Clearworth

17/08/2025

Thanks for clearing that one up, Joe...I was getting tired of the "rabbits out of hats' jokes.

15/08/2025

Thanks Joe - I appreciate your support, even with the non-existent live animals. If you want to get more of what you want, come out of your burrow and message me

14/08/2025

Near Scotland, eh? Well he got the right island anyway...and there's a lot to learn if he's up for it. What about you? Think you know it all?

27/05/2025

New Leaders - Your Thinking Please
I'm working on the design of modules, workshops and programmes (all online) for new leaders. For me, that means, primarily, people who are newly promoted or find themselves in leadership positions. 'New' probably means in the last 6-12 months.

My focus is always on the interpersonal aspects of leadership, what being in a leadership role entails, and the skills required for success and growth in that role.

My bias is always towards servant leadership, so I am interested in how leaders can best serve their people.

I'm interested in hearing from coaches who have noticed particular themes when working with new leaders. I'm also, of course, curious to hear from real leaders with real-life experiences. Having worked with hundreds of you in your earlier careers on development programmes in places like Elsevier, Shell, Pfizer, EDF Energy and Diageo, I'm interested in knowing what your most important lessons have been.

What topics do you consider priorities to help new leaders navigate the challenges of their new role?

26/05/2025

Six fundamental questions for new leaders are the key to shaping and developing their leadership style, focus and energy. The first is:
‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ The title of a successful TV series looking at celebrities and their ancestry. It can also be said almost as a threat, at least a challenge, and no doubt said to a few of us when we forgot to be polite or grateful to our older relatives!

For new leaders, that’s people newly into a leadership position or an experienced person taking up a new role, it’s a genuine reflective question – although two extra words perhaps make it even better – but more of that later.

In my leadership programmes, we always start with the Johari window, which has been adapted from its original form. The four windows are great conversation or thought starters for learning and coaching. As a reminder, it has two axes of Self and Others, each divided into Known and Unknown, which gives the four boxes or windows:

Public – The version of you that people see and recognise on a regular basis. I like to remind people in leadership positions that the price of leadership includes having a larger window than most – more on show and available for inspection. They can’t follow you if they don’t know you to some extent

Blind Spots – Unknown to you and only discovered by getting feedback (which reduces the size of the window by moving the axis to the right). The version of you that others recognise, and you may not. Your mannerisms, your habitual reactions, your singing voice, your accent – even your appearance. How many of us have been shocked by our image on video?

Private – The place where your hopes and fears, dreams and dreads live. The bits you don’t normally share with strangers. A private space is perfectly healthy, but again, the expectations of leadership are that thoughts and values are shared more than most. That’s scary but necessary. Disclosure directly affects this window – you sharing your thinking, beliefs, concerns, and doubts. You as a vulnerable human being, not a superhero.

Mystery – Does it even exist? Unknown to you and to others. This is your undiscovered potential. The things even you didn’t know about – skills, interests, abilities, strengths – all waiting to be discovered. That, for us, is what leadership development is all about. The two learning forces of feedback and disclosure are the key to these discoveries.

Those other two words? ‘To them. ’ The most important aspect of leadership is “Who Do You Think You Are To Them?” – Do you know what they expect of you? Are you willing to accept the challenge? Can you handle the spotlight that will fall on you when they don’t know what to do? In a way, it doesn’t matter who you think you are – only what they think you are…and you’ll only find that out by opening yourself to those two forces of Feedback and Disclosure – the dual paths of personal and professional development.

30/04/2025

Keeping the lines of communication open during negotiations is vital to your being able to have a positive impact and be influential so that the final outcomes are both wise and fit with what you want. But you, of course, are not the only one in the conversation – that’s why you’re in negotiation. It takes at least two; the starting point is some kind of difference in expectations, thinking, and understanding or desired end results.

