Do you find that in some situations you are fully confident, yet in others you are quaking? You know confidence, yet you need to feel that confidence in more situations. Here are some tips that will help you to build your confidence:
1. a. Think about situations where you do have self-confidence – analyse these to find the roots of that confidence. What has to be there for you to feel confident?
b. Once you have identified the elements that support your confidence you can make sure you prepare for any situation, by bringing those elements with you to the situation.
For example, typically people feel confident when they know what they are doing and have experience of having done it before successfully. So research the knowledge you need, so you enter the situation from a place of ‘knowing’, not that insecure place of ‘not knowing’. Think of experiences you have had that are similar, where you felt confidence and take that confidence with you into this (new) situation.
2. Where you have to do something new for the first time and can’t prepare the required knowledge, acknowledge this upfront. Tell people that this is new for you and you may be asking some basic questions – then you have licence to ask whatever you need. It is surprising how often such basic questions stimulate new learning for the group and generate new solutions, which add value to all.
3. Rehearse where possible – the brain doesn’t differentiate between an actual experience and a practise experience or even an imagined experience, so the more you can imagine and rehearse a positive experience beforehand, the more it will feel like you are on solid ground in the actual event.
4. Keep a log – jot down in a separate learning journal or in your diary experiences where you have left feeling confident. This tracks the evidence of your confidence and makes it more difficult for you to tell yourself you lack confidence … the evidence that you are a confident person is there.
5. Behave ‘as if’ you are confident – this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Internally you will respond to this ‘as if’ confidence and grow real confidence. Externally others will see you as a confident person and treat you as such, this will then boost your sense of confidence and you are in a positive cycle. (You can see how the opposite would apply, if you behave as someone who lacks confidence, others will challenge you, which will set off a negative cycle.)
Author: Amanda Bouch specialises in helping people develop their leadership style from the inside out.
Thursday 16 December 2010
Monday 27 September 2010
How to deal with vague responses in coaching
Precision questions in coaching
When working with a coachee, I often find that they blame others or cast aspersions by being vague in describing their issue. They say something like, "Communication is rubbish round here". There are so many possible interpretations for this statement and we have to get a shared understanding of what is meant, this is where precision questions come in.
Precision questions are really useful for raising self-awareness, and gaining ownership and commitment and are helpful when the coachee uses imprecise and generalised language. Being vague or generalising or distorting information is often an avoidance tactic and precision questions reconnect the coachee and make them face up to the situation. It is also important that the coach doesn’t assume they know what the coachee means, but checks this out.
Precision questions may come across as a little aggressive so should be used sparingly and only when there is a high degree of trust. Starting with something like, “I was wondering ..”, helps to soften them.
Let's deal with one group of vagueness - when the coachee deletes information.
Deletion:
If the coachee uses a vague noun such as ‘management’ the coach can help them clarify who and what is meant by asking, “Who specifically do you mean?” or “Is that all management or some of management?” The coach questions to ensure the coachee sees clearly what lies behind the statement.
When the verb is imprecise or the action vague, for example ‘to improve my communication’, to ask “What precisely do you mean by that?”, forces the coachee to think this through in detail and talk about actions that can be identified and measured. In this example, “To respond to emails briefly, concisely and to the point.”
If the coachee uses terms such as ‘more’, ‘better’, ‘less’ without a comparator the sentence is meaningless. Here the coach will ask, “More than what/who?” to invite specific comparison.
In the next blog I'll cover Generalisations such as 'always', then Distortions such as 'he made me fail in that task'.
If you have any questions or comments, please do post them here.
When working with a coachee, I often find that they blame others or cast aspersions by being vague in describing their issue. They say something like, "Communication is rubbish round here". There are so many possible interpretations for this statement and we have to get a shared understanding of what is meant, this is where precision questions come in.
Precision questions are really useful for raising self-awareness, and gaining ownership and commitment and are helpful when the coachee uses imprecise and generalised language. Being vague or generalising or distorting information is often an avoidance tactic and precision questions reconnect the coachee and make them face up to the situation. It is also important that the coach doesn’t assume they know what the coachee means, but checks this out.
