Your view of the business world will influence your behaviour and have amplified consequences for you, your team and your customers.
If you see the world as benign and beautiful your behaviour is likely to be open and trusting. You are more likely to invest in relationships, be honest with your views and to share wisdom and effort.
Conversely, if you see the business environment as a battle ground, as hostile or evil then this will limit your display of unconditional love in the boardroom.
We are likely to see defence, secrecy, aggression, hard bargaining and a transactional approach to people. Your world will be full of tasks to be performed and not relationships to leverage.
Our view of the world is evident in how we carry out our duties as a leader. They shape the destiny of the business, the culture and morale of the team and will become our epitaph.
What will you view of the world be for 2012?
Matthew Hill is a Leadership Trainer - +44 7813 760 711
Variety - New ideas, change, fresh approach, something different, development, stretch, innovation, game changer, strategic inflection point, new paradigm, stimulation
Contribution - Exchange, Swap, Put In, Learn, Story, Experience, Success, Failure, Give, Receive, Invest, Show, Demonstrate, Enquire, Help, Lead by Example
Matthew Hill is a Leadership Trainer - 07813 760 711
Influencing – Some Powerful Actions, by Matthew Hill
Find your “NO” – start saying no, practice and build your power and confidence with this essential word. The aim is to communicate and not to aggress!
OWN your “NO” – As you begin to feel comfortable with the word, use it regularly to interrupt the manipulation of others.
Add sugar to your “NO” when you have a powerful no. Replace some of the power with diplomacy to make it more digestible to the other party.
Face Aggression – Focus not on the emotion or violence but on the logic and message within. The aggressor needs to be heard and feel valid.
Make the Passive person RESPONSIBLE. Find the one small area where the passive person IS responsible and expand from there.
Indirect Aggressives – Confront the gossiper and spiteful gang and ask them, “Does person X know that you are saying bad things about them?”
Arrogance – Don’t assume that arrogance or tough words are all that they seem. Analyse sentences for what they may mean – What is the subject, plea / request, relationship / power and the self -revelation?
Charm – Feel free to use charm, flirtation and confidence to help you influence.
Calm Conflict. Separate your emotions from the real issues involved.
Build Lasting Agreements – Set up a discussion or negotiation process that will ensure a lasting and valuable agreement by getting engagement, getting commitment to a high quality outcome and by concentrating on INTERESTS and not positions and personalities.
Avoidance – Name the behaviour and make the avoider speak.
Establish TRUST – Acknowledge your own mistakes, and the truth in the other person’s argument.
Accelerate Relationship Building – Mirror their words and body and Actively Listen.
Needs – Find the unmet emotional needs of the other person – for Security, Variety, Meaning and Connection.
Drama – When someone is exaggerating, talking too much or telling and indulgent story, INTERRUPT and change the direction and energy of the conversation.
You can SELL! – Swamp the other person’s needs with outstanding VALUE.
Begin Change – Accept the personal pain and cost of change whilst becoming excited and committed to the positive outcome of the process.
Manipulate. Accept that it is ethical and normal to employ positive and high integrity manipulation techniques to get to mutually beneficial goals.
In some of my recent trainings I have come across the crash and class that happens when new recruits come into a “Command and Control” corporate environment and face the conflicting messages coming from directors.
Command and control companies keep a tight grip on power and do not give everyone the keys to the vault.
The paradigm of “New Leadership” and Goleman’s “Emotional Intelligence” have not changed their core beliefs but, instead lead to weird hypocrisy of styles and meaning.
Command and control directors use the language of “Creativity” and “Empowerment” whilst subtly demanding the opposite - corporate conformity and ENTHUSIASTIC OBEDIENCE to a less than creative norm.
The Question for the intelligent worker is, “How can they reconcile this contradiction?”
It is about filling up on information or changing our thinking?
The night before any important group training session is the time for nerves and reflection for any self-respecting facilitator.
Will the material stand up? Will to format be appropriate? Will the number of alpha males in the room cause a problem?
On top of this exist cultural differences that must be addressed. If you are teaching “30 Somethings” in Germany, you may be faced with the “banking” model of training expectation.
From schooling, parenting and past experience of teaching, the class may have a fixed process model in their mind of how teaching should be conducted i.e. it is the dry transfer of information, preferably via black and white hand-outs.
