“Mediation, conflict resolution and coaching”

Geoff Roberts change

“Mediation, conflict resolution and coaching”

If you are interested in coaching, especially meeting other local coaches and developing your practice, why not come along to the next meeting of the EMCC Yorkshire Network at the Metier Centre, Albion Place, Leeds on Tuesday 6 December from 17:15 until ca 20:00.

This month’s topic is “Mediation, conflict resolution and coaching” is facilitated by Jean Claude Barjolin

The session will:

– highlight the structure and principles of mediation
– explore some conflict and negotiation models
– identify how you refocus people on what they want, reality test
– using a coaching structure, process and time limits to positive use
– look at conflicts of relationship and of quantitative/distributional nature
– creating safety and neurology principles

Jean-Claude has over 20 years experience in facilitation and development work in the public and private sectors. He is an accredited mediator conducting workplace and commercial mediation, coach and facilitator with a focus on performance, collaboration and conflict resolution.

Fear of Failure

Geoff Roberts change, choice, opportunity, Risk

fear of failureOften, when coaching clients, I come across those with great ideas who just do not put them into action. Now there can be all sorts of reasons for this, and what I want to explore today is a very common one – Fear of Failure.
If the status quo is OK, there can be a sense of “well, if I try and fail then I will be worse off than now”, or “if it goes wrong then I will get the blame”, or “maybe a better idea will come along…”. All of these make sense to the client and lead to inaction. But inaction also eliminates the possibility of success.

 

It’s a vicious cycle:

“I fear the possibility of failure…

…that fear leads to inaction…

…which totally eliminates the possibility of success.”

There are times when it’s necessary to just bite the bullet and take some action – my experience is that more often than not all works out well. And even when it doesn’t “There is no failure, only feedback” and I get the chance to learn something.

Go on, make that dream happen – take a small step today.

 

Should Sepp Blatter resign?

Geoff Roberts change, choice

The recent fuss over Sepp Blatter’s comments on racism raises, for me, the interesting point about the circumstances in which resignation should follow a cock-up.

He has argued that “When you are faced with a problem you have to face the problem. To leave would be totally unfair and not compatible with my fighting spirit, my character, my energy” and I agree that leaders need to be allowed to learn as much as the rest of us, but under what circumstances is a leader’s behaviour so out of line with expectations that it is no longer appropriate for them to lead (and, of course, represent) an organisation?

…and at what point does a series of incidents, each of which does not perhaps meet the ‘resign now’ criteria, suggest that you have the wrong person?

DIscuss…

The facilitation hamburger

Geoff Roberts change, flexibility, focus

A recent article I was reading referred to the ‘additional roles of a facilitator’ – definitely Advanced Level stuff, so here we go with the O-Level version.

I like to think of working in a team as a bit like a hamburger, there are three aspects of teamwork that need attention:

  1. The Task – the ‘what’ of the work. What is the deliverable/outcome? The hard end-point of the work.
  2. The Process – the ‘how’. How are you going to get the job done?
  3. The People – the ‘who’. Who needs to be involved? How do I keep them involved?

The task leader – the person who is responsible for delivery of the task – needs to keep as much of their attention as possible on getting the job done, so having to devise and keep track of the Process and the People issues is a distraction from ‘doing the job’. Nonetheless they are both essential and this is where the role of Facilitator comes in.

A good facilitator can help the Task leader by working with them to devise a suitable process and then keep the team on track; they can help by watching the people and helping everyone to contribute. The facilitator can concentrate exclusively on these ‘non-task’ aspects of team performance and help deliver outstanding performance. Now one interesting ‘side-effect’ of this division of labour is that the facilitator does not need to know anything about the content of the task, indeed there is a risk that a facilitator who does havecontent knowledge can get sucked into the task and neglect thier primary duties on the Process and People aspects of performance.

So next time you have a challenging task that needs a process to be invented and a new team – that’s the ideal situation to employ a process facilitator, they will add huge value and you will soon learn just how effective facilitation can add to your team performance.

One day at a time

Geoff Roberts change, choice, flexibility, focus

One day at a timeDo some of your goals sometimes seem a bit too challenging, a bit  too long-term or a bit too much to take on? Do you find it hard to make and maintain the committment necessary?

Well, I came a cross a suggestion that I found helpful – take it one day at a time. Now just a minute, isn’t that what is always advised? well, what I heard was a slightly different take.

The suggestion was to commit to your goal, or more accurately the action needed to achieve it, one day at a time. When you wake up, promise to yourself that you will eat only healthy food, run for 30 minutes, contact one new potential customer, whatever…today. If you miss it, you miss it, get on with life and re-make that commitment again tomorrow when maybe you will be more successful.Yoou will probably hit your action more often than not, each step still moving you forward, but without the weight of months or years of effort in your head weighing you down.

I find it easier to do something one day at a time than ‘for ever’. Maybe you will too.

Institutionalise new approaches – embed your learning

Geoff Roberts change

Institutionalise your gainsSo here we are on Kotter’s eighth step “Institutionalise the new approaches”. What does he mean by this?

Well, your “As Was”  organisation had structures, personnel practices, reward and recognition systems and lots of other processes and systems that were designed for the old world. Unless these are changed there is likely to be a tendency to regress and to slip back into the old ways.

The last part of this phase of your change program must be to ensure that the support processes in your organisation reinforce the new ways of doing things and work against the old ways of doing things. Continue to articulate the benefits of the new status quo and work relentlessly to embed new habits throughout the organisation.

Remember those people who were critical in helping move you forward? Make sure that their commitment and drive is rewarded, after all, they are the very people that you may need to your next significant organisational change.

