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Sticky Learning Lunches #52: The Leadership Upgrade #2
Today’s topic, The Leadership Upgrade part 2. “Worried if you change you won’t know what to expect? Part #2 of the Unique Leadership Coaching model ‘EVOC’ Obstacles, If you always did what you’ve always done. You’ll always get what you always got. Get prepared, get aware and plan for a better future.
You Can Read the Full Transcript Below:
Nathan Simmonds:
Good afternoon. Let’s get this screen up there. Good afternoon. Welcome to today Sticky Learning Lunches. Just as always, given the last few seconds for people to arrive in the room for today’s conversation. Cameron, good. See you. Thank you Colin. Darren, amazing for being here. As always, Fabian, always pleasure. Howard. Thank you very much. Ivy Mar Martin. Sorry, Matt Mohamed. Tim Victoria. Hello alone. I was gonna go for a different colored shirt today, but we had a minor wardrobe malfunction before four inch shirt.
Nathan Simmonds:
I know Martin, I’m sorry, I apologize. Wardrobe malfunction. I dunno what tomorrow’s gonna look like, but we’ll see what we can work out. CLA says, looking sharp. Yeah, I know, but we need to change things up. We need to keep things fresh. Last mouthful of tea, last few people arriving. So just as we’re doing this, let’s make sure we’re setting ourselves up for success today. As always, first things first, mobile phones. Let’s get those little airplanes lit up. Zero out the distraction. A hundred percent attention on what we’re gonna be covering today,
Nathan Simmonds:
Following on directly from yesterday. Before we even go into the, the crux of what we’re gonna be covering today. The key points we talked about yesterday. Actually, no, let me come back to that in a minute. You said we did okay. We talked about this yesterday in brief. You know, you said we ignored is the normal thing that we see in a lot of large organizations when we’re looking to take on feedback and we’re doing that self-evaluation.
Nathan Simmonds:
Often when we are doing these 360 feedbacks or these company surveys, we know there’s quite a lot of information and we don’t always feel like we’re getting hurt. What we took on board yesterday, there was a lot of stuff that came up about feedback yesterday and about how to deliver feedback and how to give feedback to members of the management team and leadership team above you and how to give that feedback to your peers and in your teams.
Nathan Simmonds:
So the first thing that we did when we left that conversation, that call yesterday, is we have created a four part training session on how to deliver feedback that will be starting on July the 13th. I have just put the link in there for the future sticky learnings. So you can go straight in there first thing and make sure that you are booked in for tomorrow’s section if you’re not already.
Nathan Simmonds:
The other part is that in, you know, starting on July the 13th after we’ve done the HBDI profiles, the Herman profiles with Andy, again, we’re gonna go into four sessions about how to deliver feedback. We’re gonna look at how to do it, the structure of it, we, some of those nuances that come up when we talk to people and when we’re working with different people. So we are going to tick a lot of the boxes on there to make sure that you can do this. Hope this is useful.
Nathan Simmonds:
Right, last few people have arrived. Thank you everyone for being here. Let’s dive in. Phones on flight mode, zero under distraction. Get your emails shut down. A hundred percent attention to what we’re doing here. Make sure that you’ve got a drink available. Let’s make sure you stay hydrated. Keep your brain lubricated so you can make this learning stick. And the third part as always is make sure you’ve got a fresh page for fresh thoughts as they come in. Okay? Top of that page, you’re gonna write keepers.
Nathan Simmonds:
These are the things that you wanna remember and remind yourself about so that when you go back and reread it, you can reignite that thinking and come up with some new ideas that keep the idea expanding and you make sure this learning sticks part two of the leadership model. Let’s go into this. Good afternoon. Welcome to Sticky Learning Lunches with me, Nathan Simmons, senior leadership coach and trainer for MBM making Business Matter, the home of Sticky Learning. We are the leadership development and soft skills provider to the grocery and manufacturing industry.
Nathan Simmonds:
And the idea of these lunchtime micro learnings is to help you be the best version of you in the work that you do. Whether that’s from home right now, or whether it’s helping to prepare you back, uh, return back to the office part two of the Leadership Model eoc. So we’ve already looked at the E, which is all about evaluation
Nathan Simmonds:
For those that were here yesterday, what was useful from yesterday, what have you taken away and what new ideas have come up since we got together yesterday. And I’d love to see those in the questions book just to keep this moving. Uh, thinking moving the first, so just as I get up the, the headlines of what we covered, we looked at self-evaluation, we looked at 360 feedback and the absolute need to, to do that 360 feedback.
