teams to manage and appreciate difference. So we’re just going to look at the communication bit, and again I’m going to share some slides, and I want you to think about where on the continuum am I. Am I more a thinker or am I more a feeler? Then we’ll talk through some examples. So this is all around managing and appreciating differences. I love that picture, it’s nothing to do with anything really, but I just thought it was kind of quirky and unique. Okay, so we have a preference to how we like to communicate and make decisions. We either are more a thinker, or a feeler, and the reason that I’m sharing this in this particular fashion, is in the work that I do with teens, this is one of those things that can be really easily fixed if we’re aware of our differences, but actually causes a lot of anxiety, or has a real impact on people’s well-being. So thinkers tend to be a little bit more detached and objective. They’ll see situations from the outside, and they’ll apply objective criteria to rules. So if they’ve got a decision to make, they’ll be quite task-focused, how are we going to get the task done. They will think about the people, but it possibly won’t be the first place they go to. Feelers are opposite. They tend to see situations from within about how it makes them feel, and they will go to the people first and go, if we make this decision, how is this going to impact everyone. Okay. You’ll be somewhere, you’ll either be very heavy thinker, I’m a hugely heavy feeler, and I’ve had to learn to be more thinking. Or you’ll be somewhere in the middle, or one of the preferences. Ts will apply logical reasoning. They may debate or challenge information. If you get an email from a T, it’ll probably have very little, it might have a few sentences, be quite logical, and to the point. It will, again very focused on tasks, and the logic, and will provide a critique. Feelers are different. They will apply values. They’ll want to know if this is going to rock the boat, if it’s going to upset anyone. They want to focus on the relationship. Will it make anyone unhappy? They’ll seek harmony. Very often Ts and Fs in the workplace, a feeler can feel really wounded with some communication from a T. So again I see this in the workplace. They’re helping styles tend to be very different. So typical in a personal relationship, if you’ve got a T and an F, a T might buy something practical for the house, while the F wants some personal like clothing, or perfume, or an experience, or something. So again the helping styles tend to be very, Ts will look for logic, and practicalities, and focus on tasks, Fs will want to be supportive, and explore how people feel about things, and will focus very much on the relationship.[END OF TRANSCRIPT]