Precision questions may come across as a little aggressive so should be used sparingly and only when there is a high degree of trust. Starting with something like, “I was wondering ..”, helps to soften them.
Let's deal with one group of vagueness - when the coachee deletes information.
Deletion:
If the coachee uses a vague noun such as ‘management’ the coach can help them clarify who and what is meant by asking, “Who specifically do you mean?” or “Is that all management or some of management?” The coach questions to ensure the coachee sees clearly what lies behind the statement.
When the verb is imprecise or the action vague, for example ‘to improve my communication’, to ask “What precisely do you mean by that?”, forces the coachee to think this through in detail and talk about actions that can be identified and measured. In this example, “To respond to emails briefly, concisely and to the point.”
If the coachee uses terms such as ‘more’, ‘better’, ‘less’ without a comparator the sentence is meaningless. Here the coach will ask, “More than what/who?” to invite specific comparison.
In the next blog I'll cover Generalisations such as 'always', then Distortions such as 'he made me fail in that task'.
If you have any questions or comments, please do post them here.
Wednesday 4 August 2010
7 steps to building personal leadership with confidence
1. Become aware of personality differences to get best out of self and others
– understand your personality in the context of others (MBTI Step II) and how different types exhibit different preferences in how they work and communicate. Identify how your preferences help or hinder you in achieving your goals and develop more effective ways of working.
2. Become Emotionally Intelligent
- tap into own emotions and recognise the impact of emotions on behaviour. Develop skills in managing your emotions to be in a resourceful state and get the best out of self, whatever the situation. Fine tune your awareness of others and develop skills in managing relationships.
3. Become clear on what you stand for
- clarify the Values and Beliefs that you use as a frame of reference to run your world, challenge your attitudes and assumptions to be sure that they support you and don’t block you from success, identify your basic philosophy, ideals and personal success factors.
4. Become a skilled communicator and confident in public speaking
- develop the skills to influence and persuade effectively, taking your listeners with you, inspiring and motivating for action. Become a powerful presenter, confident in speaking in front of audiences.
5. Become an effective decision-maker
- develop a pro-active approach to dealing with problems and making timely and well-informed decisions involving the relevant parties to gain optimum commitment. Develop creative thinking capabilities to enhance both the experience of problem-solving and the quality of the final decision. Develop effective methods of evaluating and mitigating risks.
6. Build cohesive and motivated followers
- understand culture and how to create the optimum working environment, representing the company values in action. Involve and engage with followers and stakeholders to build effective working relationships. Understand and influence team dynamics to generate effective working groups.
7. Lead the change
- understand individual change behaviours and how to lead and support others in improvement and growth. Develop your coaching skills in working with the individual as well as a coaching leadership style in working with people in the organisation. Understand change at team / organisational level and how to set the organisation up for successful and sustained change, through taking a systems thinking approach.
– understand your personality in the context of others (MBTI Step II) and how different types exhibit different preferences in how they work and communicate. Identify how your preferences help or hinder you in achieving your goals and develop more effective ways of working.
2. Become Emotionally Intelligent
- tap into own emotions and recognise the impact of emotions on behaviour. Develop skills in managing your emotions to be in a resourceful state and get the best out of self, whatever the situation. Fine tune your awareness of others and develop skills in managing relationships.
3. Become clear on what you stand for
- clarify the Values and Beliefs that you use as a frame of reference to run your world, challenge your attitudes and assumptions to be sure that they support you and don’t block you from success, identify your basic philosophy, ideals and personal success factors.
4. Become a skilled communicator and confident in public speaking
- develop the skills to influence and persuade effectively, taking your listeners with you, inspiring and motivating for action. Become a powerful presenter, confident in speaking in front of audiences.
5. Become an effective decision-maker
- develop a pro-active approach to dealing with problems and making timely and well-informed decisions involving the relevant parties to gain optimum commitment. Develop creative thinking capabilities to enhance both the experience of problem-solving and the quality of the final decision. Develop effective methods of evaluating and mitigating risks.
