The senior management team (MD, Chief Exec, Senior Board members, etc) should be spending a large proportion of their time working on strategy and vision. These are the people who drive the organisation, ensuring the plans are in place for the business to go forward. They create the vision for others to follow. They build the strategy for the business to run forward. They develop the values that everyone in the company lives by. They ensure everyone has confidence in the future. And they commit to the mission that will make the business profitable.

The middle management team consist of the people who apply the strategy, vision and values.They link in with the senior team to drive the mission forward, working to ensure the ideas generated from the people who hold the purse-strings are applied effectively. They provide the leadership for the teams working for them to actually carry out the work.

The final layer are the producers, the people who ensure the work is carried out, motivated and driven by the leaders above them who set the guidelines and ensure continuity of business.

Effectively, each layer should be ensuring they make it easy for the layer below them to carry out their jobs. By providing the correct vision, top management provide the tools for middle managers to lead the producers effectively. If the producers (the people actually going out there and selling, giving customer service, answering the phones, building the customer relationships, etc) don’t feel adequately led, they will feel unclear about their roles and responsibilities, and maybe not tap into their full productive capabilities.

If the leaders don’t feel their senior team have set the right vision or direction for the business to follow, they will not have the full commitment and positivity to drive producers forward to achieve.

It’s like a well-oiled machine that gives great performance when maintained properly, and causes alarm and distress when ignored and neglected.

Ask whether the Vision, Leadership and Production within your business is in complete harmony. If so, you have a smooth-running engine. If not, maintenance is needed to ensure its continuity.

Thanks again

Mark Williams

Head of Training

(Image by Renjith Krishnan)

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Launched during a by-gone age (1985!), it became an object of media and popular ridicule during 1980s Britain and was a commercial disaster, selling only around 17,000 units, although according to Sinclair, it was “the best selling electric vehicle” until November 2011 when the Nissan Leaf had sold over 20,000 units.

Ah, 1985. What was management like in those days? Well, many managers could get away with what today would be decidedly un-PC behaviour and get rid of people almost on a whim.

How have management techniques changed over the years? That was the subject of our discussions after we had had a few giggles at the C5′s expense.

And we reckon we have come up with today’s management ideas in a nutshell.

Your job as manager today is to create a climate that encourages and values the contribution of each person to the team effort. Your people’s energies should be directed towards problem solving, task effectiveness and achievement of your goals. Your energies should be directed at providing the best possible conditions that allow your people to contribute effectively.

Quite a change, I’m sure you’ll agree. Better, as well? We think so.

How do you encourage people? How do you make sure their energies help you achieve your goals? How do you provide the conditions for people to grow and thrive?

Today’s manager simply has to be a good leader as well. Management skills refer to the hard skills that are necessary to get the job done. Leadership involves the softer skills that builds on the ideas people have, deals with the resistors they come up with, and gains the buy-in that is necessary to allow people to motivate themselves to achieve the goals you need to hit.

A far cry from those halcyon days when Clive Sinclair ruled the electronic vehicle world. Tell the truth, not sure if I could actually have fitted in one!

Thanks again

Nick

Nick Hill

Training Director

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Many companies we visit to consult with have their visions on display, often in the reception or boardroom. But, whenever we ask how they are being applied within everyday interactions, we are often disappointed by the replies. The visions and missions are lofty aspirations, but the quality of the integration into the workplace leaves a lot to be desired.

So how can you turn the vision into reality, so it isn’t just left as a set of platitudes, dreamed up in some long-forgotten directors’ away-day?

To establish an effective strategy to make the vision work for your people, ask yourself these questions:

* What does the vision mean for what we do and the ways we behave in our part of the company?

* If it’s a centrally-located or international vision, how can we give ourselves a local sense of mission and commitment?

* What can we do on a daily basis that contributes toward achieving the vision?

* What do we do in our daily work that impedes us in achieving the vision?

* What feedback can we as a team give to management about how we can improve the application of the vision?

* How can I personally set the example to others about how to live up to the vision?

The answers to these questions require you to be prepared to commit in practical and behavioural terms to the applications of the vision. You must share the elements of the vision to all team members to make sure it really means something, and isn’t lost in the ether. You must put it across in an inspiring and motivational way, so your people want to commit to it. And you must constantly re-inforce the vision.

Make sure you involve the team in these discussions. Resist the temptation simply to tell them what they should do. To get buy-in, they must be involved in all the discussions so they really feel involved in the way forward.

The vision is the forward-looking direction the company wants to go. If it’s inspiring to others, it drives momentum and motivation. So if it’s a good vision, it’s worth investing your time into making it become reality.

