Fourth Client

01/07/2022

My new business associate....

19/06/2021

SEVEN TIPS FOR MANAGING PROCRASTINATORS
It’s not your job to cure procrastinators. Your job is to get them to do their jobs.
Studying procrastination used to be a terrific way to avoid doing things I was supposed to be doing. It hasn’t been as much fun for me since one of the things I supposed to be doing was writing this column on how to manage procrastinators. Rats!
One thing I learned before I was distracted from my studies is that about 20 percent of adults identify themselves as chronic procrastinators. That is, they are habitually unable to perform tasks on time, even when there are serious consequences involved. Moreover, reports DePaul University psychology professor Joseph Ferrari, author of Still Procrastinating? The No-Regrets Guide to Getting It Done, the incidence of procrastination is pretty consistent across age cohorts, gender, and nationalities. As yet, procrastination researchers have not identified any “blue zones” — Shangri-las in which people not only live longer, but also never miss a deadline.
What the researchers have identified is two kinds of procrastination: avoidance and arousal. Avoidance procrastination is fear-based; it is driven by the desire to duck a task. Arousal procrastination is thrill-based; it is driven by the desire to play chicken with deadlines. Although it’s easy to joke about procrastination, neither kind is a laughing matter for executives.
Delay Can Pay
Managing procrastinators can be an extremely frustrating experience. If one in five employees isn’t doing what they are supposed to be doing, or can’t be relied upon to meet a deadline, it can wreak havoc on planning, productivity, team performance, and anything else that depends on synchronized activity or keeping to a schedule. If employees are avoiding tasks altogether, work never gets done unless someone else does it. If they are thrill seekers, the work ends up getting short shrift and, often, does not get done on time.
So what’s a leader to do? One option is to get in the procrastinator’s face. But the only bosses who have time to listen to countless and increasingly belligerent and rococo versions of “the dog ate my homework” are probably procrastinators themselves.
About 20 percent of adults are habitually unable to perform tasks on time, even when serious consequences are involved.
Another option is to go for the TKO by firing procrastinators. But aside from the HR complications created by such a scorched-earth strategy, pursuing this path may cost the company people who are highly talented, even if they are not always reliable. In Soon, author Andrew Santella outed an impressive group of procrastinators, among them Charles Darwin, Edgar Allan Poe, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Leonardo da Vinci. Does anyone want to be the leader who will look back and remember the day he kicked Frank Lloyd Wright off the project because the plans were 10 days late?
Alternatively, I’d like to offer a few tips for managing procrastinators that are more akin to judo (“the gentle way”) than boxing. These tips have no basis in science as far as I know. Rather, they are based on purely anecdotal evidence: They have worked to keep my own strong inclination to procrastinate in check.

Know your procrastinators. If your team is booting deadlines, it’s probably not likely that everyone is at fault. Identify the member who acts as a kind of perpetual brake.
Keep deadlines short and hard. Nothing enables procrastination more effectively than a distant or a nebulous deadline. As Mark Twain said, “Do not put off until tomorrow what can be put off till the day-after-tomorrow just as well.” So, once you’ve identified us procrastinators, give us hard deadlines for our work. If the task ahead is a long-term one, break the work down into small, manageable pieces and assign deadlines for each one.
Don’t pile on the work. It sounds counterintuitive, but procrastinators can, in fact, handle lots of work. Just give it to us sequentially, with one assignment or task following another. Because if you dump several on us all at once and expect us to manage them all rationally, we are likely to find a lot of other really interesting stuff to do.
Remove distractions. Distractions, in their myriad forms, are the fuel of procrastination. Isolate procrastinators from distraction — shut off the office television, cancel the 2:00 pm ice cream break — and we’ll get our work done. If only because getting the work done allows us to get back to all the distractions we’re missing.
Impose structure and accountability. Procrastinators are always looking for camouflage, as well as excuses for not doing whatever we’re supposed to be doing. So, take away the hidey holes by making sure it’s clear who is supposed to be doing what, and by tracking accountability in the most public way possible.
Play to strength. Often, a challenge is the last thing that procrastinators want. So, when you can, assign us jobs that we know we can do. And when you can’t, explain why you’re confident that we can get the job done.
Ask for help. Procrastinators are human, too, and like most humans, we like to help other people. When you’ve got a job that absolutely, positively has to be done, ask for our help. Sometimes that’s all we’ll need to muster enough motivation to overcome our natural inertia.
In the end, the key to remember is that procrastination is a psychological glitch. Managers can’t cure it through intimidation or punishment, or make it go away through bribes and rewards. But with a judo-like approach, powered by an understanding of our counterproductive inclinations, you should be able to easily manage most of us.

