Hello 

Have you ever heard the phrase, ‘they were throwing their toys out of the pram’? 

The chances are you have. Not only because it’s a fairly common phrase, but also because the type of childish, self-centred behaviour that those words conjure up, is unfortunately fairly common.

Now of course, we all have emotional flare-ups from time to time, but when that becomes a habit, and when that habit is one which has been ingrained in someone in a position of power and influence, then it can be (and almost always is) really quite destructive. 

Some people defend this type of behaviour as being a manifestation of passion, however I know many people who are passionate about their work, and most of them are pretty level headed. Intense sometimes yes, but as often as not, quite balanced in terms of their behaviour.

The propensity for some individuals to generate chaos and uncertainty around them because of their predilection to indulge in those types of behaviours is something which I believe cannot go unchallenged. In the first instance the effect that they are having on others should be drawn to their attention, because it may be that they simply don’t know how they are impacting others. That may in some cases be enough for them to begin to modify their behaviour. It may also be necessary to offer them some friendly and/or professional help and guidance. 

I actually think that the tools that can help us manage our emotions more effectively are an essential part of the personal (and leadership) development toolkit, and its why within several of my developmental frameworks, close attention is paid to exploring those strategies. 

However, there is another type of ‘toy thrower’. This individual is not simply a victim of extreme pressure and/or has just not understood the damage that they can create, or perhaps has not had access to the approaches that they might take to manage themselves more effectively; this individual uses the emotional firecracker approach to keep everyone off-balance. Additionally they may also be using this technique to highlight the pressure that they are under in a ‘poor little old me’ way, and/or to draw attention to how much of the success of the business depends on them, thus (they believe) deflecting any potential challenges to their behaviour.

And sadly, that often works. 

I would suggest that not tackling that type of individual as quickly as possible is a false economy. In fact it’s likely to get worse. Emboldened by the sensation of power, as they note people running chaotically around them, uncertain, fearful, anxious, they may well increase the pressure and  become even more ‘tyrannical’.

And that particular version of toxic culture hell is no good for the team or ultimately the business.

I think that that type of behaviour is not only unacceptable, it’s also something that needs to be nipped in the bud, quickly and cleanly. We must all crank up our courage when required and become less accepting of such deleterious individuals. As often as not, these people need to be tackled head on. 

Everyone has a role to play, and in the first instance it’s important not to be held in thrall to someone who is essentially nothing more than a big spoiled bullying child.

Best wishes 

Mike 

Hello
Here is a short video about one of those tricky and thorny little leadership issues…the egotistical leader.

There’s a relatively thin line between being self assured and being self obsessed, and whilst many companies pride themselves in people development, and their selection processes; I don’t know about you, but I quite often see a questionable individual being put in a position of authority where they can do real harm. And sadly, they often do.

There is no one answer to this issue of course, and often the causes are likely to be multifactorial, but having witnessed some of the ensuing psychological damage first hand, I believe that we have to begin with an prerequisite for leadership that Marcus Aurelius probably didn’t write down, but may well have agreed with;

(this is definitely not the best Latin, (and I think he may have written in Greek anyway) but hopefully you’ll get the idea)

stulti non licet

or

no leader should be a prat.

Best wishes
Mike

Hello

Well it’s 2018 and it’s already not too far away from February. So what does the year hold in store for us? I suppose it’s the uncertainty of not knowing that makes life exciting, or scary, depending on how you look at it.

I’m guessing that what most of us would wish for would be happiness. Happinesses for ourselves, and for others. There has been quite a lot of research carried out in the area of happiness, and it tends to produce some interesting and perhaps, when you think about it, common sense pointers as to what can make us happier.

The Happiness Research Institute in Copenhagen (a very happy place apparently) has produced some very interesting work in this area. I would recommend reading what they have to say. I also wanted to briefly highlight one area which the Happiness Research Institute considers to be important, and that is that a sense of connectedness tends to make us happier. That is the ability to have access to several friends when we need to talk things through, and also to know that people are there for us in a crisis.

Contrast that with the very often isolating effects of social media, and indeed the harmful effect that it can have on an individual’s self esteem, e.g. ‘I am only as good as the number of likes that I have’.

More on that another time.

Now whilst it’s very important to have that sense of connectedness outside work, should the workplace be any different? I would suggest absolutely not. The exact nature of the connectedness may be different, but a sense of being able to talk things through, and of people having our backs, with no dagger present, is surely a culture to strive for, if it doesn’t already exist.