Nathan Simmonds:
And we looked at a couple of different ways to approach that as well. I have gone back and I’ve spell checked that really rush document that we put together yesterday. There is a fresh one that will be being emailed to you if it hasn’t already been done. So, uh, done so yet, but it’s on its way out to you. What do we got? Self-assessment. Absolutely. How you see yourself versus how others perceive you.
Nathan Simmonds:
Absolutely. And going into that, there is no smoke without fire. So someone’s feedback, someone’s perception of you may only be a snapshot of time. It is still just as valid though ’cause that’s their viewpoint on what you are doing. So make sure that you are, you are willing and able to take on board that feedback at the right time. All VA feedback is valuable, absolutely is a gift. Taking action on the feedback good still with people in your, uh, still with people in your charge, not people. Absolutely.
Nathan Simmonds:
These, the people in your teams, they are in your charge. You are not in charge of them. They are, you know, you are there to steward and support them. We’re all visionaries, absolutely. Anyone tells you that. And not everyone is a visionary leader. It’s a lie. We’ve got eyes in our heads, we have to lead ourselves, you know, in order to go and get the new job to lead our family to whatever it is. We’ve all got this capability inside us.
Nathan Simmonds:
The moment that you say someone can’t do something, you are labeling them based on a bias or an opinion that’s been formulated somewhere else. So the best thing to do is just remove that label and accept and acknowledge everyone has this capacity in them. So we looked at self-evaluation, we looked at the 360 feedback and as I said, you said we did. So the feedback, um, elements are in place now for the 13th. Make sure you are registered part two. Vision.
Nathan Simmonds:
Vision is all about obviously what you see. It’s about where you want to go. It’s about the thing that you can see in your mind that you want to create in the reality. We talked about this in goal setting. Thank you Colin for reminder me. We talked about this in the goal setting and the coaching for, um, training that we did. We talked about this in personal development plan. It’s all about where you see you want to get to. And the thing that I say countless times, and I’ll say it a million times again, is that people can only see as far as they can think.
Nathan Simmonds:
I don’t know who said this quote originally. It’s so very vital though. And so very useful. The idea is that, you know, if you haven’t taken time to think about where you want to get to, how are you supposed to paint a picture that’s gonna encourage others to go to the same place? This is the same analogy when we are looking at satnav, when we’re setting goals. Satnav works on two pieces of information where you are self-evaluation, the postcode of here in the moment and the postcode of where you want to get to the vision.
Nathan Simmonds:
Once you have those two pieces of information, then the sat nav will work out the route to get you there where the traffic, uh, the roadworks are, the traffic lights, et cetera, et cetera, and the speed cameras and help you take the best route in order to make that happen. But the moment that you fail to put any either of these two pieces of information, what’s gonna happen? Open question. If you are missing one of these two, two pieces of information when you are programming your, your, your route finder, what’s gonna happen to your journey? What do you think will happen?
Nathan Simmonds:
You are lost anyway. Will take you there eventually it will do. You might find that, okay, something else coming in. Mystery tour, wasted time, no direction. Absolutely. Absolutely. So we need clarity in these two spaces. So once we’ve done this at the the self-evaluation, we can then start getting into the vision and start looking at some of the questions that we wanna ask ourselves. So let just share my screen. Let me know if you can see the screen forming. So there’s the outdated feedback, 360 feedback form I started working on earlier. But then when we look at the evaluation, what I’ve said on here is a little bit of a little bit of this
Nathan Simmonds:
HQ Q equals QA high quality questions equal high quality answers. If you don’t like the responses that you get, if you don’t like the quality of the answers that are coming back, you need to adjust the quality of the question that you are asking in the first place. Your brain is a validation machine. I’ve said this before and I’ll start again. So the moment you put a question in, it’s going to create an answer, whatever that question is. So when we’re doing the evaluation piece, here’s some questions that I’ve pulled out of the, the coaching deck, the leadership coaching deck. I’ll get the link for that and share that in there for you, uh, with me.