29/04/2021

LEADER, KNOW THYSELF.......
To improve executive performance, thinking about thinking is a really good idea.
by Theodore Kinni

Twenty-five hundred years ago, someone inscribed Know thyself on a column at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi, where the Pythian priestesses famously uttered their prophecies. Socrates, whom one priestess pegged as the wisest man in the ancient world, discussed the maxim with his pupils Xenophon and Plato, creating the foundation for its modern meaning as an exhortation to be self-aware (versus an admonition to subordinate ourselves to the gods). And today, self-awareness — or metacognition, as psychologists and neuroscientists call it — is just as relevant, especially for leaders.

Cover art for Stephen M. Fleming's Know Thyself: The Science of Self-Awareness

Metacognition, explains Stephen M. Fleming, principal investigator at the Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, University College London, and author of Know Thyself: The Science of Self-Awareness, is “our mind’s ability to reflect on, think about, and know things about itself, including how it remembers, perceives, decides, thinks, and feels.” Literally, it is your ability to think about your own thinking.

This ability is built into the circuitry of our brains and based on two processes — one that is often unconscious and estimates uncertainty and another that is usually conscious and monitors our internal state and actions. Fleming likens the way this implicit and explicit metacognition work together to the interaction of the autopilot system and the pilot on a plane. The autopilot monitors and adjusts the actions of the plane, and the pilot monitors and adjusts the actions of the autopilot, he explains, “except now the interaction is all taking place within a single brain.”

Oddly, although our brains are equipped for metacognition, we are not particularly good at being self-aware. “There are three Things extremely hard, Steel, a Diamond, and to know one’s self,” wrote Benjamin Franklin in the 1750 edition of Poor Richard’s Almanack. If it were easier, the Wikipedia page that lists nearly 200 cognitive biases might be considerably shorter, and Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman might not have needed to issue this warning in his book Thinking, Fast and Slow: “Our comforting conviction that the world makes sense rests on a secure foundation: our almost unlimited ability to ignore our ignorance.”

Many studies have connected metacognitive ability to leadership performance. It is linked to creative problem-solving, decision-making, critical thinking, and learning. To see why, consider the yawning strategic, organizational, and career pitfalls that can open when leaders ignore their ignorance regarding competitors, customers, and cultures, among other things.

‘There are three Things extremely hard, Steel, a Diamond, and to know one’s self,’ wrote Benjamin Franklin in Poor Richard’s Almanack.

Harvard Business School professor David Fubini describes a common source of peril in his book Hidden Truths: What Leaders Need to Hear but Are Rarely Told: the many CEOs who mistime their own departures and get fired by their boards. You might think that executives who are savvy enough to reach the top of the pyramid would have a very sophisticated and objective understanding of their position and place. But, as Fubini writes, “the system is far more critical of CEOs than they believe it to be.” Why? He points to cognitive blinders such as ego, denial, optimism, and hubristic pride.

One way to avoid pitfalls like this is to hone your metacognitive ability. Here are three ways to start.

Stand outside yourself and consider what you see. Try writing down what you are thinking to make your thoughts and thought processes more tangible, as in journaling. You can also try mindfulness meditation, which involves paying attention to your thoughts and emotions in the moment. “A simple and powerful way to improve self-awareness is to take a third-person perspective on ourselves,” writes Fleming.

Another avenue to improved self-awareness is to observe how other people respond to you — it’s a fast way to see if you are communicating as effectively as you think you are. Fubini told me that he advises CEOs to become keen observers of their impact on others. “Notice how they are acting,” he said. “How deferential are they? Are they leaning forward or sitting back? Do they pick up a pen and start taking notes?”

You might also try to enlist an objective observer or two. It can be hard for leaders to find people who are willing to tell it straight, but Fubini thinks it’s essential. “You’re not going to get direct, objective feedback from peers and board members, who are likely to pull their punches,” he said. “Look to a mentor or a coach, develop a kitchen cabinet [an informal group of trusted advisors], or ask your spouse or kids for feedback — sometimes you get the best insights at home.”

The goal of all this self-assessment is greater self-awareness. Self-awareness is a key ingredient of traits that leaders need, such as emotional intelligence, radical candor, and empathy. It is also a prerequisite of learning: If leaders can’t reflect on what they expect and compare it with the outcomes they receive, there is no basis for improvement. Leaders need to know themselves before they can know anything else.

29/04/2021

THE FOUR Fs OF EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE

These simple principles, based on the empathetic, iterative practice of design thinking, can help you help your people perform to their fullest potential.

