Isla Baliszewska, Author at Smart Coaching and Training | Business Support, Consultancy, Mentoring

17/07/2019 By Isla Baliszewska

Leading with Humility

There are many ways of being a leader. One is command and control – all is dictated from the top. Another is Servant Leadership. This is the idea proposed in the 1970’s by Robert Greenleaf that the best leaders are those who serve the interests of their people and their communities, who may share power but who are not driven by the accumulation of power. Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom is a good example of a servant leader, her role being to serve the people. The Dalai Lama is possibly the supreme example of leading to serve.

Research in the field of neuroscience suggests that where leaders focus on asserting their authority and their place in the hierarchy, there is a negative effect on problem solving capabilities. And where everyone knows their place and importantly, their value in a team, performance improves.

Steve Jobs is famously remembered for his quote on hiring good people and then letting them tell the leader what to do. With this in mind, the role of the leader is essentially to

Set direction – based on vision as to the future of the organisation and hence the team

Build community – ensure good relations outside of the team

Build the team – recruit, develop, engage and and motivate.

In particular within Servant Leadership the leader’s role is empowerment of the team; to have recruited a team in which the members jointly have more skills and knowledge than the leader. It is the role of the leader to develop the team and deliver the requirements in the most effective way. A good way to do this is to deploy these key skills when leading your team:

Awareness, Empathy, Persuasion, Listening

Awareness: Knowing the team members; their strengths, weaknesses, learning needs, individual communication skills.

Empathy: Looking for, listening to and acknowledging things which are preventing the team and its members from succeeding. And finding ways of working together to fix them.

Persuasion: It is the responsibility of the leader to deliver what is required. And so the team members must also want to deliver too, so they need to be engaged and on-side, knowing their purpose and value to the outcomes.

Listening: The collective ideas of the team are likely to be better than just yours – but listen with your eyes, listen for voice tone and emotions as well as content.

There are times when command and control are essential, such as in an emergency. However, in these circumstances, having built up the trust in the team and knowing the individuals through leading with humility will help ensure success.

Being humble enough to know that you don’t know everything, and that the only way to do things may not be your way is a good start – enabling others, rather, is the key to your success as a Servant Leader

“A leader is best when people barely knows he exists; when his work is done, his aim fulfilled they will say ‘we did it ourselves’”

Lao Tzu

02/01/2019 By Isla Baliszewska

Ditch or Desire? Finding what behaviours and mindsets you want to have

Many people look forward to the New Year for a new start on old habits”

-Anon

Everyone knows that New Year is when we rush around making decisions about what resolutions we need to make, knowing that 9 times out of 10 they won’t stick. So how about stepping up a level, looking at this from a different perspective, being creative, inspirational and a bit playful?

Ask yourself these two Big Questions:

Big Question One

[i type=”icon-ok” color=”icon-blue” bg=””]What behaviour or mindset or way of thinking or habit would you dearly love to ditch / eliminate from your life?

Big Question Two

[i type=”icon-ok” color=”icon-blue” bg=””]What behaviour or mindset or way of thinking or habit would you desire to have/want to invite into your life?

Have a really good think about them; think what your life will look and feel like without that behaviour or mindset; and what will it look and feel like with the new habit or way of thinking or mindset; what will it bring you to ditch the old ones and invite in the new ones; what will be better; what will be the benefits?

Years ago Volkswagen’s Fun Theory initiative looked at how to change behaviour for the better, specifically getting people to take the escalator rather than the stairs. It worked because – yes, you guessed it – people had fun! Have a look…

So now you’ve decided what your answers to the two Big Questions are, spend some time playing around with some possible ways of ditching the habits / behaviours / mindsets / ways of thinking that you don’t want, and developing the ones that you really desire.

Be as wacky, ingenious and creative as you want at this stage. Get a load of post it notes and write ideas on each one. Or find a big sheet and felt tip pens and draw your ideas. Or make a super complex spreadsheet if that’s your creative medium. Whatever, have fun!

