The team at Stanton Marris are going under a transformation.
So watch this space for our big unveiling in early September, and find out what the new look Stanton Marris is all about.
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Watch this space!
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Taking the time to refocus
Read the full article "Taking the time to refocus"I’ve been thinking of the application of sports psychology to work situations. The particular tip I’d like to share is the pause to regroup, gather one’s thoughts, settle one’s emotions, and clear the mind from the last activity to better face the next task.
Try these exercises to refocus yourself and your colleagues:- If you’re in a meeting and it’s clear that individuals in the room are still fighting other outside battles in their heads, ask them to take five minutes to follow you on an exercise. Ask them to choose a word – any word – that has positive or neutral connotations for them, close their eyes and concentrate on repeating that word until you tell them to open their eyes. If their mind wanders, tell them, it’s ok, and just to note that their mind wandered and bring the mind back to repeating the word. The atmosphere after these five minutes will be dramatically different – much more relaxed, with people focused on the task at hand and each other, their thinking much clearer.
- Or, when you need to switch from one major task to another, use the same exercise on yourself. Successful political and business leaders are masters at doing this without realising it. They can make the switch in seconds rather than minutes. They have to be, as they switch from dealing with terrorist threats to discussing the budget to dealing with the latest political scandal to hit their party.
How strange that such a simple, quick thing as taking the time to refocus can be so key to delivering one’s best performance.
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Another award!
Read the full article "Another award!"We’re delighted to announce that our client, The London Borough of Lewisham, has recently scooped an HR Excellence Award. They have just been announced as the winners of the 2010 Outstanding Employee Engagement Strategy award.
We have worked hard with Lewisham on developing the ‘Lewisham Way’ to help engage their people and promote employee participation and breaking down barriers. So we’re thrilled to see all the hard work recognised by the HR annual awards.
The judges said Lewisham showed “genuine involvement from employees at every level – proper engagement, not just for the sake of it”.
Read more on the Outstanding Employee Engagement Strategy Award
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The six Cs of communication
Read the full article "The six Cs of communication"Nearly every client meeting at the moment touches on conversation that managers may find difficult – communicating downsizing programmes and redundancies, or just the need to manage general uncertainty and anxiety that can affect performance.
When emotions are involved, too many managers handle the conversation badly, or avoid it altogether.
We use a simple, effective tool for communicating high-concern messages, known as ‘The six Cs’. Of course there’s a skill to how you use them, but if you follow them in order, you can be sure you have at least touched all the bases:
- Care – show empathy with the person/people receiving the message
- Cut to the chase – say in a simple, clear sentence the news you have to communicate
- Criteria – give the three main (evidence-based, not opinions) reasons why the decision has been made, or the criteria used to reach a decision
- Concerns – acknowledge the concerns of the potential human or personal impact of your message
- Confirm – repeat the headline message to re-state the facts, and add any helpful practical details such as next steps
- Commitment – genuine personal commitment to provide support, keep people informed, and an organisational commitment to treat people fairly and well.
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Are you delegating efficiently?
Read the full article "Are you delegating efficiently?"“Climbing the corporate ladder requires you to hand over day-to-day tasks to others. But many people find this very difficult to do – or do it in a way that leaves everyone feeling unhappy and demotivated.”
I was asked recently by The Financial Times to comment on the knotty task of delegating efficiently. We discussed the most common problems in delegating, how to overcome a fear of letting go, how to delegate well, what tasks to delegate, and who actually gets the credit when you’ve delegated a task?
I think it’s important to create a sense of ownership and empowerment. The phrase we use at Stanton Marris is ‘freedom within a framework’. But don’t let go fully as that can be very demotivating. Monitor, but don’t meddle; follow up and offer support.
When deciding what to delegate, the question you always need to ask here is: ‘Can this task or decision be done or made by someone below me?’ If they have the knowledge or capability, then do it. Hang on to broad horizon things.
Read the full article The Careerist: Delegating efficiently
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3 simple questions to improve collaboration
Read the full article "3 simple questions to improve collaboration"How many businesses do you know with the word ‘collaboration’ in their set of values? In my experience, there are dozens.
And yet, it’s one of those organisational goals that sometimes seems to run counter to human instincts. As we often say, ‘easy to understand – hard to do’. While everyone signs up to collaboration in principle, it’s certainly not easy to achieve in practice. There are always a thousand reasons why it comes more naturally to work with the people in your immediate team than the team on the next floor, or on another site.
At the most basic level, managers are busy, and talking to people who aren’t in your immediate loop takes time. It might achieve more for the success of the business than keeping your head down in the tunnel of yet another task, but it can be hard to keep that wider perspective.
What could this mean for your business? Improve your businesses collaboration efforts by asking these 3 questions:
- Do you all have a shared vision of the strategy? Go round the table and ask people to describe it in their own words. You could be surprised how much the visions differ.
- What is pulling you away from the shared commitment you have all made to the success of the business? An honest answer to this question from each key individual could form the basis of a fundamental re-think about how to re-energise the business and make it work for everyone.
- Has everyone bought into the vision and the strategy? How do you know? Engaging everyone from the ground up in the development of the way forward is the best way to make sure that, even when times are tough, people retain commitment to the business they have helped to shape.
Advancing your own agenda might win you a few battles. But it won’t win the campaign. And success in today’s economic climate means that focus on the wider campaign, and being willing to let go of any personal priorities that don’t serve the shared goals of the enterprise, could make the critical difference for your business.
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