My personal style employs extreme interactivity, humour and challenge. I attempt to gain permission from the group ahead of time before embarking upon this experiential journey. What follows is a deep experience session where the class are empowered and encouraged to provide the stories and material that we will work on. This delegation of responsibility can be shocking to many.
Taking the model one step further, I see training facilitation as providing the provocation necessary to change thinking!
A half-day or day of information transfer will not change outcomes because it will not change behaviour. For this to happen emotions must be generated and the delegates must make an uncomfortable choice between staying in a now painful place and moving, with initial discomfort, to higher ground.
I see the mission of a short course trainer as putting enough danger into the classroom to achieve structural shifts for the students in their emotions, thoughts and future actions.
No wonder we facilitators have restless nights before delivering training.
Matthew Hill is a short (and long) course facilitator in the areas of leadership, conflict and culture. 07813 760 711.
Below are some Brain Storming answers to help you in solving more complex problems and coming to some important decisions…
Subdivide the complex problem into it’s component parts.
Use Brain Storming to change perception and get a new angle on the issues.
Consider the PEST context – Political, Economic, Social and Technological.
Use the TOWS matrix to create strategic options.
Separate the people from emotions, the issues and people’s emotional needs.
Scratch below the symptoms to reveal the multiple causes and the ROOT CAUSE.
Ask WHY? Until you get to ROOT CAUSE.
Raise your awareness of your de BONO thinking style – Are you a Information / Evidence thinker?; A Positive value and Potential thinker?; A Cost and Risk thinker?; An Intuitive thinker?; A Creative Divergent Thinker or a Moderator Chairman / Chairwoman?
What role are your team playing? Are they bystanders, victims, critics or navigator/players?
Is there a block to progress? Paralysis by Analysis?; Frozen Fear?; Denial and Avoidance?
Use a Decision Matrix to take some of the emotional bias out of the process.
Change the words you use to prevent repeating emotional TRIGGERS getting in the way.
Amplify the consequences of two similar options to make them more distinct.
Perform a Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) on the options.
Decide on Criteria, Priorities, Importance Vs Urgency and Strategic Value.
Is an issue a bi-product or at the heart of the matter?
Separate the real stuff from the noise and distraction.
Good luck with your problem solving and decision making.
Matthew Hill is a leadership trainer. 07813 760 711
I have just spent 30 hours locked in with a hothouse of talent, working on our presentation skills, our selling skills and our business plans.
The bottlenecks to progress came in two varieties – firstly those centred on a lack of information or specific skill. “I don’t know how to…” These were easy to sort out – Free and cheap information resources are the most abundant thing on the planet at the moment! We all left with a long list of websites, batches of useful business cards and the promise of web-based answers.
The second bottleneck was more subtle and a lot more intriguing. In conversation about goals and ambition with the delegates, their eyes would occasionally flick away, their faces move from animated to “neutral” and they would pause, err and close down.
What I was witnessing was resistance and a decision taken a long way in their past.
I was seeing self-limiting beliefs in action. At some time in childhood a situation had occurred, and strong emotions had be evoked. The childhood defence to this drama was to believe “I am no good at …” or “I can’t do …”
Dr Joanna Martin from Shift Speaker Training was on hand to NLP the delegates out of their disempowering drivers and release their confidence energy and potential that was lying just below the surface.
Being amongst a large group of high potential speakers and high achieving business people was inspiring. They were generous with their time and attention, intuitively focussed on value, and most had the innate ability to ask for clarity to uncover the diamonds within.
It was a truly moving weekend and I hope to see some of them again, either in JV partnerships or on the stage, making a difference in the world, one audience at a time.
Please join us for the “7 Leadership Skills for Managing Diverse Global Teams” Seminar Event - 7PM,11th October 2011 at the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, Bloomsbury Square, Holborn, London, WC1A 2 LP. UK.
How are you coping with your international colleagues? Why is communication sometimes so difficult? Does teamwork have to be so stressful?
This will be a high-energy 3-hour event that will take you from curious to competent in the following areas…
1. Channels for Powerful Communication – The main issue with remote teams is the narrowing of information exchange due to distance and the media. We will suggest methods to enhance your presence, impact and influence from a distance.