Form: Be clear. Employees can’t do their jobs well if they don’t understand what is being asked of them, the purpose of the work, or how they should prioritize their tasks. A firm we advised recently had received feedback from staff that the online training module for a new marketing curriculum it had developed was hard to follow and a bad experience overall. To address the problem, the company’s user experience team worked with PwC and a leading software firm to reimagine the employee learning interface. The team put the user at the heart of the design, simplifying the presentation to make the training tasks straightforward and grouping like content together. They used descriptive prompts to clarify any vague materials or instructions. And they used position, scale, and sequence to convey the digital content that users should prioritize. Anything extraneous was removed — white space was left white.

Flow: Keep it moving. Once an employee dives into a task, a sense of satisfying productivity should set in. Ensuring that your people have that experience, though, requires the ability to put yourself in their shoes and create a sense of flow within your systems. Designing these sorts of experiences can start with employees’ very first interactions with a company. A firm we work with designed its internal onboarding tool with this principle of flow in mind. The tool helps users track their progress, and it also allows users to skip any training sections they can already demonstrate proficiency in. The design team made sure to minimize the number of user actions required to progress through the tool, reducing the volume of clicks, taps, and next buttons. Companies can also enable autofill for commonly entered data fields or design systems that allow users to review and correct errors without having to start over.

Feeling: Make it pleasing. Ask yourself what it would take for employee experience to be a delight — for example, through gamified training modules or KPIs. We work with a leading technology firm that asked itself this very question and developed its tools for surveying employees accordingly, designing them to be simple and intuitive, satisfying, and not frustrating. The firm used layman’s terms and an appealing tone of voice in written content such as instructions, explanations, and requests. It avoided jargon. And it invested in interesting, stimulating visual interactions rather than ones that were bland and text-heavy — the new experience was less like a spreadsheet assignment to be endured and more of an opportunity to engage.
Function: Don’t neglect the foundations. Ultimately, employees have a right to expect that “it just works,” whether “it” is their human resources self-service portal, their expense management system, or their system interoperability. It’s also critical that user experience be accessible to all, including employees with any type of disability. One of our clients worked with its vendors to build experiences that were optimized for employees with accessibility needs and that could function seamlessly across multiple locations and devices. The solutions allowed the user to pick a task right back up when on the go or switching devices — whether it was through a company or personal smartphone, a VPN connection, or office computer.

Delivering on these Four Fs will set your company up to improve productivity and deliver powerful outcomes. But when it comes to EX, you can’t just set it and forget it. You need to build a way for employees to give robust and ongoing feedback. And with that experiential data, along with operational data, you can then adopt a methodology that we call return on experience (ROX) to leverage insights for continuous improvement and measure the impact of your EX work on value creation and realization. This system of action can be the catalyst to more agile ways of working, too, as it unlocks not only productivity but agility.

It’s time for a step change in what we ask of our teams and colleagues, and in how we respect their time and attention. The Four Fs present a new way to build employee experiences that go far further than satisfying functional or administrative needs; they help to engender a sense of community, responsibility, and pride.

18/02/2021

The Art of Negotiating

Negotiating is a part of everyday life, but in business it's absolutely critical to your success. Poor negotiation can cripple a company just as quickly as losing key customers. While most negotiating strategies seem like common sense, it's not uncommon for people to get caught up in the emotion of the moment and ignore their basic instincts. Emotion, luck and magic have no place in a successful negotiation. It takes an iron gut, homework, street smarts and unblinking discipline. These keys will unlock your ability to get the best deal possible under any circumstances.

While experienced negotiators sometimes refer to their methods as the "negotiating game," it's really a misnomer for a process in which the stakes are often extremely high. Check your ego at the door and keep your eye on the big picture at all times. This is all about business.

Preparation is Key
Know about the party you're negotiating with so you can capitalize on your strengths and the party's weaknesses. If the other party is very experienced, that means he also has a history that could contain useful information. If possible, talk to business associates who have dealt with this person before. Many negotiators develop patterns and certain styles that you may be able to use to your advantage.

If you are a buyer, make sure you are thoroughly familiar with the product or service that will be the subject of the negotiation. If the other party senses you are weak on such details, you may be a prime target for a bluff or another technique designed to create anxiety and uncertainty. Psychology plays a crucial role in your ability to make the most of the other party's lack of preparation and anticipate their next move.

Most negotiators have a price target or goal in mind before they start. It should be based on realistic expectations considering all the constraints that will undoubtedly surface. These may include budget limits, direction from management, pressure to make sales goals, and a myriad of other external forces. During the course of the negotiation, the goal may change based on changes in scope and other unforeseen actions by either party. While your ultimate goal should be realistic, this should not constrain your first offer or counteroffer.