Having interviewed and worked with many successful leaders, I would suggest that there are three traits that are present in leaders who successfully create a culture of connectedness, and these are:

1) They actually want people to succeed. There is no subtle sabotage going on behind the scenes, people are genuinely encouraged to be as good as they can be. The successful leader understands that team success requires everyone to be at the top of their game.

2) They actually like people. A strange thing to write perhaps! However I have seen (perhaps you have too) leaders who simply do not appear to like other people. They are awkward, and apparently pained in the presence of others, and they often actively avoid contact.

3) They value different opinions. They often seek out those who disagree, and importantly, they listen.

If a leader genuinely does not want others to succeed, doesn’t actually like people, and cannot bear to hear a different opinion from their own, then they really shouldn’t be in the role, in my opinion.

Thankfully most of us aren’t like that, but we can fall into the trap of inadvertently behaving in a way which can diminish that sense of connectedness.

So what can we do to ensure that we avoid these damaging behavioural potholes?

There are many approaches that could be taken, but for the sake of brevity, I would suggest considering taking the following simple steps:

1) At least once a week sit down with someone and have a conversation about how you can help them with their development. This could be considered to be coaching, or mentoring, or both. Whatever you call it, mindset is the key. Bear in mind that your job is to support them in whatever way that you can.

2) Check out when you last spoke to the person with whom you have the least rapport. It’s often the case that even in a high performing team, some people gravitate to certain individuals more than others. And that’s ok, as long as a sense of balance is maintained. It’s very easy to fall into the trap of kidding ourselves that we are spending equal amounts of time with all of the team. Make sure that you divide your time equally, whenever possible, and remember that it’s your job to set the tone. The words, welcoming, candid, interested, and supportive, spring to mind.

3) Ensure that you are surrounded by some people who have differing ideas and opinions to your own. This does not mean that you should have stand-up arguments every morning, quite the reverse. What it does mean is that a healthy debate and discussion, where differences are aired and shared, is to be encouraged. This is preferable to the group think/yes person/echo chamber approach that some leaders indulge in.

You will hopefully see that the three strategies to help enhance connectedness are themselves connected. There is a thread running through them which, I would suggest, is to do with humility and an understanding that the leader is there to support, not to suppress.

The link to a short video about happiness can be found here:

If you want to learn more about the development work which is currently being carried out by Braver Leaders using the Braver Leadership approach, please contact us via the website.

Best wishes
Mike

Hello

I hope that you have had a very good year, and that you have achieved at least some of the things that you set out to do, and also that you have had some fun!

I have certainly encountered some wonderful people this year, made new friends and strengthened existing friendships. I have encountered the usual smattering of ego maniacs, hiding behind a facade of integrity and decency. Luckily an earthworm with rabies could spot the telltale signs. So no real harm done apart from disappointment. However some people have been downright inspiring, and have absolutely restored my faith in human nature. You know who you are, and thank you.

This is a very busy time of year for so many people, and the season of goodwill and celebration can, and often does, descend into conflict and stress.

So, I am not going to add to your burden by writing a particularly long article here. I am going to keep things quite pithy, and hopefully thought provoking by providing you with a Christmas hamper filled with two new videos, a podcast, and a radio interview!

Firstly, I would like you to ask yourself the question, ‘What have I actually achieved over the last twelve months?’

What I mean by that is to think beyond the targets and the trinkets. Ask yourself what good have I actually done?

This is explored in a bit more detail in this video:

https://vimeo.com/246991861

And for a slightly longer exploration of the same subject, you can listen to this month’s podcast here:

I would then draw your attention to the impending year known as 2018. What do you hope to achieve? How big are your goals, and how deep are you willing to dig to achieve them.

For a shot of inspiration and a very interesting perspective on resilience, you may want to watch this video:

In 2016 Callum Gathercole became the youngest person ever to row solo across an ocean. In this video he discusses how he managed to keep going. He is an extremely inspiring chap and a great example to us all.

For a more in depth interview with Callum, check out his recent radio interview with friend and colleague Terry Bennett at Abbey 104:

So what might you achieve in 2018 with the right mindset?

Seasons greetings.

Mike

Hello

I recently had the misfortune to watch the latest McDonald’s advert on UK television. If you have seen it, you will know that it centres around a boy asking his Mum about his late father. The gist of it is that the boy doesn’t appear to have much in common with his father e.g. being good at sports.

The big reveal is that the boy’s favourite McDonald’s meal is ‘Filet-o-Fish’. The same favourite meal as his father. (Have you ever actually tried typing out that name? ‘Filet-o-Fish’. It seems even more wrong and cheesy than when just simply saying it out loud (if that’s possible)).