Nathan Simmonds:
And these are just a snippet of some of the questions that are in that deck for you. So it’s giving you that idea, that self-assessment, that self-evaluation piece. Here’s an interesting fact, and I didn’t know this until a few months ago. If you get a pair of binoculars, and obviously you look through them, you can see over grade distance. But actually if you turn the binoculars over, if you want got say a, a bumblebee, um, uh, the dead bumblebee in your hand and you want to see that in a bit more detail, you can take the binoculars and turn it out the other way and you can use ’em almost like a microscope by looking in through the other end of it very, very closely. You can see more detail.
Nathan Simmonds:
So the the self-evaluation piece is much like the inverted binoculars, looking at the microscope look, doing the internal, um, internal review and using some of these questions to help you do that. When we then shift and we flip the binoculars over and we wanna see where we’re going and I’m looking out, I can just see the sea over the top of the houses and there’s a, a, a, a freight, uh, cargo boat going across a tanker, going across in the distance when I wanna see where I’m going. And then when I ask myself some different questions and I wanna change the perspective and I wanna go from the microscope to the telescope,
Nathan Simmonds:
So then we can start asking ourselves some different questions that start to paint that landscape, that create that image for us that we wanna move to, that we want to help inspire others to get to. What is my succession plan so I can get promoted? What opportunities do I see in each of my business area to help this expand? So we’re also thinking about where I want to get to as a leader, how I can develop the business up as I’m moving towards that as well. Hope some of these questions are useful. So what I’ve written down here, we’ve looked at the high quality questions is first, where do you want to get to to start thinking about that self-evaluation, that self-reflection.
Nathan Simmonds:
Where do you want to get to? What is your business plan for the business of you? What is your, what is the project management tools that you are using on yourself to help you make that happen? The question here, what’s your vision for your team? Also, what is your personality that you wish to put into this team that you wish to create in this space? How do you wish to personalize what it is you are working on? ’cause if it lacks your personality, how engaging will it be for you to go to work and actually, you know, interact with what it is you’re doing if it’s devoid of who you are.
Nathan Simmonds:
So having that self-evaluation, asking some better questions and getting really clear on who you are and where you want to take it from a personal point of view, it is gonna help you to really connect with that work. And then for the last part of this is about where the business is going.
Nathan Simmonds:
It is absolutely a hundred percent okay for you to have your own goals, for you to have your own desires and outcomes that you wish to create for yourself, for your team. And it’s absolutely a hundred percent okay for you to support the business getting where it wants to get to. So what happens is, is you actually have two goals that are running parallel, that are aligned and as you are moving towards yours, it enables the business to move towards it. And as the business moves towards it, it enables you to move towards yours. This is actually how good business and good organizations work. And this is why they’re called companies ’cause it’s a company.
Nathan Simmonds:
It’s people in company and it’s absolutely okay at some point if those two things actually divide and you wish to go in separate directions because that’s the natural order of things, people evolve, organizations evolve. That’s also absolutely okay because through the work that you’ve done by creating this vision and the self-reflection and helping others to do that, you’ll actually be creating a succession plan which supports other people moving in to take your spot as you naturally evolve and get promoted.
Nathan Simmonds:
We’re working in alignment with each other with the organization. I hope this is useful. What’s resonating so far? What’s resonating so far that is, is helping you just got another link come up here that I’m gonna share with you all. Bear with me. Except my mouse. It’s just not playing the game. There we go. Got that
Nathan Simmonds:
HQQ equals HQA. Absolutely good equation. Success plan in company, good binocular self-evaluation. Asking better questions. Alignment. Good, good, good. What is the business plan for me? Strong. Absolutely treat yourself like a business. And if you’re uncertain about the business you are working for whatever reason, treat yourself better. You know, treat yourself like a the star employee. Look to learn the lessons of the organization around you so you can actually develop a skillset internally that creates an even stronger business personal and business alignment goals.
Nathan Simmonds:
Absolutely. Leader’s vision starts with my path. Yes, look, I’m gonna just share another link with you actually. There is a free tool, it is the leadership coaching cards free online tool. So it’s got a sample of some of these questions. You can go in there and go in there. You can actually use some of the cars and just flick through just to see what they look like and how they feel, et cetera. And what those questions feel like when you ask yourself.