The final part of this bit of creative play is picking a few of those options to start building some goals from. The subject of ‘Goals’ is another whole conversation; for here and now, stepping into 2019, when you pick a few goals, focus on the first small steps to take towards them. If you want help going further with your goals get in touch with us.

Right now, enjoy your Ditching and Desiring and remember…you’re doing your own Behaviour Change Marketing – on yourself.

Isla Baliszewska

29/11/2018 By Isla Baliszewska

Your Christmas Village – making those Christmas Connections

During the summer we blogged about how building your own village can extend your life. We ran several events as well and had some wonderful conversations about how to do this and how to make good connections. A reminder of Halina’s thoughts on the subject here.

Never is this idea of building a great village more important than in the Christmas and Holiday season. There is still time to introduce yourself to the neighbours, the people who you buy from (your suppliers or the smiling coffee shop assistant), the person queuing with you at the bus stop – and ask them how are they spending the holiday season. It may be that you find they are spending the time alone, their children and/or parents in other towns or other countries, perhaps their friends are also away, perhaps they simply have no-one.

Such people might welcome some contact over the holidays, a phone call, a visit, a small gesture that they are not on their own, that someone is thinking of them. And of course, so might you.

Research by BBC on loneliness shows that the most lonely people are youngsters (who may have internet friends but no actual close friends) closely followed by the elders, who may be out of the habit of making new connections or have challenges with mobility. Building a little Christmas village to include people who are likely to be alone need not be a big task – whether it is a simple smile, a small gift offered, an invitation to join you in your home, it will make a difference.

Last year’s Age UK campaign put it very neatly ‘ No-one should have no-one‘

So this season, before the holidays

[i type=”icon-ok” color=”icon-blue” bg=””]Identify people who might benefit from some contact over the holidays

[i type=”icon-ok” color=”icon-blue” bg=””]Make an effort to get their details

[i type=”icon-ok” color=”icon-blue” bg=””]Think of ways of contacting or visiting them, or what your gestures to include them in your Christmas village will be.

If it’s you who are on your own – and you don’t want to be, plan ahead….

[i type=”icon-ok” color=”icon-blue” bg=””]Decide when you don’t want to be on your own

[i type=”icon-ok” color=”icon-blue” bg=””]Talk to those around you and in your community who you might want to spend time with over the holidays

[i type=”icon-ok” color=”icon-blue” bg=””]Think about inviting them to join you for a coffee at a cafe or at your home if that works for you

[i type=”icon-ok” color=”icon-blue” bg=””]Find someone to connect with by phone or Skype or email

If you do all this in advance, then you can capitalise on the effort you have put in to build your village and ‘ have yourself a merry little Christmas’ – sharing, giving and caring with others and living more abundantly.

19/11/2018 By Isla Baliszewska

What is your Secret Weapon?

That is an interview question. What would you reply? How would you know what to reply? Not quite as bad as the ‘what kind of biscuit are you?’ but equally challenging.

To answer it requires another question to be answered first. What am I using my secret weapon for? What is the purpose? Is it to be at the top of my game, to be super productive, to win someone over, to overcome an obstacle, to get into the Aladdin’s cave, conquer another galaxy?

Once you have the answer to that question, you can start exploring what your secret weapon actually is. You might be lucky enough to have several of them. The thing(s) or people that you feel you need in order to achieve that purpose. How do you find out?

Here’s some food for thought:

Let’s say you want to want to win someone over. Interesting research from Dr John Gottman on marital stability indicated that what makes happy couples different from unhappy couples has to do with ‘repair attempts’ when things start getting sticky. Happy couples work on making stuff better. Not only do they make repair attempts but are also good at receiving them. What do you think the secret weapon is here? Could it be something to do with good communication?

Or suppose you want to nail that interview? What would you do if you got the biscuit question? Or the ‘tell me about yourself?’ The recruiting site Glassdoor suggests that storytelling would be a great secret weapon to answer this last question. Another recruiter thinks that the way to wow an interviewer is to be sure to have a good conversation.