Some people weren’t too offended, but a lot of people were very offended by what they saw as a cynical attempt by McDonald’s to use bereavement to create a warm and fuzzy feeling about their company.

McDonald’s has apparently stated that it didn’t intend to cause any offence and was simply trying to show us that McDonald’s was part of the family experience, with us in good times and bad.

I can’t say that I was particularly enamoured by the advert, it did look exploitative to me, and I couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps the father had in fact died from an obesity related illness.

Anyway, the health food mega corporation has withdrawn the advert. Perhaps it was an innocent mistake. Perhaps they simply got caught doing what so many adverts do, linking emotion to product in ways that when you think about the link logically, is absolutely ridiculous. In the case of McDonald’s, because the situation was such a sensitive one, the intended warm and fuzzy ‘aren’t we a fab company’ emotion was for many, replaced by a ‘you bunch of cynical b*******’ emotion.

The idea of using emotion to drive behaviours and influence decision making is not new of course, and in terms of other TV adverts trying the same (but a lot less insensitive) trick, look no further than Coca-Cola (e.g. the jolly Santa) or John Lewis (e.g. Christmas adverts, in particular the ‘man on the moon’. The lengths that they went to, to make that advert scientifically accurate were astounding (hand held Hubble telescopes, non-exploding in a vacuum helium balloons, a breathable lunar atmosphere. It was almost like watching a mini-episode of Horizon on BBC2)).

Wouldn’t the working lives of so many people be so much better if some organisations spent at least the same amount of time and expense making sure that their employees were actually having a good time and being rewarded fairly, as they do on convincing us about how wonderful and caring/innovative/great/trendy/cool/awesome etc their organisation is?

Some companies are of course shining examples of doing both, others sadly, are not. A different type of leadership is required. This leadership change is already happening in some teams and organisations, but it needs to happen more quickly, more widely, and more often.

Best wishes
Mike
N.B. This month’s podcast is slightly different. It was my absolute pleasure to talk to Adrian Hussey, who is the People and Capability Director at McCurrach. I think that you will find what Adrian has to say extremely informative and thought provoking.

The link is below:

https://soundcloud.com/user-786911924/bl-podcast-may-2017-with-adrian

Hello

Well, I’m sure that it hasn’t escaped your notice that we are living in very interesting times. It is as if reality has been hacked by a Hollywood script writer. One with a flair for heightened drama and a penchant for creating a credulity straining plot line. With so much unrest in the world at the moment it is very easy to become fearful and distracted. That is entirely understandable. We can all of course make our voices heard in different ways, with varying degrees of visibility and impact.

Where we can almost always make a huge amount of impact however, is in the area or areas of our lives which we directly control.

For example, our attitude, our focus, our motivation, our honesty and our interactions with others are all much more under our control than often we realise. Taking responsibility for those things that we can control is crucial. If we wait, gazing open mouthed at that which we cannot control we can waste precious energy and time. Gandhi is reported to have once said something along the lines of, be the change that you want to see around you. Wise words indeed. Be the causal agent in your own life and career. If you wait for someone else to change things, you may wait a very long time. And the people around you may well want the change that you want, but they are waiting on someone to make that change for them. And so there is no improvement, only frustration.

Everyone is a leader, irrespective of position and title. Everyone is a leader because we all have influence, often more than we realise; and we all influence each other.

So what could you do to improve your own work environment? (If it needs improving). Well, imagine how you would like things to be. Imagine what the behaviours of others would be like in that idealised environment. Imagine then what types of behaviours you should exhibit to be a shining example of this new idealised culture. Then, at various decision points during the next few weeks, pause, just before you take action, and ask yourself what would this idealised version of me do at this point? Then do it. Do it again, then do it again. Each time you are about to take some action, inject a bit of a pause, then think ‘ideal you’, ‘ideal culture’, then proceed.

Will you get that right every time? No. Will you get annoyed when someone doesn’t appreciate what you are trying to do? Yes. Will some people just not respond to this new approach? Yes. Will some people respond favourably and begin to create their own version of the ideal then? Yes, absolutely. In fact many more people are likely to respond favourably than not. The reason for that is that most people are really decent, and pretty much want the same things you do. However, what about those ‘outliers’? Well, everyone is different, and there is richness in diversity. Although, if someone is being downright toxic, that will become quite obvious. To the point where they may choose to go elsewhere, where their great skill for misery making is truly appreciated.
There is an ‘I’ in team, and there are often several teams in a culture. It begins with you. You are more powerful and influential than you probably realise. And you need to be the best version of you for not only yourself, but for your family, and for your career.