The endpoint, or resolution, is where an outcome is reached that all sides can live with. There may be a level of compromise (perhaps on all sides) so that this outcome can be achieved, or new realisations may mean a more creative resolution is achieved.

Preferences play an essential role in how much compromise is likely or possible. So you must explore these as you continue in the converging part of the negotiations, where you have started moving towards resolution. In Dr Richard Hale’s Hale Circle of Influence™, the “Preferences” section of the map is about checking how possibilities fit with the other person’s thinking so that proposals are accepted.

When teaching or coaching influencers, negotiators, and leaders about how to have more impact and influence, I encourage them to frequently shift their thinking and check out how things look both from the other person’s perspective and as a detached observer. This discipline is vital if you are not to become over-attached to your own position and lose the ability to explore options, alternatives, and new areas.

Preferences are essentially about “wins” which are not the same as “results”. In such works as Miller Heimann’s “The New Strategic Selling” the distinction is clear. Wins are personal, not organisational, subjective rather than objective and may be irrational, not rational – what the other person wants, not necessarily what the organisation needs. Maslow and others talked about human motivation, such as recognition, status and belonging, which fall into this category. You may have a great technical solution to the organisation’s problem – but if it makes the other person lose status or look like they’re losing, then it’s unlikely to happen.

It could be as simple as allowing them to make the presentation to the next level (that makes them look good in front of their bosses) or (as has happened to me more than once in my training business) letting the organisation badge my work with their logo so it looks like the HR Director came up with the idea, not me. The trick to pull off is finding something that doesn’t mean too much to you but means a lot more to them.

So, at this stage, you are tuning in to what they like or dislike as much, if not more, than what the logical conclusion might be. Think about people and cars – you’ll see that it’s more than logic that sells transport. Your solution needs to be palatable to their preferences as well as technically sound.

15/04/2025

Victor Frankl’s quite beautifully sums up what I teach to professional negotiators. In that space is your power, your influence your opportunity to take control. Don’t waste it by filling it with words.

Life constantly throws things our way, challenges, frustrations, unexpected moments. But between what happens to us and how we react, there is a space. A pause. A moment where we get to choose.

That space is where our power lies. It’s where we decide whether to react out of habit or respond with intention. It’s where growth happens, where healing begins, and where we step into the kind of freedom that only comes from self-awareness.

I’m learning to lean into that space more, to take a breath before reacting, to recognise that I don’t have to be ruled by emotions in the moment. Some days I get it right, some days I don’t. But the more I practice, the more I see the freedom in choosing rather than just reacting 🩷

Thanks Victor Frankl for the inspiration x

06/04/2025

The best negotiators ask many more questions. But just because it's got a question mark at the end doesn't make it a question.

"Why don't we....?" is you making a proposal not asking a question

05/04/2025

Every day you negotiate. In the office or at home. With work colleagues, kids, partners, parents. Suppose you could get more of what you want more of the time without damaging relationships. Give yourself an almost unfair advantage by using this roadmap based on the best negotiators and influencers' skills, habits and processes. Click on the link in the comments for your free copy

28/03/2025

If there is one behaviour that I value above all others in negotiating, influencing, and building relationships, it is Summarising. Research shows that the best and most successful influencers and negotiators summarise twice as much as less successful practitioners.

Behavioural Intelligence means making conscious decisions about your next behaviour and not being ruled by your impulses, instincts or emotional reactions. This is the discipline and skill of the professional influencer or negotiator.

26/03/2025

Behavioural Intelligence is an essential tool for managers, leaders, facilitators and negotiators. It is, quite literally, the embodiment of Emotional Intelligence. What you say or do (that’s behaviour) is actually much more important than what you think or feel.

Behavioural Intelligence is an essential tool for managers, leaders, facilitators and negotiators. It is, quite literally, the embodiment of Emotional Intelligence.

25/03/2025

Your elevator pitch or PowerPoint presentation is completely the wrong place to start the negotiation. Smart negotiations start with questions and understanding the other side.