Nobody ever said that change was easy, at least nobody who was ever involved in it said so. But having John Kotter’s eight steps in mind you stand a much better chance of being effective in your change program, but always remember that there are a planning tool not a tool for producing a plan. Good luck in all your efforts and watch out for the next series on change leadership.

Consolidate your gains – complete the jigsaw

Geoff Roberts change

Consolidate changes - complete the jigsawYou’re on your way, the benefits of the change are becoming visible, so now is the time to planning yet more change!

Remember that earlier when I said “Do what you can, where you can, when you can”? Now is the time to look for what else you can change, where else you can change and when else you can change it.

The increased credibility of the change program allows you to look at systems, structures and policies that don’t fit the vision; to hire, promote and develop employees who can implement the vision and to reinvigorate the process with new projects, new areas for improvements and new change agents. You are building the momentum and extending your influence to different areas of the organisation.

My only word of caution is to be avoid trying to do too much too soon. Now, there is no known algorithm for establishing how much you can do and so you need to be listening to the rumblings at ground level-are they welcoming these new initiatives as complementary to what is already happening or is resistance building rather than reducing? Always remember that you need to be able to explain how your latest initiative is just another part of the big jigsaw represented by the vision. You started with the pieces that were easy to connect together, you are now starting to fill in the gaps and make sure that the parts of the jigsaw being worked on by different people connect together efficiently.

Quick wins are key

Geoff Roberts change

Quick wins are criticalSo, your great vision is underway. You have your sense of urgency, your guiding coalition, your compelling vision, you have communicated and empowered your people and all you have to do is sit back and wait for the results. Wrong! The big challenge now is to keep the motivation going.

Kotter’s sixth step is to “plan for and create short-term wins”. You need to be both actively planning quick wins and actively looking out for opportunities to praise and reward those involved for the progress that is being made. I might even suggest that, without going too far over the top, you temporarily lower the bar as to what is praisable.

These quick wins, or more accurately the public reward and recognition of the quick wins, will not only made motivate the individuals responsible for them but sends signals that progress is being made and will be rewarded. Make sure that you plan in celebrations at key milestones and always remember that the cost of a few bottles of champagne, cream cakes or whatever is nothing compared to the gains from your overall change programme. I recall, about 20 years ago, on completion of a software upgrade for a laboratory management system that I bought the project lead a bottle of champagne. That might not sound like very much (although it was unheard of in the organisation at the time) but I know that it created a huge buzz round the IT department and believe it or not still gets mentioned occasionally. A bottle of champagne that perhaps cost the equivalent of one hours work had an impact lasting many years-now that is what I call return on investment.

Empower your people

Geoff Roberts change

Empower your peopleI once had a client complain to me that “I have told my people they are empowered, yet they still don’t get on and do things.” Of course the heart of the problem lay in the very way he expressed himself – “I told…” with its implicit hierarchical power.

I cannot empower anyone, all I can do is create an environment in which people will feel able to make their own decisions and to coach and support my people in ways that encourage them to take hold of the reins themselves rather than be constantly looking upwards for direction.

Many organisations, no, let me correct that – many bosses – see Kotter’s fifth step “Empower others to act on the vision” as the most challenging. This is the step which requires them to hand over their carefully crafted vision to the workforce who can take action to deliver it. Change it. Leadership is no field for control freaks.

A significant part of the work in this step is to remove the controls that kept the organisation in its prior status quo because these will get in the way of change and progress. Just think of a lorry facing downhill with a couple of wooden chocks under its wheels to stop it actually rolling. What is the easier way to get it rolling downhill, get lots of people at the back and push it over the chocks or get one person to quickly kick the chocks out of the way?

This is a time to encourage risk-taking, to promote experiments and non-traditional ideas and activities. It is a time for truly open dialogue about the vision and how it might be achieved-remember that the key skill in dialogue is listening, not speaking. It is a time to lead, not manage, a time to encourage your people by praising them for trying and failing (there is no failure, only feedback) as well as for their successes.

Essentially, you need to set the direction get out of people’s way.

Managing change according to Kotter (or Geoff!)

Geoff Roberts change

Kotter's 8 Steps according to GeoffLast week we explored the first four of Kotter’s eight steps for managing change effectively:

  1. Establish a sense of urgency.
  2. Former powerful guiding coalition.
  3. Create a vision
  4. Communicate a vision

For the rest of this week if I want to explore the remaining four steps:

5. Empower others to act on the vision
6. Plan and create short-term wins.
7. Consolidate improvements.
8. Institutionalise new approaches.

However, before I do that I want to go back to a comment I made in the opening blog of this series relating to the non-linear reality of change in leadership. I stated, and I stand by that statement, that most change models are false in that they imply that you started a point A, go to point B, then point C etc before eventually arriving at your destination. Anyone who has experienced change in the real world, as compared to the world of academics and theoreticians, recognises that the situation is somewhat different.

Just look at last week’s four steps-might it just me that someone has a vision for change before getting together their guiding coalition? Or perhaps an initial guiding coalition (often one or two directors or maybe even the whole board) just senses a need for change and set out to create the sense of urgency and burning platform upon which subsequent action will be based? So when you look at change in your organisation, always remember my guiding principles

  • “Do what you can, where you can, when you can”
  • “Light fires in the business and tend or douse them, as appropriate”
  • “Be prepared for changes of course-the planning is more important than the plan.”

So tomorrow we will explore the oft misunderstood field of empowerment and what we have to do to get people on board and working towards the new vision.