6. Build cohesive and motivated followers
- understand culture and how to create the optimum working environment, representing the company values in action. Involve and engage with followers and stakeholders to build effective working relationships. Understand and influence team dynamics to generate effective working groups.
7. Lead the change
- understand individual change behaviours and how to lead and support others in improvement and growth. Develop your coaching skills in working with the individual as well as a coaching leadership style in working with people in the organisation. Understand change at team / organisational level and how to set the organisation up for successful and sustained change, through taking a systems thinking approach.
Friday 28 May 2010
Build your resilience
RESILIENCE
Definition:
‘Thick skin’, tough-minded, able to deal with setbacks, ‘grit’, ‘steel’, focussed – not easily distracted from task, self-belief, able to depersonalise comment
Breaks resilience:
• Lack of trust
• Decisions overturned
• Failure, getting it wrong, lack of competence
• Feeling excluded, being undermined
• Poor sight of objectives
• Poor working environment, inadequate resources
• Personal /other stresses
• Lack of progress
• Bored, tired
• Overawed
• Lack of support, lack of team spirit
Builds resilience:
• Experience
• Accept mistakes and learn from them
• Self-belief
• Trust and support – peers, team members, bosses
• Healthy competition
• Success, winning (or being part of …)
• Acknowledgement, praise – external / internal
• Achievable objectives
• Successful experience of overcoming adversity
How to build resilience for self:
1. make sure your purpose is clear – to you and to others
2. focus on your goals
3. believe in your goals
4. communicate confidence (behave as if you are confident)
5. be open to learning from all experiences
6. build self-belief –
o affirmations
o challenge your beliefs to check that they are helpful to you and if not change those beliefs (eg ‘who are you to ….?’ Becomes ‘shine your light and let others shine theirs’)
o give yourself permission (eg to not be perfect, just good enough)
o visualisation (eg imagine yourself handling a situation well and keep playing the ‘tape’ until you believe you can handle it well)
7. be self-aware of your coping style (eg do you need a friendly ear to talk to, do you want space, etc)
8. say ‘No’ and do so in an acceptable way, (eg offer alternatives, make your needs clear)
Definition:
‘Thick skin’, tough-minded, able to deal with setbacks, ‘grit’, ‘steel’, focussed – not easily distracted from task, self-belief, able to depersonalise comment
Breaks resilience:
• Lack of trust
• Decisions overturned
• Failure, getting it wrong, lack of competence
• Feeling excluded, being undermined
• Poor sight of objectives
• Poor working environment, inadequate resources
• Personal /other stresses
• Lack of progress
• Bored, tired
• Overawed
• Lack of support, lack of team spirit
Builds resilience:
• Experience
• Accept mistakes and learn from them
• Self-belief
• Trust and support – peers, team members, bosses
• Healthy competition
• Success, winning (or being part of …)
• Acknowledgement, praise – external / internal
• Achievable objectives
• Successful experience of overcoming adversity
How to build resilience for self:
1. make sure your purpose is clear – to you and to others
2. focus on your goals
3. believe in your goals
4. communicate confidence (behave as if you are confident)
5. be open to learning from all experiences
6. build self-belief –
o affirmations
o challenge your beliefs to check that they are helpful to you and if not change those beliefs (eg ‘who are you to ….?’ Becomes ‘shine your light and let others shine theirs’)
o give yourself permission (eg to not be perfect, just good enough)
o visualisation (eg imagine yourself handling a situation well and keep playing the ‘tape’ until you believe you can handle it well)
7. be self-aware of your coping style (eg do you need a friendly ear to talk to, do you want space, etc)
8. say ‘No’ and do so in an acceptable way, (eg offer alternatives, make your needs clear)
Monday 10 May 2010
How to break the stress cycle
Are you feeling stressed?