Thanks again

Mark 

Mark Williams

Head of Training

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But creativity is never enough on its own, since ideas are only the raw materials for innovation. You need a screening and development mechanism to turn ideas into reality. How, though, so you first develop creative thought processes? Well firstly, you need to identify some barriers to creative thinking:

- You allow your mind to be conditioned into following a dominant pattern of thought, so you become trapped into a fixed way of looking at things

- You fail to identify and examine the assumptions you make, to ensure they aren’t restricting the development of new ideas

- You think sequentially instead of laterally, and are always looking for the best idea, rather than different ideas

- You don’t challenge obvious solutions

- You judge prematurely, not giving yourself enough time to drift over other ways of looking at things

- You tend to conform and give the expected answer

- You fear you’ll look foolish or be put down by others

These rationalisations may inhibit your thought-processes and create barriers to creativity. So what can you do to overcome those barriers?

Firstly, do some self-analysis.

Identify the dominant ideas that influence your thinking.

Then define the boundaries you are operating in and question them. Do policies need re-thinking, or processes re-thought?

Then identify how you will break free from the boundaries, opening up your mind to new ideas

Think, how would a competitor view these ideas? What would a scientist think, or a football manager? By looking from a different perspective, you create different thought patterns and possibly come up with an idea you wouldn’t have considered if you thought the same way as always before.

You may find plausible reasons why something might not work (it didn’t work last time, it’s too risky, it’s too expensive, good in theory but…, the customers won’t buy it, etc.). But it’s the end result that is key here – you shouldn’t worry too much about how you get there.

Incubation is always a good idea. How often have you had really good ideas when in the bath or shower or walking the dog? This is because the mind is working unconsciously on the problem and is able to identify those things that you wouldn’t have thought of on a conscious level.

Lateral thinking is also a good technique. Instead of looking for what is right, concentrating on relevance, moving in a certain direction and leading from one thing to another, Lateral Thinking looks at what is different, makes jumps instead of thinking sequentially, welcomes intrusions and explores many unlikely directions. You need to provocatively challenge the way you’re thinking, and reject thinking that reduces decision-making to a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’.

When you consider what benefits you gain from thinking creatively, you give yourself the chance to build great ideas and identify various perspectives that you hadn’t seen before. And that’s where innovation and future development really works.

Thanks again

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Training Course

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Many managers consider the only way they can develop their staff is by sending them on courses, which can prove costly if they are not followed up and not integrated into the current work environment. So how can you ensure that any training your staff carry out is proved valuable by being instilled in every-day work?

On-The-Job Training, or OJT, can be linked to classroom and other types of formal learning. The basics consist of:

• Showing trainees what to do
• Watching them do the job
• Talking through what they did, and how they might do it better
• Repeating these processes until they get it right
• Frequently linking the instructions with written procedures like training manuals

So, is OTJ the right approach? Well, it depends. You can identify the following points that will give you an idea:

• People are going through off-the-job training that might be done better by OTJ
• Informal OTJ activities are already going on that could be made more formal
• There are new initiatives or changes that might be facilitated by OTJ
• There are staff who could make good OTJ trainers

If you decide that OTJ may help your staff develop their skills quicker and give them more confidence, then remember the importance of:

• Getting higher-management support
• Starting on a small scale, building on success and learning from failures
• Getting the basics correct

Then you can determine how to operate and develop an effective OTJ system. Make sure:

• It operates consistently between different areas of the business
• Assessment and verification processes function properly
• The opportunities for expanding OTJ go to all areas of the business
• You see the benefits of combining it with other forms of training

Many of your staff will enjoy the benefits of e-learning and will request opportunities to enhance their learning through OTJ and mentoring. Give them the chance to expand their knowledge through different forms of training and development. That way, you will see improvements in their performance and highlight how everyone can benefit from developing their skills in many areas.

Thanks again

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Training Course

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By studying the research, I have come to appreciate that Social Intelligence is one of the keys to getting the best from my team. Daniel Goleman (of EQ fame) and Richard Boyatzis worked with colleagues at Hay Group (a HR consulting and research firm), to define 7 characteristics of “social intelligence” – behaviours of top-performing leaders at hundreds of corporations over two decades. Their research showed some interesting results, which I list below:

1) Empathy

Do you understand what motivates other people, even those from different backgrounds? Are you sensitive to others’ needs? The researchers found this was one of the main skill-sets that created deep relationships between managers and their teams

2) Attention

Do you listen attentively and think about how others’ feel? Are you attuned to others’ moods? This keeps the communication lines open and the relationship close

3) Organisational Awareness

Do you appreciate the culture and values of the group or organization? Do you understand social networks and know their unspoken norms? By being politically aware, you build up your knowledge and your capacity to affect others