Nathan Simmonds:
Sometimes challenging to manage the gap between personal vision and business vision. It has to be close. Absolutely does in the nicest possible way. And I say this with absolute love and respect. Any organization you work for, they’re gonna want their, you know, their outputs, they’re gonna want their pound of flesh. Okay? And that’s absolutely okay when we are in organizations, if we’re starting to feel that we are evolving beyond that and we’re starting to grow apart, that’s absolutely fine.
Nathan Simmonds:
Let’s make sure that we’re still focused on the elements that we love and we enjoy and we bring maximum value so that we can make a natural transition and outgrow each other. And that’s okay. The other part is I wanted to bring up with you, yes, we’ve got time to cover this, is to encapsulate some of these things. I have worked in organizations previously where we haven’t got our yearly objectives until April, may of that year,
Nathan Simmonds:
Where some people and that I’ve worked with previously and they’ve said, you know, we don’t, we don’t have a full view of what’s going on in the organization. And as leaders, as you know, leaders in floating speech marks, we’re sitting there waiting for someone else to tell us what to do so that we can get on with our job. Yes or no? Has anyone experienced this? So, and then, and then they change in May, August. Absolutely, yes. Yeah. Yep. Yeah, a hundred percent.
Nathan Simmonds:
Yeah. It, it seems to be a common illness, uh, um, ailment in, in modern industry. I don’t understand why. Let’s give you your yearly objectives in April and so you’ve only got eight months to close that down and then in three months time we’ll change the targets anyway ’cause we’re not reaching them, but they wonder why they’re not reaching ’em. I think that’s a whole different webinar in itself. If you are a leader, do you need someone to tell you what to do? Yes or no?
Nathan Simmonds:
If you are a leader, do you need someone to tell you what to do? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Good correct answer. You know, what is the right thing to do? You know what’s necessary in order to take the next steps. Whether it’s an organization, when you look at, say that you can do this with some question, well what’s the organization plan for three years? If they don’t know, okay, well what’s a 10% growth on where we were before? Rough rule of thumb. We can look at what that expansion looks like. We can start to say maybe, okay, well what’s, what does the next few months look like? And say, well if we are not sure what that is or we’re waiting for someone else to tell us what to do, lemme get a different color pen up here.
Nathan Simmonds:
What needs to happen at the end of this one year, at the end of this 12 months? Where do I want this team to be? How am I gonna grow this business? So we can see one year we start and as I said, you know, people can only see as far as they can think. We ask the one year question, well let’s add another one to that so that we have two years. Where do you wanna be in two years time? Where does this team need to be expanding to in order to make this happen?
Nathan Simmonds:
And then we can add a three. ’cause we can start to add whatever it is, 10%, 20%, whatever it is we wanna start adding to it. We can start creating those numbers, which the business is looking for, and we can start to see some of those KPIs and those structures. We can then start to work out what these years look like for us so that we can then start to put in what we need to put in, whether it’s training and development for ourself, whether it’s it’s um, leadership succession planning, ascension planning, whatever it is. And then we can start to think, well, what does five years look like?
Nathan Simmonds:
What does eight years look like? And we can start adding those up because we’re starting to ask some of these questions here, which you can find, you know, you’ve seen on my screen and you also got the link there for the coaching cards. So you can ask some of these questions and start building some of those incremental steps and that business plan of where you are and where you want to get to. But the only reason that you don’t know what you need to be doing in three years time as an individual, as a team, as a business is because you haven’t taken the time to ask yourself or be asked the questions in order to formulate those answers. Hope this is useful.
Nathan Simmonds:
What questions can you ask yourself? The moment this session finishes in seven minutes according to that clock that are gonna help you formulate a vision of the future and where you want to get to. What question would you write down right now? Or are you writing down right now that’s helping you to create a version of the future that is compelling, that is pulling you forward? What work do I love and enjoy doing? How can I be 1% better leader already the questions are coming in. How can I bring my vision to life? What is the company strategy? Good. Go and ask that. Go and ask someone else, what is my succession plan? Absolutely. Where am I going to be at the end of 2020? Absolutely
Nathan Simmonds:
Tie my personality and business into one. Agreed. How can I create a rich picture of my vision? Absolutely. So we’re starting to ask some of these questions. So as we start to do this, you are already formulating responses for these questions for yourself. You are already formulating responses to the questions that I’m reading out of the questions box to you directly. So as a result of this, we start to understand where we are going. We start to understand how we can align that to the business and how we can both grow and support each other so that we can develop above and beyond and evolve. Hope this is useful.
