Challenge Blog

Does it seem like every networking event you go to there are these magic people who call themselves coaches?  Do you often wonder how someone else can have all the answers to things that worry you!? 

How can other people know how to help YOU? 

Does working with a coach really work?

How can it work……..?

Imagine you have won the Open at St Andrews.  How did you get there when from being just a good golfer? 

Yes - you had a coach.  A coach who knew what your strengths and weaknesses were, a coach who knew the game of golf [maybe who knew the best players!]  You worked together, you set goals together.  Coach gave you feedback, and showed you the difference between a good shot and an excellent one.

You won the Open, your coach didn’t and at the next tournament he’ll still be your coach constantly helping your strive for perfection. 

This is the same for tennis players and other sports people so what’s the difference between these games and the game of life?

A coach [some people would call this person a mentor] knows people, understands potential, believes in YOU.  They understand that you have the answers somewhere even if you can’t find them right now.

They ask the right questions.

They see what your face is saying but your mouth is not.

They pull threads together and present back to you possible links in the threads. 

Being coached can help you with an immediate issue or an old chestnut.  Have you always had a problem with relationships, a new challenge, that type of manager/client/member of staff and you’d really like to resolve it now? 

Did you know the rugby player Matt Dawson had a drama coach to help him improve his dancing when he was in the competition Strictly Come Dancing?

I would like to tell you about someone I coached who we’ll call George.  He was a young manager who had ambition but he was not progressing very well and felt he was undervalued.  He was recognised as a skilled technical member of staff but had very little credibility with his team. 

I noticed he had a young face and manner, in fact childish mannerisms.  We built trust and confidence and worked on different aspects that he was frustrated with and needed to change including his gravitas and maturity as well as his communication and management style. 

Yes this story has a remarkable and happy ending.  George became accepted and respected by his team [not an easy journey but rewarding one].  As part of the journey, he revealed and accepted help with learning difficulties that no one knew about and following that he became more confident. 

He could measure the value of changes; in just one meeting his new adult behaviour saved the company £10,000.  That was just one of many changes he recorded.  He went from being on a performance improvement plan to being a highly respected manager.  He felt more confident and significantly raised his level of performance.

George used the coaching skills he experienced to coach his own team.  Exercises I did with him he used with them.  They supported each other learning and growing!

Your challenges may be different to George’s, but you may have an area in your life where you want to improve your performance, and know more about this growing process which will support your improvements and give you tools to use with others at home or at work!

Article written by Coach and Mentor

Lynne Ewer Carrington

Director

Challenge Manager

Gosh it is easy for time to slide by without blogging!  I’ve been on holiday and Emma & Lynne have both been really busy - good news for the bank balance but bad news for the networkingand maintaining an online presence (as our web designer would say!).

Striking a balance between work and leisure is so important - we talk to many of our clients about focusing on all the important areas of your  life and it is so crucial to make time for family, fun, friends and yourself alongside or as well as work . 

More than that now for those of us running our businesses, we also need to strike a balance between doing the paid bits of the job & marketing for the future - networking, calling, social media, twittering, blogging, forum posts - it all adds up to a whole lot of stuff to do!

How do you find that balance between all the ways you can / do spend your time both a work and home?

Do the boundaries overlap between these areas of work and life?  Is that okay if they do?

Not sure I have all the answers but I’m enjoying the questions I ask myself!

Phewsh where does the time go?  Two months since we last added anything to this blog.  Good news I guess as work has kept us so busy.   We’re pleased that we’re getting new business at a time when many companies are struggling.  We’re working hard at it though - it don’t happen by itself!

But with renewed energy I am keen to get back in to the habit of posting my ramblings here!

I was delighted to give a brief presentation this morning at a local business breakfast. Continuing my theme about engaging employees and training, I was pleased to talk about reasons why I believe that now, more than ever we need to keep on investing in the skills and abilities of our employees. Why now? Am I mad to be talking to you about spending money on training in the current climate? Absolutely NOT! Now is THE time to focus on training. Why might I say that? 1. You want to be FIT FOR THE FUTURE – if your business is surviving the credit crunch when your competitors aren’t then you want to be fit & ready to pick up the maximum amount of business when times get better again. Will people want the same things from you as they want now or will expectations have shifted? Ensure you and your staff are skilled for future needs – this is an essential time for forward planning. Remember THOSE WHO FAIL TO PLAN ARE PLANNING TO FAIL. Also take note of research that has shown that businesses that train their staff are 2.5 times less likely to fail than businesses that don’t. 2. You may find that there is time available to do training now – if people are currently under-utilised then their time can be well spent on developing their skills. 3. Now is an essential time to motivate, reward and ENGAGE your staff. Well planned and relevant training can do this. You want staff who remain loyal to you and being giving opportunities to develop their skills will help build and maintain this loyalty – it gives a perception of a business with a positive forward focus who are worth sticking with. Be imaginative – what training would your staff enjoy & see value in? What can you do that doesn’t cost too much yet still has a high perceived value? 4. You also want to keep the loyalty of your customers at a time when competition is fierce and other businesses may be cutting their prices – investing in ensuring that EVERY SINGLE MEMBER of your teams has the skills and attitude to place customer service at the centre of their focus will help you maintain that loyalty. 5. Skilled staff save you money. We often challenge delegates on training to make efficiency, improvements or cost savings that are equivalent to the training investment – for example if everyone who attends meeting skills training then saves just 30 minutes a week in meeting time that adds up over a year to big efficiencies in excess of the cost of the training. Let your staff be your experts in finding ways to do things better, faster, cheaper and for more profit! 6. Skilled managers will also save you money as they will rely less on external help from people like me in matters like HR! 7. You can tie training in with your Corporate Social Responsibility commitments which is great for PR and brand awareness. We run many training programmes where the learning activities are “real” and geared towards supporting a community or charity project. The learning is high quality, meaningful and relevant, people remember the event for years to come, a charity gets help and you get great publicity- everybody wins! 8. A great reason to invest in training RIGHT NOW is that there is money available to do it! FREE money! There really is no catch – there are pots of funding available to spend on management and leadership development, NVQs, essential skills, bite sized learning programmes, and there is also sometimes money available to pay the wage costs while staff attend the training. Contact Train to Gain to find out more. 9. The next month or so is a great time to plan to do something as on May 14th it is Learning at Work Day – this is a national event as part of Adult Learning Week and is focused on encouraging us all to continue learning throughout our adult life. The theme for this year is SKILLED FOR SUCCESS and looks at three areas: a) Key competencies – literacy / numeracy / ICT / commercial / management. b) Soft skills – intangible yet essential – Emotional Intelligence / presenting / listening / decision making / creativity. c) Being ready to learn new skills – confidence / motivation & willingness / ability / awareness. Remember that learning can include non work training too – anything that gets people fired up and using their brain cells will be good for them and benefit your business! Any learning increases the capacity of our brains’ functions so be imaginative in how you introduce learning in your workplace. We’d love to talk to you about learning in your business so why not get in touch today?