Are you one of the many of us, who live your life under constant stress, so you have forgotten what it feels like to be without any pressures on your mind? Everyday worries occupy your mind constantly – that’s normal isn’t it? Add to your personal worries the challenges about work, dealing with family issues, a friend who talks through their stuff with you, and pretty soon all but the most resilient person is no longer functioning well.
These pressures slowly build up in such a way that we often don’t recognise what we now have to cope with and how our coping mechanisms are becoming compromised. So what are the things to look out for that indicate we are under stress and ‘no longer firing on all cylinders’?
Stress indicators:
o You find it difficult to get started on a major task? You keep putting it off, maybe because it is ‘too big’ or needs quality thinking time …
o You find that you are busy all day, but at the end of the day can’t point to what you have achieved?
o You feel tired most of the time and lethargic?
o You find that while you are working on one task, you are thinking about another? You can’t concentrate?
o Are you more emotional than usual – quick to get angry or upset? Or a general feeling of apathy? Or giggling almost hysterically at things?
o Are you not sleeping well? Tossing and turning, unable to get to sleep, or waking up in the early hours and unable to get back to sleep?
o Do you not want to get up in the morning? And find you’re going to bed quite late, having been busy at stuff all evening?
o You find yourself more easily distracted than usual?
o Are nearly all the jobs you are doing the most urgent ones?
o Are you working longer hours, but not getting more done?
o You find you have no time for proper meals and are regularly grabbing something to eat in a hurry or missing meals altogether, filling in with snacks?
o Are your hobbies suffering – no time even for a few exercises or maybe you overdo it?
o You’re attitude to people has changed and you find you are less tolerant?
o Are you eating ‘comfort foods’ frequently?
o Are you taking more ‘drugs’, eg smoking, drinking, etc
o Do you engage is displacement activity, such as retail therapy?
o Are you more erratic and irrational in traffic – road rage?
The more of these indicators that apply to you, the more stressed you are likely to be. You probably realise that your life is currently out of balance, but don’t know how to break this and get back on an even keel and get your energy for life back.
Dealing with the situation:
What can you do to break out of this cycle and get the situation under control?
Take a break and detach yourself from the situation so you can review it from a ‘distance’ and make some decisions on what you can change. Ideally take a holiday, this could be what you need to rejuvenate your batteries as well. If a holiday is not on the cards, then at least take a full weekend off, preferably go away, so you are not tempted to do any household tasks and the phone isn’t ringing. A relaxed environment would be helpful here, so you can get out for walks or exercise in the fresh air.
Review constructively – write your analysis down, so it doesn’t go round and round in your head. You could use a tool like the wheel of life to assess the mix of issues and their impact.
Wheel of Life
Directions: The 8 sections of the Wheel of Life represent balance across the major categories in life, if these categories don’t suit you, you can change them to what makes up your life. Typical categories are: Career, Money, Health, Life partner, Friends & family, Fun/hobbies/recreation, Physical environment (home/work), Personal growth.
Divide each segment in two to create 16 wedges. The left half of each segment represents the amount of effort you put into this category and the right half represents your level of satisfaction with the results.
Regarding the centre of the wheel as 0 and the outer edge as 10, score each life area by drawing a line to create a new outer edge, first for effort, then for results.
It may be easier to do this review and problem solving with someone – a friend or a coach – who will help you see things from a balanced perspective and who will encourage the right actions.
Prioritise the areas by importance to you and by value. Eg work might be high in value as the income pays for other things, but it may not be that important to you in other ways (it’s not a career, etc).
Now work out how much time you want to devote to each area over a typical month or week. Compare this with what is currently happening and identify the gaps – what must you stop doing in order to be able to spend more time in the areas you neglect?
Identify important areas that you are not satisfied in and then which aspects need you to do something. For each aspect identify actions you could take to make progress towards satisfaction. From the list of possible actions, identify what you will do and when you will start doing it. What is the first step you will take & when?