What then of the unfolding drama in the B Movie that has somehow become our current reality? I don’t know about you, but the concept of thermonuclear war is just somehow not that appealing. Particularly when the people who instigate it will be drinking tequila cocktails in their underground cities, replete with swimming pools, cinemas, bowling alleys, libraries, and of course statues of themselves. Meanwhile on the surface of planet toast, things would be very different. Perhaps it wouldn’t be all bad. For example, there would be no need for X-ray machines as people’s faintly glowing bones would be quite visible through their slightly translucent skin. Much of the internet would be down, meaning that people would actually have to talk to each other. Those at least whose tongues hadn’t evaporated. Sales of Coca Cola would skyrocket, this being one of the few drinks that was just as bad for you whilst dozed with one hundred thousand becquerels of strontium 90, as not. However on the minus side, we would have to avoid gangs of six foot tall marauding cockroaches who were being controlled by sound waves from a guitar being played by Kieth Richards.

Maybe there is a way to avoid all that. What if we adopted a different Hollywood movie reality. The reality from the type of movie where the leaders of each respective ‘tribe’ have to fight it out amongst themselves. The winner claims victory. I can see it all now. A muddy field. Us having a cup of tea whilst watching Kim and Donald et al, who are stripped to the waist, oiled-up, slugging it out. A sort of, not looking very hungry games.

Wouldn’t that be fairer? And the losers would have to endure one full year of the winner’s television broadcasts. I’m not sure what’s worse, wall to wall synchronised dancing, or the endless repetition of the phrase, ‘you’re fired!’. However both are preferable to hearing ‘you’re fried!’.

Best wishes
Mike

You can find the April podcast here:

Hello

If we ever think that we can do no more or go no further, is that actually true, or is that simply an example of a fixed mindset? Much is being made about the difference between a growth type mindset and a fixed mindset in education these days. That is good news, because I firmly believe that most children can do most things really well. One of the things that tends to get in the way of that happening is having a fixed mindset, and that fixed mindset can sometimes be instilled or reinforced by a ‘teacher’.

‘I can’t’. ‘That’s not me’. ‘I’m no good at’.

A fixed mindset massively reduces a child’s ability to do well. It can at best, cause a child’s natural ability to stagnate, and at worst it can destroy natural curiosity and self belief. On the other hand, a growth type mindset can help unlock so much of an individual’s potential. That type of ‘possibility thinking’ is essential for success.

What about outside of the classroom? Well, in business we can swap the word ‘child’ for ‘mentee’ and ‘teacher’ for ‘leader’. A real leader will (amongst other things) mentor their team. A real leader will encourage ‘possibility thinking’.

A stagnant, fixed mindset, is likely to be synonymous with unchallenged and unchanging individual and team habits. Habits are those things that we can do without thinking about them, and it’s the ‘without thinking about them’ part that can cause us to just presume that we’ve reached full potential, whereas in actual fact we simply need to do some things differently.

That particular thinking trap is a little bit like how some organisations such as Amazon send notes and ‘prompts’ about things that we may be interested in buying. The predictive algorithms responsible for this can be highly accurate, as they can spot preferences and trends based on our buying history. That’s fine…except that it can lock us into loop of self-referencing procurement. For example, if you are interested in light bulbs and forks, you’ll tend to see a lot of adverts for these. The challenge is that if you rely on these buying ‘prompts’ you may never find out about the wonders of candles and spoons, or indeed heavy bulbs.

(One of my goals is to keep Amazon guessing, which is why my last order included a go-cart, a juicer, a workbench, a fish tank, a popcorn maker, tennis balls, crampons, and a red dress. An added bonus was that it was a great party).

So how can we avoid getting locked into a rigid, fixed mindset, habitual type of thinking? Well, there are several ways to combat that, but one fast and effective way is to utilise the people who have not yet become institutionalised. I can recall one leader who told me that every new employee was encouraged to call out anything that they didn’t understand or were puzzled by. The leader’s reasoning was that seeing things through a fresh pair of eyes was one of the best ways to spot where inefficiencies (and stupidities) had become ‘normalised’ and were so familiar that no one realised that there were better ways of doing things.

So how many people have you got in your team challenging the ‘that’s just the way we do things around here’ mentality’? Creating an environment where people feel comfortable enough to challenge the ‘current thinking’ may lead to some real light bulb moments.

Best wishes
Mike

A link to this month’s podcast can be found below:

https://soundcloud.com/user-786911924/braver-leadership-podcast-6