Business Coach Auckland : Articles
A Tool for Creating a More Productive Environment
This can be used to focus on a specific area in your organisation, or as a tool for getting an overview of the environment as a whole and identifying where change is required to move towards creating a more ideal environment.
You can use a Force Field Analysis to identify current driving and restraining forces that influence the success of solving a problem or reaching a goal when trying to create change.
Creating the right environment doesn’t necessarily imply a mass alteration of all existing conditions. Although this may seem like what’s needed, it’s very seldom that one’s environment in all its elements is undesirable.
Often after an objective appraisal, an individual or team that would like a transformation of environment can reduce it to one or two primary things that stand out. Change these one or two primary things and the environment becomes satisfactory.
Guiding Principles
1. Acknowledge what’s working in the current environment
2. Identify the primary stand out things that would create the most beneficial change
3. Be prepared to identify and take ownership of old limiting patterns (habits) that perpetuate undesirable circumstances
4. Focus only on the aspects that you have the power (resources and ability) to influence
5. Accept limitations – there’s no point battling away at an obstacle that’s so great that efforts to bring about change would be futile (refer guiding principle 4)
6. The best results are often obtained by turning a restrainer into a driver
How to Proceed
• Identify the problem or the goal to be achieved – define the desired outcome
• Take stock of your current reality – describe this in one sentence.
• Clearly define the required change
• Brainstorm all the elements that act as driving or restraining forces in progressing toward the desired outcome
• Create a T-bar and list all the forces involved. Place the driving forces to the left of the vertical line, and the restraining forces to the right. The vertical line represents the ‘as is’ situation.
• Prioritise the forces in each list according to their relative influence on the change process.
Once you have analysed the information, create an action plan to:
1. Increase drivers
2. Reduce restrainers
3. Best of all, turn restrainers into drivers, in other words change a block into a stepping stone
If you’d like more information on using a Force Field Analysis, contact us at Business Coach Auckland and put FFA in the inquiry text.
Vaughan
Do you feel there is more to you than your job allows you to be?
It’s not uncommon today to come to a crossroads regarding career decisions. You may have spent a number of years to get where you are and now you’re faced with a difficult decision.
Do you stay in a job that you’re familiar with, that offers a secure income but seems to be draining your life essence? Or do you start on a different career path that seems more appealing but could involve retraining, a drop in pay and loss of benefits?
This is a very common situation people face between the ages of 35 to 45, although it can also happen earlier or later in life. It affects successful executives as well as people who feel they are stuck in a dead end job. You might ‘have it all’ in the eyes of others yet still feel a strong sense of dissonance between what you do and who you are.
Feeling this way might be labeled a ‘mid-life crises’. Things seemed better years ago and in an effort to recapture the good times a new identity is, often erroneously, seen as the answer.
At its best this could involve taking on some regular exercise, an improved diet, reconnecting with old friends or extending social circles through a clubs, classes or common interest groups.
Sadly others feel that investing in expensive wardrobes, exotic cars, and other symbolic items is the answer. For some a new partner becomes alluring and a marriage or long-term relationship is broken up and the same feelings of dissatisfaction are carried into the new relationship.
This is because changing the outer world doesn’t necessarily equate to changing the inner world. While some exterior changes can have positive side effects, treating the symptoms and not the cause will only take you so far.
At Business Coach Auckland we know that to find out what really makes you tick you need to address both the inner and outer worlds. By gaining information about your conscious and unconscious processes, we can help you to also understand the deeper motives and drives that shape who you are.
This is crucial information to have when you are at a crossroads in your career. By gaining insights into these ‘hidden’ areas you will understand what your real strengths and development potentials are. These can be quite different to strengths that you may have developed by having to adapt.
Innate strengths are the areas that you are, or can be really good at by nature. When your work role is aligned with these core competencies you are able to express your real talents. You will experience a high natural energy flow, cope well under pressure, and find satisfaction in what you do.
The opposite of this is developing a career around what we call ‘adapted behaviour’. These are strengths that you have had to adapt to learn. They are useful and probably serve you well under ideal conditions. The downside is that they are not aligned with who you really are, and because they are not true to you nature these are the areas of work that tend to drain you and really cause stress when under pressure.
This is often the cause of the crossroads. Whether you are seen as successful or not, if your job is out of alignment with your inner world, if you’re in a role that doesn’t allow you to develop and express your inherent strengths, chances are things don’t feel right.
There can be a long-term cost to your authenticity and self-esteem by remaining stuck in a role where you have to adapt to meet expectations, and have no vehicle to develop and express the potentials that are really you.
The technology we use at Business Coach Auckland is like nothing else on the market. We are the only Auckland providers accredited to use the patented Inner Leader Development Compass, an assessment that will give you clear information about your inner drivers that behavioural based assessments can’t identify.
This is critical information, especially for those people standing at a crossroads in their working life. Whether you want to change careers, get clear on the best development path for you in your current career, or you just feel flat and under-utilised and know that you could be so much more, a comprehensive understanding of your inner make-up will help you to identify a path that is going to be rewarding and enjoyable.