So, I’m going to bring you on to effective communication. Now, some of you will be familiar with this model. if you aren’t, I’m going to talk you through it. I think for me this underpins everything that we do. I’m going to talk about it in a moment, but my answer is we cannot not communicate. From the minute we open our eyes and we make eye contact with somebody, we cannot not communicate because we are communicating straight away. How many of you have been disempowered by the roll of somebody’s eyeballs? You probably can’t see it from the glare from my glasses. Have they actually said anything? No. the roll of their eyes has dismissed and disempowered that person in one behaviour, one communication. Everything we do is underpinned by how we communicate. We will all communicate in very different ways. we might communicate in a visual way. I will say to people, ‘Do you see what I mean? What does it look like for you?’ That’s visual. Auditory is, ‘How does that sound? I’m hearing you.’ they’ll talk in that language and they’ll give away what their communication style is. K stands for kinaesthetic. they’ll say, ‘How’s that feeling for you? Is that something you feel comfortable with?’ Then we’ve got what we call auditory-digital. They are people who like information in real… You know, lots of words, lots of information. even the way you communicate on paper, even the way you communicate via an email, even the way you communicate using a model or a visual, will very much depend on your natural style. equally, think about who have you got in your team and how do they like to be communicated with? How do they like to take in information? If you work with somebody who’s a very different style to you, you have to jump into their world. If you want to gain rapport with them, listen to the words that they use when they’re talking to you and maybe jump into their world. if they say, ‘I’m not feeling comfortable with that,’ then go into their world of kinaesthetic. We give it away with the way that we say things. I’m going to invite you after this session, the first communication that you have with somebody, think about the words that they use when they talk to you. They will inadvertently, without knowing, tell you what their communication style is. Also, you know, you might want to ask somebody, ‘Do you want to see as a visual model, or do you want to have it in words on a paper?’ Often we’re more than one. We can be visual and kinaesthetic, so we need to see it and then we need to do it to embed the learning. Learning styles can come into this as well. I’m going to take you through the communication model and we’re going to think about how our communication impacts on the people we communicate with. Then I’m going to talk about the Johari Window, which some of you may already be familiar with, and then we’re going to look at Robert Dilts and his neurological levels of change. This is a really interesting tool for when you’re working with teams, and if they feel like they’re in what we call a stuck state you can actually identify where it is on those levels, those neurological levels, of where you need to go in and enable that person to work through that. I hope you’re all curious to what’s going to be coming next. this is what we call the communication model in the world of neuro-linguistic programming. Even if NLP isn’t your thing please do bear with me, because I think this communication model really enables you to understand the impact of our communication and how that can impact on other people communicating back at us. What happens is, we have an external event coming at us. we’ll hear it. We’ll see it. We might smell it, we might taste it, we might touch it, and we have so much information coming, it’s kind of 10 to 10 ten to the power of 11 amounts of bits of information coming at us per second, per second, per second. Now, on a good day when we’re feeling sparkly, we can actually process seven plus two amounts of information per second per second. you know yourself, when you’re feeling stressed, or you’re busy, or you’re up against it, we can only take in seven minus two amounts of information per second per second. It comes in through our senses and it goes into what we call our filters, and we do three things with it. We’ll either delete it because we don’t need to process it – for example, I’ve got next door jet washing their front path. I’m conscious of the noise but hoping you can’t hear it. I’ve deleted that because I’m in the moment here with you, or I will generalise it that even though I can’t see you all on screen, on my little toolbar screen, that you’re all thinking, oh, this sounds interesting. Then the main thing that we do is, we distort the information that’s coming. we put it into our filters and we take it through our filters, and one of the things that happens… I liken our filter to – think about when you’re pouring a nice cup of tea. You’ve got a lovely China cup underneath the tea sieve and you’re pouring the water through the lovely ornate tea sieve into your cup of tea. The silver, ornate tea strainer or tea sieve, however you want to call it, is our filter system, and as it goes through into our filters, it goes into all these different areas. we have in our filters, we have the memories that we’ve made, and we’ll all store our memories in very different ways. We’ll have the language that we use. We’ll have the attitudes. We’ll have the decisions that we’ve made and how they’ve played out. We have our values and beliefs, and we have what we call meta-programs, and I’m going to talk to you about those in a moment. Now, one of the key things for me is, and I don’t necessarily want you to say out loud, but just to acknowledge it; have you ever made a decision that hasn’t played out how you’ve expected it to? Maybe put a thumbs up in your window. Have we got a few thumbs up there, Andrew?

We do, and I can confirm that my thumbs are definitely up.

Okay. I’m going to give you some real what I call fridge magnets here that hopefully will make you feel better. Here’s the first one. No one sets out to make a wrong decision, because we don’t, do we? You know, at the end of the day, when you come to make a decision you take all the information that you’ve got at that point in time, and at that time you make the decision it’s the right one at that time, otherwise you wouldn’t make it. what we do is, we beat ourselves up subconsciously for the decisions that we’ve made that haven’t necessarily played out. I want you to cut yourself some slack here, because at the time that you made it, that decision was the right one for you at that time. That’s a little takeaway for you. Then I’m also going to talk to you about our values and our beliefs, and our values can come together really from the way we’ve been brought up, what were our family values, what were the things that we were almost taught as a child about what was important, but also we have what we call our belief system. I’m going to ask a question. I’d like you to pop it in the chat. Somebody give me a belief, a real big belief that they had, which is no longer true.

We’ve got Father Christmas in the chat.