Before you start the negotiation, ensure that the other party is fully empowered to make binding commitments. You don't want to find yourself in a position where you believe you've struck a deal, only to discover that your agreement must be approved by someone higher in the chain of command.
Have a Strategy
There are basic principles that apply to every negotiation. The first offer is usually the most important and the benchmark by which all subsequent offers will be judged and compared. You'll never get what you don't ask for, so make your first offer bold and aggressive. The asking price is just that, and will typically include a pad or margin to give away during negotiations. You want to take all of that and hopefully more, so start lower than the seller expects. Don't worry about insulting the other party. As long as your offer is not ridiculous, the other side will continue the negotiations in hopes of settling at a better number.

As a buyer, do not disclose your budget or other limitations in your negotiating position. A favorite ploy of salesmen is to reshuffle the product specifications, schedule and other parameters in order to sell you an inferior product to fit your budget. You want the best product you can get for the money you have to spend, so employ an approach that maintains the possibility of spending less than you had originally planned.

Always have something to give away without hurting your negotiating position. If you're submitting a price proposal to a buyer, consider inserting decoys and red herrings for the other party to find. For example, if you are bidding a project, consider including some nice-to-have items that aren't critical to the success of the project. You could also include spare parts that may or may not be needed in the end. If the buyer takes those items out to reduce the overall cost, you haven't lost anything but it may help the buyer reach his price target. Such distractions will help to divert the other party from attacking the meat of your proposal. Employing this strategy must be viewed in the context and in consideration of what other bidders may be doing. If you know that the only way to win the bid is to provide a barebones cost, then this strategy may not be appropriate.

Watch for clues such as body movement, speech patterns and reactions to what you say. Be prepared to suspend or cancel negotiations if you feel things are getting nowhere or the other party seems stuck in their position. Indicate your reluctance to continue under those conditions and make the other side wonder if you are ever coming back. If they are on the hook to cut a deal, they will feel the pressure to move. Be patient even if the other party isn't. This can be difficult for those with a passion for instant gratification, but the last thing you want is for the other party to think you're under the gun to finish quickly.

From a contractual standpoint, a counteroffer automatically rejects all previous offers. Once an offer is made, you should expect an acceptance or rejection of your offer, or a counteroffer that keeps the negotiation open. If your offer is rejected and you are asked to submit a new and better offer, do not fall into that trap. That would be tantamount to negotiating with yourself, and you should never do this. If the last offer on the table is yours, always insist on a counteroffer to force the other party to move his/her position before you make another offer.

Find the Leverage
In addition to exploiting the other party's weaknesses, concentrate on taking maximum advantage of your strengths. If you're the only source available for a particular product, you have tremendous leverage across the board. If economic conditions have created a market in which the product you're selling is in great demand and low supply, that gives you more bargaining power to name your price. If you are the buyer in a depressed economy, you normally have the advantage of too much supply and lower demand. The current housing situation is a classic example of what happens when supply vastly outweighs the demand and market prices fall dramatically.

Establish a strong foundation early in the process by demonstrating your knowledge and expertise of the negotiation subject matter. This may intimidate those on the other side and put them on their heels before they've a chance to establish their own credibility. Playing catch-up in a tough negotiation can be challenging, so it's much better to take the initiative and steer the process in the direction you want.

The Offer
An offer is more than just a dollar amount. It must encompass all of the elements of the bargain and will normally comprise the basis for a contract that formalizes the agreement. If you make an offer without nailing down all of the specifics, you may find out later that there was no meeting of the minds with the other party. The basis of the bargain should include: offer price (in proper denomination), statement of work (scope), identification and quantities of goods or services, delivery schedule, performance incentives (if any), express warranties (if any), terms and conditions, and any documents incorporated by reference.

Trading one element for another--such as a lower price for a more relaxed schedule--is a common tactic. These bargaining chips should be kept in your hip pocket until you need them to close the deal and get the price you want. While your primary focus is normally on price, you should always keep all the other components of the deal in the forefront of your mind. Don't be pressured into accepting boilerplate contracts represented as the "standard of the industry" or something that "we always use." Everything, including the fine print, is open to change. If the other party refuses to alter onerous terms, consider taking your business elsewhere.

To avoid misunderstandings, offers should be presented in writing and include all elements of the bargain. It's a good idea to keep notes containing the rationale for each offer. While these notes won't be disclosed to the other party, they will prove to be invaluable should things go awry and you need to restart negotiations. Part of the process is benefiting from lessons learned and refining your approach and technique. If you work for a company or the government, those notes are usually required to document the negotiated outcome and complete the contract file.