If you’re thinking this might be for you, why not book in for an initial consultation to find more?
Vaughan
Business Coach Auckland
A Definition of Happiness
“Happiness results from the ability a person has to maintain harmony with their inner Self, within their social relationships, and within the environment”.
Think about this simple yet profound definition. A definition that is as applicable to your work life as it is to your personal life. Here at Business Coach Auckland, experience has shown us that the two aren’t easily kept separate, you cannot evolve or regress in one without its effects showing in the other.
Harmony with ourselves
We are made up of mind, body and emotions. And to maintain good health we have to cater to the needs of all three.
Lack of exercise, insufficient rest, an unbalanced diet or excessive intake of food, overuse of caffeine and alcohol are all physical elements that impact on the body’s balance.
The mind operates by the same principles. Without proper rest our minds can’t function to the best of our ability. Our minds require exercise, using our objective faculties and reason to make important daily decisions.
The more we use reason to put our thinking on a sound and constructive basis, the more ability we have to release our potential creativity. That’s why the mind needs proper nutrition too; a diet of trash magazines, gossip and TV violence only fuels irrational and negative thinking and destroys creative potential.
Negative thinking also arouses feelings such as anger, jealousy, fear, anxiety, etc. These types of feelings disturb our emotional well-being, making it impossible to maintain inner harmony.
Social Relationships
Whether we realize it or not, humans are driven by an inner need to communicate. Sometimes the need to just ‘get away from it all’ consumes us, we think we can meet our own needs. Yet it’s impossible to fully develop as a person without forming social relationships with others.
No matter how independently minded we might think we are, no-one can be happy or achieve self realization without satisfying this inner need to communicate. This is the instinct that urges us to live in society and raise our family within this society.
Because we all need the company of others to some degree, it’s important to avoid building relationships based on coercion or domination – both at home and at work. This involves being personally proactive in trying to maintain harmony within the family, and a good rapport with those we are in contact with through professional and social circles. Showing mutual respect for each other while appreciating our differences and trying to use them in a way that is beneficial.
Nature and the Environment
We looked before at how the body and mind need to be given due care to remain in good health. The same principles apply to our environment – we need to take care of our planet to keep our environment in good health.
Humans have an unenviable history of destroying the harmony and balance of our natural surroundings in the name of self-interest. It is important, especially with our increasing population, that we all become conscious of the impact our way of life has on the very source that sustains us.
It’s no coincidence that we travel thousands of miles to visit untouched places. Destinations that host such places of beauty, natural order and harmony continue to have a profound effect on people.
The Bottom Line Fit
Business is essentially about creating products and providing services to the market, and making a profit from them – though that’s not all there is to it. Human ‘resources’ are human beings, and organisations that strive towards realizing personal, social and environmental harmony throughout all their transactions will be the ones that attract the best people, experience less staff turnover and absenteeism, greater creativity, and more sustainable performance.
How’s the harmony level within your organisation?
Vaughan
Business Coach Auckland
Being able to communicate clearly and effectively is critical to business success, yet how many people think that simply TELLING someone something suffices?
Communication is a two way street, and it’s important to be able to LISTEN well if you want to be able to deliver your message effectively.
Business Coach Auckland
Listening can be categorized into four levels:
COSMETIC – This is when you’re not really listening at all, you might be pretending you are by giving the occasional nod or grunt to pretend you’re listening, but really your mind is somewhere else.
CONVERSATIONAL – As the name suggests, you are engaged in conversation. You are listening, though you’re also talking, thinking about what’s been said, thinking about what you’ll say next, and sometimes interrupting what the other person is trying to say.
ACTIVE – Now you’re more serious. You’re actively focused on what the other person is saying with the intent of understanding what’s being said and why it’s important to that person.
DEEP – At this stage you are completely focused on what the other person is saying. You’re able to listen beyond words and notice HOW the other person is saying things, and also what is NOT being said.
Listening is an active and intentional process, unlike hearing which is simply an auditory function. To listen means to actively perceive information, not only through the ears, but also through use of our other senses. Often it’s noticing what’s not being said that can lead to the greatest insights.
The first two levels, Cosmetic and Conversational, can be labeled as hearing. Yet you’re not really hearing the other person at all. Not until you apply the levels of Active and Deep listening do you truly get what the other person is saying.
To fully listen to another speaks loudly of your intention and acts as a powerful motivator for TRUST.
This is one of the reasons why emails will never be an appropriate substitute for effective communication. The printed word can never portray facial expressions, tone of voice, body language, and all the other signals that you use and can pick up in others through intentional listening.
Next time you want to communicate an important message, and you want to know the person hears you, understands you, and trusts you – incorporate some good open questions into your message and flex your finer listening muscles.
If this is a skill that could be refined in your business, you might want to consider contacting us at Business Coach Auckland and finding out about a customized Effective Communication program to enhance productivity and engagement in your people.
All the Best!
Vaughan
Business Coach: Auckland