2. Mind the Culture GAP! – We will provide a model of cultural difference that may surprise you! You will be shown a new way to look at cultural difference and describe new possibilities for creating trust across the bridge that is culture.
3. Managing, Leading and Influencing - We will point out the critical differences between managing, leading and influencing and show you what works well and where others often get it so wrong.
4. Building Trust Remotely – We will take a more scientific look at the 3 components of trust and see what you can do to guarantee rapport, relationship growth and reciprocity.
5. Dealing with Conflict - We will show you 3 ways to stop the painful disputes and how to turn around hot and cold conflicts.
6. From Confusion to Value - In this seminar you will be shown some of the advanced techniques used by the biggest global companies to make diversity positive and productive for all.
7. Remote Moderation - We will demonstrate great ways to chair remote meetings, grow trust and accountability and get your team moving forward, in the way that makes sense for you and promotes accountability and empowerment within your remote team.
How does that sound? – Can you afford NOT to be there?
Refreshments provided with a networking break after an hour. (3 hour event)
Tickets are £37 each with an early-bird offer of £27! Space is limited, so take action TODAY!
If you are working with a remote team or within a diverse team, then this evening event will help you get engagement, diffuse tension and get to super-performance within your team.
Please feel free to call if you have any queries on 07813 760 711
What’s in it for you?
This is a unique and comfortable opportunity to measure your readiness and ability in dealing with difference and distance. You will raise your awareness of your “cultural blind spots” and, in so doing, free yourself to become much more effective in managing remotely and getting the job done.
We look forward to welcoming you on the 19th July at 7PM.
Look at the video
Speaker Profile
Matthew Hill
Matthew Hill is an experienced Leadership trainer, coach, public speaker and consultant working in
a multi-national business setting.
Matthew has more than 20 years of experience with over 70 clients in 20 countries from his international executive search, HR and training career, servicing clients that include the UK Government, Ernst and Young, ABB, GE, PWC, Mercedes, Sony, SAP, Arup, Unilever, Texaco, EdFE, RWE, Abbott Laboratories, Tesco, Deutsche Bank, EBRD, Motorola and NIKE. He has personally worked with 50 nationalities in 20 countries and managed people from 12 different countries.
Today his work covers a number of training areas including – Diversity, Virtual Team Building, Negotiation and Conflict Resolution, Raising Cultural Awareness, Influencing, Equality and New Leadership and Country Culture Briefings (Russia, Poland, Czech and Slovak Republics, Hungary, Austria, Croatia, Bulgaria, Germany, Romania, Ukraine, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Ireland the UK.)
Matthew has held the positions of Managing Director, HR Practice Leader, Client Operations Manager and Team Leader for two long-standing global executive search and HR consultancies.
His experience extends beyond the UK and the Continent to include Asia, Central Asia and a 6-year tour in the Czech Republic where he held a regional role for Central and Eastern Europe. Here he successfully shaped project requirements, designed and lead international training and consultancy assignments.
Matthew graduated from London University (Psychology and Life Sciences) and has professional qualifications in advertising, marketing and intercultural training as well as extensive in-house training and development experience. He is a licensed practitioner of Neuro-Linguistic Programming.
He regularly writes, broadcasts (both radio and podcast) and speaks for the BBC, the APU in Cambridge, Newcastle University, the Belgian and Hungarian Embassies, the CIPD, The British, Australian and New Zealand Chambers of Commerce, UKTI, the Trade Council of Iceland, the Institute of Directors- IOD, The Tomas Bat’a University in Zlin, Czech Republic, HR Director magazine, European CEO magazine, Human Capital Management magazine, International Trade magazine, International Trade Forum magazine, Global Connection magazine, HR Review magazine, The Personnel Zone website, Construction News, SIETAR, The Association of European Businesses, IIC Partners, IIR Conferences (Globally Mobile Executives) and the ECIA (Engineering and Construction).
He had recorded a number of CD’s including Coaching For Change (2009) and written a number of books including Step Up to Leadership (2009), Kill Conflict DEAD! (2010) and Coaching for Change (2010). His newest book on young and new leadership will appear later in 2011.
He now lives in London and is Chairman of the charity - the Society for Intercultural Education, Training and Research – SIETAR UK.