Or perhaps you need to whip out your secret weapon to secure that crucial sale. Remembering that a sales pitch is a conversation with prospects, how about using a tip from Aston Business School’s research which indicated that creativity was key to landing a sale. Thinking about how to personalise pitch, find solutions to the client’s problems, weave a message that engages.

But perhaps you don’t think you are any good at making repair attempts / telling stories / creative thinking? That these are not secret weapons in your arsenal. Well, stop and think, what is the common theme in all of the above examples? It’s communication and relationship building! And we can all do that!

All we need to do is decide what type of relationship is involved and what type of communication we need in our secret weapons. Simple!

Have fun finding your secret weapons and if you want a very neat way to take you on that journey, discover more about your communication and relationship preferences using C-me Behavioural preference profiling.

Isla Baliszewska

28/09/2018 By Isla Baliszewska

What will you achieve by Christmas?

Swinging from summer into autumn and already we are surrounded by messages about Christmas. Indeed it is less than 3 months away…so what will you do in that time that will make a difference? What do you most want to achieve?

For those who work in multi-level marketing and retail, this is peak time to achieve sales for the Christmas / New Year period, a time for building the relationships that will yield good contracts in 2019, for delivering what is already in the pipeline. That’s a lot! And all this needs to be done by December 14th when most of the world shuts down for 2-4 weeks – depending where you are.

For the rest of us, let’s take a lesson from those in sales and marketing and ask ourselves “How can I sell myself best to achieve what I want by Christmas?” Remember, selling is all about communicating the right way so as to build the right relationships.

With such little time to set our Christmas goals and achieve fabulous results, communicating effectively to get the right message across well is crucial.

Ask yourself:

[i type=”icon-ok” color=”icon-blue” bg=””]Who do I need to impress / get to notice my achievements/ help me to measure them?

[i type=”icon-ok” color=”icon-blue” bg=””]Do I know how these people like to be communicated with?

[i type=”icon-ok” color=”icon-blue” bg=””]Do I really know my own preferred ways to communicate?

Some people like lots of detail, others very little so giving them a lot will put them off and they’ll lose interest. If your preference is to use emotion to appeal to others, the success of your conversation will depend on whether ‘how someone feels about something’ is of interest to them. Some people just want facts, others definitely don’t. Some want a lot of information, others just the salient points. What about you?

Knowing your communication preferences can help you identify which kind of people are your natural allies in achieving what you want. You can then choose who to connect with, those you best identify with, while also learning how to have successful interactions with the others.

And – the better you know yourself the easier it will be to know how to influence yourself to achieve what you want. Rather than staying stuck in old patterns, ways of behaving or attitudes that are perfect saboteurs, you can create enablers.

Here’s a strategy to follow:

[i type=”icon-ok” color=”icon-blue” bg=””]Write a statement of what you want to achieve by Christmas. Make sure it is really clear, definitely doable rather than wishful thinking, and describe what that achievement will look and feel like; if it is an intangible, what will tell you that you have achieved it?

[i type=”icon-ok” color=”icon-blue” bg=””]Write a list of those people you need on side / want recognition from / are essential to your achievement.

[i type=”icon-ok” color=”icon-blue” bg=””]How do you think they would like to be communicated with? Note 5 ways for each person.

[i type=”icon-ok” color=”icon-blue” bg=””]Note 5 ways you prefer to communicate with others.

[i type=”icon-ok” color=”icon-blue” bg=””]Look for the ‘misfits’. Are they looking for detail when you prefer to be broad brushstroke? Are they wanting big ideas when you prefer minimalism?

[i type=”icon-ok” color=”icon-blue” bg=””]Now the fun part – create your personal achievement strategy by finding the common grounds for great communication.

And here’s an idea – C-me behavioural profiling is a brilliant tool to help you understand yourself and your communication preferences, to use these to achieve the things you want. That self knowledge enables better interactions with others, harnessing your strengths, fixing your weaknesses, allowing you to astutely pick up on the characteristics of others. The door will open to having those killer conversations to get what you want by Christmas.

David Rigby / Isla Baliszewska