Yes. Interesting one about the ambassador. We’ll unpack that one. We all had some real strong beliefs when we were younger that actually we can say are no longer true. the reason why I’m saying that is, depending on what’s happened to us between nought and seven, and then everything else on top of it when we’re coming to where we are today, what we’ve got to think about is, often we will have a belief that may actually be holding us back, what we call a limiting self-belief. I’m going to use an example here. Because I don’t do numbers, I really struggled with my Maths O level. Looking back it was because the teacher was rubbish, but at the time, as an eight-, nine-year-old trying to get your head round your maths, you don’t always take it that it’s the teacher. anyway, this teacher turned round to me and said, ‘Oh Hilary, you’re so stupid.’ Oof. In that goes. I’m walking around with, can’t do maths because I’m stupid. throughout my life, what I’ve had to do is challenge that limiting self-belief that I’ve put in there by myself, because actually I got a tutor and did my Maths O level. I only got a C but I passed it. I’ve done other mathematical things, you know, managed a budget, blah, blah, blah. basically what I’ve done is said, ‘You might call me stupid and you might think that I don’t do numbers,’ but actually I’ve tried to prove that limiting self-belief wrong, and say, ‘Actually, I can do numbers.’ Having said that, what that did though, by her saying that to me at that point in time is, it put in what I call an unhelpful anchor. as soon as someone says, ‘I’m going to need you to do the figures for X,’ what happens is it goes into my subconscious, and it’s that little anchor about, ‘Hilary, you don’t do maths because you’re stupid.’ What I want to invite you to think about is, we will all have in our subconscious, as will the people who we’re looking after in our team, some limiting self-beliefs, and we’ll also have some unhelpful anchors. I’m going to ask you to think about, is there a food that you particularly don’t like to eat? It’s not therapy here, so I don’t necessarily want you to share it. I just want you to think about it. Is that food something you don’t like to eat because you possibly associate it with a situation that was unhelpful? what you’ve done is almost set yourself an anchor to that particular food. This is where phobias come into play. This is where we have those unhelpful anchors. Smells can be another one as well. They can elicit real, really lovely feelings, or not so-lovely-feelings, depending on who we associate those particular smells. Really strong men’s aftershave can take me to a bad place because I associate it with a horrible boyfriend. Equally, the smell of Lenor, simple Lenor, reminds me of a lovely auntie who used to wash all my mohair jumpers when I was a punk rocker and lay them all out with kindness and care. when I smell the smell of Lenor, that anchors me back to this really lovely time with my auntie where she took that care to wash my jumpers so they didn’t shrink. what I want to invite you to think about is, when you’re in situations and you’re thinking, whoa, what’s going on for me here, is think about where is it taking you to? Is it taking you to a limiting self-belief? Is it asking you to do something that sits against your values, or have you got an unhelpful anchor that’s holding you back? Does that make sense? Sometimes for people, sometimes we ask them to do things or we talk about stuff, and it takes them to these places that we don’t always understand. I’m going to talk to you as well about metaprograms. This really is interesting in terms of how people communicate. we have a metaprogram called Big Picture, Little Chunker. Big Picture people like to give the overarching information and they don’t do detail. when you’re talking to a Big Picture person, you’ll get this. However, we also have people who, their metaprogram is as a Little Chunker. They like the detail. They like who, what, why, when, who? Who’s it for? How much money have we got? Am I doing it? Are you doing it? They’re like… They need all that information. Often the way we communicate is, we communicate in our style. you’ve probably already picked up that I’m a Little Chunker. I do the detail. if I’m working with somebody who’s Big Picture and they go, ‘Don’t give me enough detail,’ I have to go, ‘Oh, hang on a minute. I need to know X, Y, Z, A, B, C.’ Now, I even communicate in an email in that way. what we have to think about is, who are we communicating with and what are their needs? It may be that we actually decide, although we’re a Little Chunker, we know that person’s Big Picture, so we don’t need to give them all of that detail. Does that make sense? What I really want to invite you to think about is, are you Big Picture or are you Little Chunker and who’s in your team? You can actually ask them very respectfully without saying, ‘Are you a Little Chunker?’ because they might go, ‘What do you mean?’ You can say, ‘Are you someone who likes the detail, or are you happy with just the overarching information?’ You can ask the questions. You can find out what they are without even using the word Big Picture, Little Chunker. You might offend somebody if they take Little Chunker the wrong way. Then we have what we call quick processors and slow processors. Quick processors are people who take this information in through their senses, through their filters, and they send the answer back out probably before the person that they’re talking to is finished speaking. Now, that can make the other person feel like they’re not being listened to properly. The quick processor is still listening. They’re just very good at quickly processing their response to it. Then we have what we call the slow processor. Now, that doesn’t mean that they’re slow. What it means is that they are reflective, so they have to take the information in and then they go, ‘Right, I’m going to have a think about that.’ Their inner chitter-chatter might even say, ‘Right, I’m going to have a think about that.’ they will take a moment, if not a little bit longer, to actually send their response back to the other person in that communication. Now for a quick processor talking with a slow processor, it can be a bit frustrating because you’re thinking, come on, because you know you would have sent that answer straight back out. Even when we come to managing meetings, managing other communication, if you know you have reflectors in your team, then you need to enable them to have that opportunity to see the information, to digest the information, to reflect on the information before you put them on the spot to say, ‘What are your thoughts about this?’ We also have what we call people who live at cause and people who live in effect. People who live at cause take responsibility for their behaviour. They are what we call glass half full. They see an opportunity, and they are very proactive in working through that. Then we have what we call people who live in effect. People who live in effect do what I say. They wear the victim t-shirt, so they don’t take responsibility. They will blame others for what’s going on, and often they’re what I call swimming around in that shark-infested pool as I call it. Now, us lovely people who live in cause, what we want to do is we want to throw them a life belt, because we want to help them to jump back into cause as we call it. Sometimes people don’t always take our help. As managers and leaders, what we have to be mindful of is, sometimes people have got stuff going on that actually they need some professional help with, and it’s your role as a leader and a manager to say, ‘It may not be me that can help you with this, but I can see that you’re struggling or I can see that something’s going on. Can I help you to get the person who you need to get some support from?’ As a manager, it’s not always about taking on everybody’s stuff. It’s about enabling them to get the help and support that they need. You’ll notice where people are at because they’ll use what we call towards the positive language, or they’ll use what we call away from the negative. if someone wants to be fit and healthy, they’re towards, and as part of that, that might mean that they lose weight or they stop smoking. However, if they say, ‘I don’t want to smoke,’ or, ‘I don’t want to,’ then they’re what we call away from the negative. It’s a lot easier to reframe somebody’s language so that they are towards the positive goal rather than away from the negative of what’s been happening. Often as a manager it’s just about unpacking what they’re saying to you and saying, ‘Okay, so let’s think about how we can reframe that language. what is it that we want, and let’s frame that language in that positive towards language.’ Does that make sense? Is everybody okay with what I’m saying? You’re probably thinking, why are we doing this on a management and leadership programme? It’s really about you understanding what you’ve got going on in your filters, because what happens is as it goes into our filters, we do what we call… We have our voices, our chitter-chatter, our inner critique, or our inner champion supporter. They’ll start to have this dialogue as this information goes into our filters. What happens with that is, it changes our state. As our state changes, what happens is our physiology changes. As our physiology changes, so does our behaviour. Now, I’m going to ask you the question; how much of this physiology state behaviour is actually conscious? I just want you to pop a percentage into the chat, because I’m really curious to know what you would think would be conscious behaviour.