Nathan Simmonds:
It’s a fairly calm session for me today. We are at 25 minutes past one. What questions have you got for me right now that may help you start to create some of this vision? Oh, I just remembered the analogy I was gonna use about the leaders, right? Okay, while you’re doing that, you need to remember that you are the leader and in order to be a leader, you have to be out front. The challenge that we have, especially when work in all large organizations where we are not getting our objectives or we haven’t been told what the business plan is, we don’t know what the company’s strategy is. We think that we have to be told the answer by someone else.
Nathan Simmonds:
And it’s like we are in a basement with no lights on and we’ve got the flashlight and we’re looking for the light switch. Hopefully, you know, you are sitting there with the flashlight looking around crazily trying to find the light switch where actually you’ve got the flashlight in your hand already. So it’s time that you take that flashlight and point it in the right places so that you can actually see what it is you need to see. How can I help people that seem afraid to lead?
Nathan Simmonds:
Again, it comes back to that you cannot tell people what to do. It is about being the example and being the invitation. It’s about incorporating the communication styles, the HBDI profile, um, stuff. And in doing those elements is helping them to plug into that sensation for themselves. In pieces of work that engages them. I was talking to a gentleman recently, one of the things they look at is, um, yes, a sense of belonging in organizations, but are they in the right place? So are, you know, and it was explained that a lot of organizations, they’ve got a lot of belonging, but the people are actually in the wrong places.
Nathan Simmonds:
And what that’s causing is a disconnect in behaviors in, um, outputs, connection to company values because people just aren’t doing the right things based on who they are. So when you put people naturally in the right environment, it’d be like taking frogs and, um, oxygenating pond weeded out of the pond. It’s exactly the analogy they use with me and sticking that in the middle of the field and wondering why the frog’s dying. So what we need to do is make sure that the people in the right environment is doing what they’re naturally good at, um, and the providing the solution that they provide in the best possible way.
Nathan Simmonds:
And then people won’t be afraid to lead because they’ll be doing exactly what they’re designed to be doing on a, on a natural level. Hope that helps. As much as you need 360 evaluation, you also need a 360 vision. Agreed. That comes. Thank you for saying that. But think that comes from these questions that we’re asking ourselves. Where are we going to, what are we creating? And the more that the more luxurious that vision is, the more replete and detailed and sensory and emotional and compelling, that vision is 360, the more likely it is to happen.
Nathan Simmonds:
We don’t get, you know, constantly fixed on making perfect actions to make it happen. We just enjoy the sensations of getting it. And then what we start to understand is when we’re setting goals, it is not about achieving the goal, it’s about the emotions that we get when we we, when we make that happen, we can then start to create those emotions today. So actually it becomes, um, just a natural process.
Nathan Simmonds:
How do you help people to realize they’re in the wrong environment? Yeah, again, this comes back to feedback and it comes back to some, you know, serious coaching questions and taking the time to communicate with that individual and just let them go through the process. Some people may be so ingrained into that groove, into that rutt that they dunno anything else, that they believe what other people think of them. Um, that they think that they can’t do anything else because they’ve done this for too long. And actually it’s about having some of those conversations.
Nathan Simmonds:
It’s often easier with people that are in newer positions where we can say, you know, start asking questions. Okay, so what, what are the skill sets that are being displayed here? Are these skill sets appropriate for this role? And people might tend, you know, tend some, actually no, that’s not, well, where are these skill sets appropriate? Will it be more like this job? Okay, so when was the last time you looked at that? Now how are you developing yourself to move into something like that, which is actually more, um, wholesome and holistic for you?
Nathan Simmonds:
It takes time to develop that conversation. The longer that someone tends to be in that job, the longer it takes to help that person kind of just have that conversation with themselves. And it might be that you, again, there’s a, there’s a, there’s a challenge where often leaders think they know what’s best for an individual, but they’ve never asked the individual. Therefore, based on what I think of them, and remember what you think of people is how you treat them. I’m gonna go and tell you to do this. I’m gonna give you this, I’m gonna do this. ’cause that’s where I think you are a best fit.