Analysis and action planning is one course to help deal with stress in your life, for more on techniques to build your resilience, contact amanda@amandabouchconsulting.co.uk
This article was written by Amanda Bouch of ABC – Amanda Bouch Consulting. Amanda is an experienced management consultant and accredited coach, see www.amandabouchconsulting.co.uk
Are you one of the many of us, who live your life under constant stress, so you have forgotten what it feels like to be without any pressures on your mind? Everyday worries occupy your mind constantly – that’s normal isn’t it? Add to your personal worries the challenges about work, dealing with family issues, a friend who talks through their stuff with you, and pretty soon all but the most resilient person is no longer functioning well.
These pressures slowly build up in such a way that we often don’t recognise what we now have to cope with and how our coping mechanisms are becoming compromised. So what are the things to look out for that indicate we are under stress and ‘no longer firing on all cylinders’?
Stress indicators:
o You find it difficult to get started on a major task? You keep putting it off, maybe because it is ‘too big’ or needs quality thinking time …
o You find that you are busy all day, but at the end of the day can’t point to what you have achieved?
o You feel tired most of the time and lethargic?
o You find that while you are working on one task, you are thinking about another? You can’t concentrate?
o Are you more emotional than usual – quick to get angry or upset? Or a general feeling of apathy? Or giggling almost hysterically at things?
o Are you not sleeping well? Tossing and turning, unable to get to sleep, or waking up in the early hours and unable to get back to sleep?
o Do you not want to get up in the morning? And find you’re going to bed quite late, having been busy at stuff all evening?
o You find yourself more easily distracted than usual?
o Are nearly all the jobs you are doing the most urgent ones?
o Are you working longer hours, but not getting more done?
o You find you have no time for proper meals and are regularly grabbing something to eat in a hurry or missing meals altogether, filling in with snacks?
o Are your hobbies suffering – no time even for a few exercises or maybe you overdo it?
o You’re attitude to people has changed and you find you are less tolerant?
o Are you eating ‘comfort foods’ frequently?
o Are you taking more ‘drugs’, eg smoking, drinking, etc
o Do you engage is displacement activity, such as retail therapy?
o Are you more erratic and irrational in traffic – road rage?
The more of these indicators that apply to you, the more stressed you are likely to be. You probably realise that your life is currently out of balance, but don’t know how to break this and get back on an even keel and get your energy for life back.
Dealing with the situation:
What can you do to break out of this cycle and get the situation under control?
Take a break and detach yourself from the situation so you can review it from a ‘distance’ and make some decisions on what you can change. Ideally take a holiday, this could be what you need to rejuvenate your batteries as well. If a holiday is not on the cards, then at least take a full weekend off, preferably go away, so you are not tempted to do any household tasks and the phone isn’t ringing. A relaxed environment would be helpful here, so you can get out for walks or exercise in the fresh air.
Review constructively – write your analysis down, so it doesn’t go round and round in your head. You could use a tool like the wheel of life to assess the mix of issues and their impact.
Wheel of Life
Directions: The 8 sections of the Wheel of Life represent balance across the major categories in life, if these categories don’t suit you, you can change them to what makes up your life. Typical categories are: Career, Money, Health, Life partner, Friends & family, Fun/hobbies/recreation, Physical environment (home/work), Personal growth.
Divide each segment in two to create 16 wedges. The left half of each segment represents the amount of effort you put into this category and the right half represents your level of satisfaction with the results.
Regarding the centre of the wheel as 0 and the outer edge as 10, score each life area by drawing a line to create a new outer edge, first for effort, then for results.
It may be easier to do this review and problem solving with someone – a friend or a coach – who will help you see things from a balanced perspective and who will encourage the right actions.
Prioritise the areas by importance to you and by value. Eg work might be high in value as the income pays for other things, but it may not be that important to you in other ways (it’s not a career, etc).
Now work out how much time you want to devote to each area over a typical month or week. Compare this with what is currently happening and identify the gaps – what must you stop doing in order to be able to spend more time in the areas you neglect?
Identify important areas that you are not satisfied in and then which aspects need you to do something. For each aspect identify actions you could take to make progress towards satisfaction. From the list of possible actions, identify what you will do and when you will start doing it. What is the first step you will take & when?