We’ve got guesses of 30 per cent, 10 per cent, 20. Another 20, 8, 20, 10.

Ninety-eight per cent of what we do is actually subconscious. of those percentages, we’ve got words, we’ve got body language, and we’ve got tonality in the way that we say things. if I gave you a pie chart and we had 7 per cent, 38 per cent, and the rest was 55 per cent, and I asked you the question of which is body language, which is tone, tonality of words, and which is the actual words themselves, where would you allocate those? We’ve got 7 per cent, 38 per cent and the rest 55 per cent. you can do maths. just have a think about how you would put words, tonality, and body language to those percentages.

we’ve got a couple of things in so far. Fifty-six per cent body language, seven per cent words. Another 7 per cent words, 38 per cent tone.

Yes, lovely. that’s Albert Mehrabian’s communication model, and what’s really interesting is that there’s only seven per cent of the words that we actually use are the words. The rest is how we say it, our pace, our tone, our timbre. Are we quick? Are we slow in terms of how quickly we speak? What’s the level and tone of how we speak it? It’s not what we say. It’s the way that we say it, and also it’s all that body language that comes with it, which is actually subconscious. Hence going back to the very beginning when I talked about how somebody can just roll their eyes at us. They haven’t said anything. They haven’t used any words. we have no tone of voice yet, but we’ve seen them roll their eyes. That’s that sort of subconscious body language going on. I’m just going to invite you to close your eyes for a moment. As you close your eyes, I’m going to ask you the question, don’t think of a pink elephant. what happens is, we don’t compute the negative. if you say don’t, it’s often that you will. Have you ever walked towards somebody and thought, particularly if they’ve remarried, don’t mention whatever his name is, the ex-husband, and out pops their name? ‘How’s poor Mike?’ The other thing for me was, I used to, as my kids used to run to school, I used to say to them, ‘Mind you don’t fall,’ and they trip. Then they used to eat Petit Filous yoghurts and I’d say, ‘Mind you don’t spill,’ and they’d spill. By changing the words that we use and saying, ‘Enjoy your run,’ or, ‘Enjoy your yoghurt,’ they didn’t spill and they didn’t fall. it’s about understanding that actually we don’t always compute the negative. when you’re thinking about how you communicate with your teams, always think about the let’s do, not let’s not do. If you say let’s not do they hear do, not not do. Does that make sense? that’s a really interesting model to think about, because the meaning of the communication is in the response we get. How often have we sent a communication out based on what’s happening in our stuff, goes in, into our filters, we re-present it back out with our behaviour, our words, and the tonality and the way we say it, but actually we send it out and then the response we get isn’t what we’re expecting. The reason why that is because, as we’re sending something out to that person, how they receive it, how they distort it, put it through their filters, their internal representation and send it out, is very different because we are all unique individuals. I think it’s really important to understand what you’ve got going on in your filters and actually, how are those filters helping you, or actually how are they holding you back? Sometimes we’re not always conscious of what we’re sending out. This is where Johari Window comes into play. Some of you will already be very familiar with Johari Window, but I think this is really interesting, particularly when we come to talk about performance management. we have what we call our public self. this is what’s known to me and what’s known to you. this is what I’m happily putting out here to you today. I’m happy with that. I’m putting it out there. Then I’ve got what we call my private self. this is known to me but not known to you. this is probably me tonight when I’ve got my PJs on and my glass of gin and I’ve took my makeup off. They’re things I’m quite happy to be but don’t necessarily want you guys to see. Then we’ve got what we call our unknown self. this is not known to others and it’s not known to us. this is the stuff that happens very deep-seated within our subconscious. Sometimes we have things in there and our subconscious will protect us. one of the biggest things here is what we call our blind self or our blind spot, and this is the bit that I don’t know I’m sending out, but you actually see it in me. You’re probably thinking, why are we doing this? The reason why is, often when I talk to managers about performance management and they’ll say, ‘Well, I have somebody who does X, Y and Z,’ I go, okay. I’ll say to them, ‘Do they know what they’re doing? Equally, do they know the impact that it’s having on you and other people?’ Until you turn that mirror and you expose that blind spot to somebody, so I call it turning the mirror, at that point they actually might not know that they’re doing it. you have to forgive them for that, because until they know they’ll just keep doing it, because they might not know they’re doing it. Once you’ve turned the mirror and you said, ‘Do you realise by doing X this is what happens with Y,’ i.e., the impact on you or the impact on other members of the team, or the impact on them in terms of their performance, when they know, then they’ve got choices. This is where you come into the can do, can’t do, will do, won’t do realms. is it because they can do it? Is it because they can’t do it – and that’s the development stuff here, they still want to do it but they can’t do it – or is it because they won’t do it? they know about it, but they still choose to carry on doing it. That will take you into a very different area, which is not an area that I would advise on. It would be an area you would need to go and speak to your HR business partner about. what I always say is, until you’ve turned that mirror and they recognise and understand and appreciate what they’re doing and how that’s impacting on other people, or on themselves, or their performance, is you have to forgive them until they know, and then we have choices. Is everyone comfortable with Johari Window? I think it’s a real useful tool to be able to have that difficult conversation or authentic conversation with somebody. I had to use it when I had somebody. I inherited a team and some behaviours hadn’t been tackled by the previous manager, and one person was feeling particularly bullied. When I actually sat down with the others of the team and turned the mirror and said, ‘Do you appreciate that this behaviour is making this other person feel like this,’ they were absolutely horrified and they were like, ‘We had we had no idea.’ I’m like, ‘Well you do now. what we have to think about is how are we going to come together as a team and how we’re going to move forward, knowing that we need to make some changes in terms of this behaviour because of the impact it’s having on somebody else.’ This was where the blind spot… It was a real blind spot for this particular couple of people. They had no idea. They were trying to help actually, but because they were trying to help cover up someone’s mistakes they were getting so frustrated about it that their frustrations leaked in terms of their behaviour. we often leak behaviours, and we don’t know we’re doing it until someone kindly, and you are being kind by pointing it out, and then they have choices. I hope this is helpful for people to think about, particularly if you’ve got stuff going on in your team, about how you can approach that.