Go For a Win-Win Solution
Throughout the negotiation, try to determine what you believe to be an acceptable outcome for the other party. It may be a combination of different things that aren't necessarily tied solely to price. For example, the delivery date may be the most important thing to the other party, while product quality may be your primary driver.

Understanding the other side's priorities is just as important as understanding your own, so figure out what you would do if you were in his shoes. When constructing your offers, attempt to satisfy some of his priorities if doing so doesn't weaken your overall position. Be prepared to give up the little things in exchange for the big things you don't want to concede. Know your limits and how far you're willing to go on all aspects of the deal.

While you have the power to influence the negotiation process in your favor, your goal should be to secure a good deal without extracting the last pound of flesh from the other party. This is especially true if you will be negotiating with the same party on a recurring basis. The most effective negotiators are professionals who know their business and don't let personalities and irrational behavior interfere with their mission. They are capable of making the other party believe they got the best deal they could under the circumstances.

Once the negotiation is completed, you want to be able to work effectively with those in the other party during contract performance. If they are threatened and pounded into submission, they probably won't negotiate with you again, possibly cutting off any future business. While heated confrontation is a common occurrence during negotiations, at some point collaboration and compromise are needed to get a deal.

Closing the Deal
Successful negotiation is like horse-trading in that it requires a sense of timing, creativity, keen awareness and the ability to anticipate the other party's next move. Negotiation is also like chess in that each move should be designed to set up not only your next move, but several moves down the line. Generally, your moves should get progressively smaller, and you can expect the same from the other party.

Always have the endgame in mind as you plot your strategy, and be prepared at some point to split the remaining difference. It's almost inevitable when the parties are close but can't seem to make that last leap to a single number. It's completely arbitrary, but it gets the job done. That's why all the offers leading up to that point are so important: they will set the stage for the final handshake.

17/02/2021

Adjusting your expectations is healthy.

17/02/2021

Only 8% of leaders do it.

30/01/2021

30/09/2020

How Great Managers Motivate Their Employees at Work

The reality, when you talk about how to motivate employees, is that they're already motivated. As a manager, you're charged with figuring out how to tap into that motivation to accomplish work goals. Fortunately, you control the key environmental factors that are necessary to achieve this.
Environmental Factors Under the Manager's Control
The most significant factor under your control is your relationship with each employee. This is the most significant factor managers control. The second-most important factor is a work environment and organizational culture that fosters employee motivation and engagement.
They receive frequent communication, are regarded with respect and treated with civility, and have input to every facet of the work they're hired to produce. They're also encouraged to speak up about what they believe when participating in solving a problem for a customer. And the organization trusts them with its most significant and critical financial information so they're not blindsided by business problems.These are factors that help produce a work environment in which employees choose to be motivated to accomplish the requirements of their work. Nothing is more powerful than a group of contributing, motivated employees.
@ 7 Ways Managers Can Motivate Employees—Today
No workplace will ever give managers the perfect work environment and culture to support their efforts toward fostering employee motivation. But you can create an environment that motivates your employees and increases their level of satisfaction by taking seven key steps, such as providing them with opportunities to grow their knowledge and skills and giving them all the information they need to do their jobs effectively.
Management Matters Most in Motivation
The most important emotion that employees bring to work is motivation, according to Jon Gordon, author of "Soup: A Recipe to Nourish Your Team and Culture." Although some managers want to zap emotion from the workplace altogether, Gordon argues that this is a mistake and shares his wisdom on how to plug into your employees' inherent motivation during challenging times by cultivating your relationships with them, creating a climate of trust, expecting only the best from your team, and more.
You Can Make Their Day:
Increase workplace motivation and morale by understanding that as your employees' manager, you're their passport to a boom or bust day. Words matter, but there's much more you can do to help employees get a handle on motivation and high morale, including setting high standards and clear expectations, focusing on their personal and professional development, and starting every day with a smile and a luminous attitude.

28/09/2020

Coaching & Mentoring
Effective managers and leaders create high performing teams and organisations and our experienced team can provide solutions to all types of coaching assignments. We offer all types of coaching including Performance, Career, First 100 Day Support, Sales, Project and Operational.
We can deliver a coaching assignment that fits into your schedule.We conduct effective and productive coaching with individuals, groups or teams.
We always start by getting to know you, establishing ground rules and objectives and ensuring the right coach.
We explore your ‘as-is’ situation, understanding what you have tried already
We will discuss, explore and agree your vision of what and how your future might be
We develop fresh options and help you build a priorities plan
We will identify any best practices / principles that might help and discuss how they might help you
We will help you adapt to change and test progress