Analysis and action planning is one course to help deal with stress in your life, for more on techniques to build your resilience, contact amanda@amandabouchconsulting.co.uk
This article was written by Amanda Bouch of ABC – Amanda Bouch Consulting. Amanda is an experienced management consultant and accredited coach, see www.amandabouchconsulting.co.uk
Friday 8 January 2010
Fail to plan and you plan to fail
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Have you got an up-to-date business plan? If not it’s high time you started working on one – this may be causing a lack of focus in your business and the knock-on effects of that are huge.
The management team don’t know what the priorities are and may be working hard, but are they working in a way that will deliver business growth? Your employees don’t know what the purpose or mission of the company is and are making their day-to-day decisions about what to do and where to put their effort in a vacuum … this leads to dissatisfaction, de-motivation and low productivity. Do you even know what productivity you should be achieving? Without a clear plan, the business will be reacting to market demands and with the current economic challenges, this leaves it very vulnerable. These are just the tip of the iceberg …
Business planning doesn’t have to be onerous, in fact once you get into it, it can be great fun and generate new enthusiasm for the business and the opportunities that are out there, just waiting for you to grab them.
It can speed the whole process up and ensure the right questions are asked, if you work with a facilitator to develop strategy and business plans. The facilitator will bring the processes of strategic thinking as well as creative thinking and effective ways of working together to gain insights, understanding and commitment to the goals and strategies that will deliver business success.
Here is an outline of the key components of the business plan to get you started.
Purpose or Mission
Why does the company exist? What are you in business to achieve? You need to be able to articulate clearly in one or two sentences what the purpose of the business is. This needs to be specific as it forms the framework for all the company does and helps people in the organisation make decisions. It needs to answer at least the questions Who (is the target market), What (are you offering), Why (should they buy) and may answer How?
Longer-term Goals
Where do you want to be in (say) 3 years?
Move forward in time to that point and paint a picture of what is happening. Put in as much detail as possible to create a ‘solid’ sense of the position of the company. How big is it – organisation structure? What does it feel like to work there – culture? How does it fit into the market place? What kind of relationships does it have with customers / suppliers? What makes it successful?
This is not a fantasy exercise, but one where you imagine a real desired future. If you put elements in that don’t feel possible, modify them to feel do-able, then crystallise this sense of the future to make the image clear for all. The clearer this is, the more you inspire everyone to make it happen.
Strategy
Now you have to step back and think through what has to happen to make this future position come true. What strategies take you on course to this future? What does the company have to stop doing? Start doing? Do better / more of? What are the critical points along the timeline from now to that 3-year position? What are the critical success factors – things that must happen for this future to be real? Those critical success factors will often determine your core strategies.
Objectives for the year
You now have a clear goal for year 3 and the main strategies to get you there and key milestones on the way. Where do you have to be in 12 month’s time to be on target to achieve that goal? Define the goals /objectives for the year and identify the Key Performance Indicators that you need to measure to monitor progress.
Functional strategies
Now break down those objectives into annual strategies / plans by function and make sure you notice inter-dependencies between functions and that all strategies / plans are aligned and you are planning resources appropriately to deliver the desired results.
Tactics
What precisely are the functions doing? Break down those functional strategies in detail to identify what each department will be doing over the year.
Budgets
Make sure you tie these plans together with budgets, so you know you have the resources in place to take the actions you plan and what these actions will deliver in revenue.
Monitor and review
Your business plan should be a live document that helps guide the business activity and monitor achievement of goals. When circumstances change it is relevant to amend the plan, however, just because you haven’t achieved the planned 25% of revenue by the end of the first quarter, this is not a reason to change the year-end goals. Rather you need to monitor the pattern of sales and rethink your efforts to achieve sales – maybe your marketing plan is not working as desired.
Keep on top of your business by actively using your business plan.
Amanda will be running a seminar on business planning on 26 January, please register your interest by email. If you want to discuss this article or find out more, please contact amanda@amandabouchconsulting.co.uk
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