Just a quick question related to that we’ve had from Barbara is, how would you be able to make sure that your team would be happy to tell you about your own blind self as a manager?

This is where 360-degree feedback comes into play really well. There are tools where you can actually get people to feed back in an anonymous way if you wanted them to, or actually in the one-to-ones that you have. Every one-to-one that I’ve had when I used to manage people was to say, ‘Am I doing what I need to do to support you?’ Also, there’s some great psychometric tools, performance tools, which enables you to share what you need from them and what they need from you in terms of your support and behaviour and mindset around working together as a team. there’s lots of things that can help you to have those conversations. I would say a great manager will ask that, not necessarily within a team-together situation, but maybe in a one-to-one. Just say to somebody, ‘How can I help you?’ What I used to say to the team that I managed in a previous role was, ‘I don’t know what I don’t know unless you tell me, and until you tell me I can’t do anything about it. if you talk to me I will help you, or I will do something differently if I can.’ you don’t know what you don’t know. it’s about inviting those conversations. You know the people who you’re working with and how is best to do it. I mean, some organisations use stress risk assessments, and they have anonymous stress risk assessments if it’s something that’s causing stress for a team. I would say 360-degree feedback or some kind of psychometric team development tool that you can work with each other, or even just having those conversations in your one-to-ones with your team and saying, ‘Are you getting what you need from me as a manager? What else can I be doing to support you with this?’ Just coming in at it from that real… Showing genuine concern. I hope that answers your question.

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So, I’m just going to do a little bit about team engagement and the reason why the Gallup poll is really a good thing to do. I think really where this has even more resonance is now that we’re working hybridly. For example, Question 10, I have a best friend at work. Someone who’s new into the organisation, when you’re working in a hybrid way, you don’t always have an opportunity to make a friend at work because you don’t – your paths cross or you only tend to meet people in a virtual world. Sometimes, having somebody in work that you can say is your friend that is a trusted person you can talk to, is actually a real key enabler for people feeling like they belong.

So there’s some really interesting questions to ask. Do they know what’s expected of me? Have they got the materials and equipment? Do what I do best every day, does that happen? Have I had recognition in the last seven days? Do I feel that someone at work cares about me? Do I understand that mission and purpose of the company? Do I have opportunities to learn and grow? We don’t always have a budget for stuff like that. It’s about saying actually, what else can you do to enable somebody to learn and grow.