4) Influence

Do you persuade others by engaging them in discussion and appealing to their self-interests? Do you get support from key people? Your influencing skills will have a big impact on how you are perceived within the business

5) Developing others

Do you coach and mentor others with compassion and personally invest time and energy in mentoring? Do you provide feedback that people find helpful for their professional development? By being really interested in the careers and development of your team members, you build reasons for them to trust and count on you

6) Inspiration

Do you articulate a compelling vision, build group pride, and foster a positive emotional tone? Do you lead by bringing out the best in people? This helps you create the environment for followers to want to be with you because of what you do and who you are, and not just because of your position

7) Teamwork

Do you request input from everyone on the team? Do you support all team members and encourage cooperation? Teamwork is key to getting results, and developing your team should be high on your agenda for ensuring success

Maybe you should work on one or two of these and see how you get on. Don’t try to do too much all at once. Build your intelligences and be seen as progressive in developing your social skills

Thanks again

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Training Course

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When you forget something, actually the memory hasn’t left you; you simply are unable to retrieve it because your long-term memory has two major components.

These are retrievability and stability. Retrievability is how easy you remember things and depends on how near the surface of our consciousness the information is lurking.

Stability is to do with how deeply the information is anchored in our brains. Some memories have a high level of stability but a low level of retrievability, and some memories are easily retrieved.

Just think of this example: Try to remember one of your old telephone numbers…difficult isn’t it? But if someone showed you that number, you would probably recognise it immediately for what it was.

Now another example: Imagine you are learning a new language and have picked up a few words. Without practice, over time those words will become increasingly difficult to recall.The amount of time it takes for you to forget it completely can be calculated and, ideally, you should be reminded of the word precisely when you are in the process of forgetting it. The more often you are reminded of the words, the longer you will remember them.

So, if you are trying to remember something, keep it in the forefront of your memory. This involves auditory recall (saying something to yourself), kinaesthetic recall (write it down or type it up) and visual recall (burn it into the visual cortex by looking at it, and describing it to yourself from different perspectives).

As a manager, it’s important to know how the memory works so you can keep up-to-date and not be found wanting when it comes to remembering important items.

Thanks again

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Training Course

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Accelerated Learning is a unique way of presenting information to gain powerful learning experiences. It is not a theory, methodology or a philosophy, neither is it the result of one person’s research. It’s a combination of many studies from leading psychological researchers who estimate it can achieve at least a 300% improvement in both the speed and effectiveness of learning.

The following is a summary of the key concepts behind Accelerated Learning adapted from Colin Rose’s book, Accelerated Learning, How memory’s secrets unlocked the way to relaxed, easy learning:

• Your brain has enormous potential – the more you use it the more associations and connections you make and the easier it is to remember and learn yet more new material.
• The left and right halves of the brain process information in different ways – the right brain responds to art, music and patterns  – it processes information holistically, grasps the whole picture quickly and is more sensitive to subconscious influences. The left brain tends to work on a step by step basis. Fully involve the right brain and you don’t just double your brain power, you increase it many times over.
• Relaxation is important to create a stress free learning environment. Relaxation is associated with a predominately Alpha brain wave pattern.
• All new information enters the short term memory store, but only gets transferred to the long term memory store if it is rehearsed immediately.
• Registering new facts depends on strong encoding, strong encoding depends to a large extent on creating strong associations. Strong encoding is achieved by creating concrete images of sight, feelings, sound, taste and smell. The stronger the original encoding the better the ultimate recall.
• Words linked to a picture are easier to learn/remember because you have achieved dual encoding.
• The key to memory is to improve visualisation – interactive visual images are the most powerful.
• Individual lessons should have breaks – people tend to remember more from the beginning and end of a training session (the Primary and Recency effects) so by increasing the number of breaks you will increase the amount of information remembered. This links to the Zeigarnik effect  – Zeigarnik, a German researcher, found that interrupting a task lead to higher subsequent recall.
  
• Learning the principle is easier than learning each individual example.
•  Meaning is vital to memory.
• Learning by example is better than learning by rote.
•  Memory works by creating a network of associated ideas.
• Suggestion can improve actual performance greatly by unblocking the negative suggestion that something cannot be done – creating a belief in success and a positiveself-image will, when allied to a sound and realistic learning programme, create great success.
• We probably all have the potential for photographic memory. The key to it is imagination.
•  Learning is maximised when all the elements are focused on the learning process. Since possibly 90% of communication is at the subconscious level, the greater the number of subconscious stimuli that are orchestrated to aid learning, the faster and more effective is that learning.
•  Imaging and articulation of new material is a powerful memory creating device.
•  Presenting each lesson in the three sensory channels – Visual, Auditory and Kinaesthetic – ensures that the presentation is in a style which the student learns best, and that all three senses are co-ordinated to make learning highly effective.
•  Early success provides the motivation for extra attention and involvement. This fuels a virtuous circle.