Nathan Simmonds:
Well, actually, has anyone asked that person where they would like to be, what they enjoy doing? So maybe we ask some questions around, okay, well actually we’re gonna diversify things here. We’re gonna look at incorporating, we’re gonna test some new stuff out. What other things would you like to bring into your job? What other things could, you know, I’d like to, I’d like to see you experience or see how you experience this project or this process and see how that person enjoys doing it.
Nathan Simmonds:
You know, there is a sensitivity around that conversation. If you’ve done a job for 20, 30 years and someone tells you you’re in the wrong job. I’ve been doing it for 30 years and no one else complained about it before, now you’re attacking my sense of identity, you’re gonna start to see where that disconnect in the conversation is. Hope that’s useful. It takes time and take questions. A hundred percent is very tough. Yes, it is. Do our visions have to be agreed by a superior or made known to them and may be able to furnish constructive feedback along the way?
Nathan Simmonds:
Absolutely. Ivy, when we are doing this, if we haven’t had objectives given into us or told what to do, and we can start to create and formulate some of that, actually, if we are starting to create and formulate it, we may be making our leaders’ lives easier. If you get to October, November and you are thinking, oh, that’s what next year looks like, okay, fantastic. I’m gonna start to formulate some objectives. I’m gonna go to my leader and my manager, whoever, and say, this is what I come up with for the next 14 months. I’d like to get your input and, uh, you know, see what else you would suggest in order to make this a success.
Nathan Simmonds:
So again, you know, we, we we’re using a subtle, um, nuance of language here. This is what I’ve created. This is where I think I would like this team to go. What else would you suggest in order to make this a success? So I’m asking for my leader’s input in order to support the successes of this project. Haven’t I? I haven’t said to him, look, take them away. I don’t want them, or, you know, or take them away or have those ideas taken from me. I’m asking for their input so they can grow and expand. And then at that point, as you’ve rightfully said, they can then give you feedback. That’s good. That needs to be changed a bit. Okay, we already know about that.
Nathan Simmonds:
That’s a good starter there. Let’s tweak that a little bit. They’re adding, which is creating more success. And then that person telling and said, fantastic job. These are really great objectives. How about we roll them out across all the other teams? Because you just made my job a lot easier as the leader here that was, was having some challenges, finding the time in order to create these. Now what’s the opinion of you as the individual having gone out and created those objectives, objectives for yourself, but now given that potentially to the rest of your department. Lot of good stuff coming up here.
Nathan Simmonds:
Any more questions? Quite, we are case it’s 1 32. Any more questions right now while we’re doing that? You’ve already got the link for tomorrow’s. If you’re learning lunch, if you haven’t registered, now is the time to do that. You’ve also got the link there for the coaching cards, which for what they are and what you get is astronomically huge value. The last thing that I’m gonna say to you all as well is some of you’re aware of these, some of you’re already signed up for ’em, which is, which is brilliant. We also have our virtual classrooms as well.
Nathan Simmonds:
Now, if you have a team or people in your business that would benefit from having a deeper conversation with me in this sort of environment while we’re still going through what we’re going through, there is the link for the virtual classrooms. In there you can find a list of all the soft skills, all the, um, industry specific skills that we deliver in our virtual classrooms. If we can be of support to you, if we can help you, if we can add value to your business and you can see how these conversations will help, click on that link, come through, find out some more information about how we can help you be the best version of you. Ah, time, time at the bar on a scale of one to 10, one terrible, 10. Brilliant. How useful was today’s? Let me know.
Nathan Simmonds:
Nine, 10, another 10. Thank you. Okay, good, good, good, good, good. It means I’m on the right stream here. It means I’m on the right lane. Content. 10 shirt dipped as an eight. Okay. Apologies about we’re trying to fix the shirt next time. Look, thanks everyone for being here. Greatly appreciated, conscious of time, respectful of that. Look, have a lovely rest of your day. I will see you tomorrow at one o’clock for the next session, where we’re gonna go and get into obstacles, the challenges that we know we’re gonna be facing, that we need to be facing as leaders so that we can overcome them, push through them, and get where we want to go to in our vision. Thanks very much for everyone today. Look forward to seeing you again tomorrow.