There’s lots of stuff you can do with people that doesn’t actually cost any money. We’ve got some great online leadership toolkits. We’ve got linked-in learning. There’s loads of things that people can access that can help them to feel they’re learning and developing that doesn’t actually cost thousands of pounds that some interventions can. So, it’s about being creative in terms of your learning and development and growth and also in terms of theirs. You can get this questionnaire, if it was something you wanted to take your team through.

So, I want to think about engagement. I’m just going to introduce these because I think it’s really about understanding that we all want engaged employees. As well as being happier, healthier and more fulfilled, they do deliver that improved performance. Sometimes, someone who’s disengaged, it’s about getting to the bottom of what’s going on for them. By showing that genuine concern and enabling to get the support that they need, they can actually become your best performer.

So, I’m just going to introduce these three behaviours and probably some of you are already thinking, ‘Oh yes, I can recognise some of these.’ So, you’ve got what we call a cheerleader. Engaged employees work with a passion. They feel that profound connection to their organisation. They drive innovation and move the organisation forward. We love a cheerleader. Think about the formation of cheerleaders. So, you’ve got the person at the top shaking their pom-poms and flying up in the air. Woo-hoo, look at me! Woo, up in the air. Underneath that, you’ve got a team of people who are actually supporting that person and chucking them up in the air. So, you will have what I call silent cheerleaders. They are still working with a passion. They are still connected to the organisation. They are still driving innovation, but they might not be shaking their pom-poms. So, think about the pom-pom shaker, not as a literal pom-pom shaker, but the ones who are all underneath in that foundation enabling that person to fly up in the air. Does that make sense?

However, we could have what we call somebody who’s sleepwalking. So, they are essentially checked out. So, they could still be doing the do, but that energy, that sparkle, that motivation, they’re just going through the motions. If you’re starting to see that in your team, what I would say is point it out to them. It could be that there’s something going on that you need to think about. Do they need some development? You might just have people who are on the tail end of their career. They just want to do what they want to do. They’re not sleepwalking, they’re just not shaking their pom-poms. So, be very careful how you assess that person because sometimes we write them off as sleepwalkers, when actually they’ve just got their heads down, they don’t want the attention as such. So, it’s seeing that balance between that.

I think the biggest problem that people can have in a team is somebody who’s what we call a vampire. They are what we call actively disengaged. Now, that means that they are actually busy acting out their unhappiness every day. These workers can actually undermine what their engaged co-workers accomplish. So, they’re what I call the apple that maybe needs to be addressed. Again, I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt. There are some people who turn into vampires because they’ve got a lot of stuff going on that they need some support with. If you get to the hub of what’s happening for that person, point out maybe their behaviour and the impact that it’s having on the team, but enable them to get the support that they need.

They’re living in what we call effect, if we think about cause and effect on those meta programmes. Give that attention to them and enable them to get what they need and actually they could become your biggest cheerleader. I’ve seen it happen. Somebody, behaviour, sat them down. Asked them what’s going on. Realised they’ve got other stuff going on at home that was impacting. They were comfortable to share some of that. Got them the help and support they needed and because I genuinely showed concern and I cared about them and I helped them to get back on track, they actually became my biggest cheerleader in terms of the team and how we wanted to perform and how we wanted to engage with what we needed to do.

So, I suppose my theory with that is don’t write off your vampire, but deal with it. One, they might not know they’re doing it and two, they might not realise the impact that it’s having on everybody else. We can all start the day with positive intent, but if somebody is there to sabotage it, we can very quickly turn into those supporters of that behaviour because they suck us into that negativity, depending on where we’re at. So, I just wanted to put that in because I think it’s something you need to be aware of. Nip it in the bud if it’s starting to happen.

Have those conversations. They might be horrified that that’s what they’re sending out. It’s about at what point does it go from can do, can’t do. With help, will do, won’t do. That’s a different conversation.

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