Get yourself more knowledge of Accelerated Learning, and identify how you can learn new things quicker and easier.

Thanks again

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Course

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Do you realise that most companies replace the majority of their customers every five years? Businesses in general lose at least 10% of their customers every year. Thus, every five years the average business must replace at least half its customer base. Why? What happens to these customers? Let’s take a look:

3% move away or die.

5% are led by their friends to buy elsewhere.

9% of customers stop buying because a competitor provides a better offer.

14% of customers defect because they’re dissatisfied with the product or service.

68% of customers stop buying because of indifference. In other words, they don’t think anyone cares about them. This apathetic attitude to customers when they have become a ‘customer’ is the key reason they leave you.

Now here’s the interesting fact: Most businesses fight over one of the smallest percentages of defecting customers. They chase the 9% who are looking for a better price. It makes no sense because even if you’re successful at capturing a “price sensitive” customer, you can be sure they’ll defect as soon as a competitor offers a lower price. Let your competitors fight over the price shoppers. Spend your time where the value-conscious customers meet!

Consider the 14% of customers who are dissatisfied. Do you think you could reduce that percentage just by staying in touch with your customers and asking them about their level of satisfaction? The answer is yes.

But wait! Two-thirds of customers are defecting because of indifference. You can make a huge impact by differentiating your business and making sure that every customer knows that you are sincerely interested in serving them. Not just today, but forever.

Here are some ideas that will help you differentiate your business and keep more of your customers.

Promote your new products and services to your existing customers.

List your products and services on your direct mails, your linked-in accounts, your business cards, your packaging, your Facebook and Twitter business accounts and other marketing links. Don’t leave it up to your customers to know your product line!

Get to know your top customers, the 5, 10 or more who spend the most money with you.

Whether they are retail customers or on-line shoppers, get to know them! By the way, these are the people who will give you referrals that will help build your business faster than any other method.

Get physical with your marketing strategy.

Use more than literature to promote your business.  A computer software trainer we know sends a bottle of aspirins to prospects to get them to sign up for his seminars, which are designed to “ease the pain” of learning a new software program. A travel agent we have used in the past uses sand to sell holidays. What can you use to be different? Think about the benefits of your products and services.
Now think of an object to associate with the benefits. Send that object to your customers and prospects!

Call your customers AFTER the sale.

Thank them, encourage them, and answer their questions. By doing so, you are there when they need you and you prove yourself different from other companies who just take their money and run!

No doubt there are other ways of making yourself different in the market place. Whatever they are, use them to effectively show why you should be top of their list when they are thinking of your products and services.

Thanks again

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Course

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One manager on the course was implementing a Kaizen Programme and his main concern was that the structure of the organisation, and especially his team, might not be supported sufficiently well to implement and maintain a continuous improvement process.

I made some notes and shared it later with the group. Here are my ideas; see if they would work for you.

1) It firstly needs support from top management, with a commitment to providing the resources that drive improvement at all times. Without this commitment, it may be a dead duck before you start.

2) The culture of the team and the whole organisation has to support continuous improvement. If there are any obstacles (people, systems, processes, etc.), you will find it difficult to maintain any
necessary changes.

3) The trust levels between everyone involved has to be very high. This means managers have to deliver on their promises to their teams, so everyone is fully committed to changes that have to be made.

4) Continuous support has to be given by management. This would involve facilitating action groups, providing coaching and training, and offering different levels of support at an individual level.

5) Processes of measurement and evaluation have to take place vigorously.  Without these, people will not get the necessary feedback to know how the improvement programme is being assessed, and what they can do to support the mechanisms of success.

6) The team must function as a learning hub. The managers have to enable this learning to be applied, so everyone can appreciate what needs to happen to support improvement. Without a learning culture, you will be running through treacle!

7) Each improvement needs some kind of recognition and reward. This doesn’t have to be monetary, but needs to be worthwhile so everyone can see the benefits of applying themselves to providing the
conditions to support continuous improvement.

We discussed that Kaizen should always be a part of the culture, and not seen as a short-term campaign that will fizzle out when attention is placed on something else. Don’t view it as a ‘program’ that we are going through; see it as a ‘way of working’ that everyone can and should subscribe to every day. That way, you encourage support and an attitude of Kaizen that creates a great working environment.

Thanks again

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Course

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