C-me Colour Profiling Archives - Page 3 of 3 - Smart Coaching and Training

11/06/2018 By Isla Baliszewska

When is a team not a team?

A team is essentially a group of people working together. Forming one can have challenges and a Team Wheel can help you build a great team. But first, let’s explore more the concept of a team, and an effective team.

What does not make a collection of disparate individuals a team? Possibly when…

[i type=”icon-ok” color=”icon-blue” bg=””]They work in the same room

[i type=”icon-ok” color=”icon-blue” bg=””]They are married, or in the same family

[i type=”icon-ok” color=”icon-blue” bg=””]They work for the same boss or company

[i type=”icon-ok” color=”icon-blue” bg=””]They live in or work in the same country or ethnic group.

What does make a team? It is when:

[i type=”icon-ok” color=”icon-blue” bg=””]The group members are striving for the same objective/goal/ purpose

[i type=”icon-ok” color=”icon-blue” bg=””]Every member is working for the glory or benefit of the group not for their own individual gain

[i type=”icon-ok” color=”icon-blue” bg=””]Outside the team they are perceived as a team, and the praise and brickbats go to the whole team, not just the individuals

[i type=”icon-ok” color=”icon-blue” bg=””]Within the team, egos are subsumed and everyone helps everyone else for the greater good.

What makes some teams perform better than others?

If you want fast but questionable results build your team with identical views and ways of thinking – they will learn nothing from each other except to confirm prejudices

To get far better outcomes, have a team as diverse and different as possible. Draw from all backgrounds, skills, talents, abilities, have a mix of people and competencies to encourage innovation and positivity and to get optimum results.

The best. truly effective teams:

[i type=”icon-ok” color=”icon-blue” bg=””]Consist of individuals who think and communicate in different ways

[i type=”icon-ok” color=”icon-blue” bg=””]Allow freedom of interaction and sharing of ideas

[i type=”icon-ok” color=”icon-blue” bg=””]Are inclusive, trustful, open and collaborative

[i type=”icon-ok” color=”icon-blue” bg=””]Encourage individual and group growth

[i type=”icon-ok” color=”icon-blue” bg=””]Share a common purpose.

So how do you get the best thinking and communicating from your team?

Everyone is different: some people are more logical, others more emotional, some are more introvert, others more extravert. With these possible four combinations, and C-me Behavioural Preference Profiling Team Wheels, we use the language of colours to grow individual and group awareness and create more profitable interactions:

Red

Yellow

Blue

Green

All people have communication preferences in all four categories but one colour usually stands out. An individual C-me report will give you a chart which something looks like this:

The chart shows your preferences in two contexts, one where you usually operate on a day to day basis, and the other which would be your default under pressure or when you are not adapting to a context.

To make it easy to see how well your team is balanced we can develop a Team Wheel which shows how a team is balanced and can help identify weaknesses to be rectified during the next round of recruitment. Each person’s place on the wheel is charted highlighting where strengths are and where there may be potential skills gaps.

Great communication within a team is when:

[i type=”icon-ok” color=”icon-blue” bg=””]Everyone can learn a lot more by actively listening to what an individual has to say rather than always thinking about how they are going to impress. Learning how to properly communicate in groups, whether to use written, spoken word, video, social media, email, knowing someone else’s preferences can grab or hold someone’s attention and lead to a productive communication experience.

[i type=”icon-ok” color=”icon-blue” bg=””]All individuals have preferences in both the way they like to receive communication and the way they like to give it. If you want to communicate effectively – i.e. be understood – then one way of addressing this is to communicate with your colleague in the way they prefer to be communicated with. So for example. forget your preference for barking orders with no information, but instead recognise that others may prefer an ordered communication with lots of detail.

The C-me Team Wheel can give a good indication as to the pairs who will have the most difficulty communicating, allowing understanding of potential clashes and making it possible to explore ways to surmount these, using new found skills and different ways of interacting can give profoundly positive results

For more information about getting a Team Wheel to create your best team, email [email protected]

14/05/2018 By Isla Baliszewska

Punishment vs Positive Reinforcement: Can punishment help deliver a better way forward?

A few observations offered by David Rigby on the merits of different ways to get things right….

There appears to be a rise in the use of the word and deed of ‘punishment’ throughout the media and also in everyday life.

In the UK, the British Government together with France and the USA have ‘punished’ Syria for allegedly using chemical weapons. Ignoring history, when Saddam Hussein from Iraq, was waged war on for having chemical weapons for which no evidence was ever found, punishment is all around us. Children get punished for minor misdemeanours. A friend punished his dog by locking him up. Mobs punish anyone who isn’t like them. A well known President threatens punishment in every utterance and his fans love it while the rest of the world despairs. Fortunately he doesn’t deliver.

In the old days, when administering the cane, the school teacher might say “this is hurting me more that it’s hurting you”. Better that neither the teacher nor the student is hurt by not punishing at all. Instead, positive reinforcement – praising the good – is, or at least used to be, the way forward.

How does this affect each of us in our everyday lives?

All our behavioural profiles from C-me Behavioural Colour Profiling contain a section on “blind spots”. These are facets about ourselves that we perhaps know, but always chose to ignore, rather than acknowledge or fix. With politicians no amount of facts will sway the opinion they want to peddle. But with ourselves – do we really want to believe our own hype? Or do we want to improve ourselves? Punishing ourselves for eating the extra piece of cake with a two hour spinning class? What does that achieve? Eat more cake!

Positive reinforcement is a technique where we, or a coach, will identify things we have done well or achieved. And will express praise in positive language. A bad coach may use negative language to try to say the same things – “Do not give up now” etc, putting the idea of ‘giving up’ into the coachee’s head, when the goal should be to keep the positive uppermost. Recently in a young offenders institution in London ‘tough love’ was replaced by the reward of chocolate and cakes leading to a fall of 80% in assaults on staff in a year. The all round improvement in morale meant the inmates became more social with each other and much less destructive.

So here are some great options:

[i type=”icon-ok” color=”icon-blue” bg=””] Face up to your blind spots

[i type=”icon-ok” color=”icon-blue” bg=””] Praise yourself for fixing them rather than punish yourself for having them

[i type=”icon-ok” color=”icon-blue” bg=””] And perhaps influence others to do the same.

David Rigby

31/08/2017 By Isla Baliszewska

Are you selling to your customers the right way?

Personally I make purchasing decisions very quickly based on very little information and an appeal to my emotions. “How will it look/feel if I buy this?” Do I treat clients the same way? If I followed “I treat my customers the way I like to be treated” then I would. And would that get those people want to be my customers? Would they be happily sold to by me?

We are all different and we make our buying decisions differently. Some people like lots of facts, they are ‘maximisers’, thoroughly researching the market to ensure they have covered absolutely all the options. Others like to take a lot of time to make purchasing decisions. Some people like to engage in a dialogue, have a conversation. Others like to be left alone to examine all the evidence, then come up with the questions, and make a considered decision.

So what do you do? And do you know why you do it?

If you already have your C-me colour profile you have the edge in understanding what your preferred way of thinking and doing is and what informs your decision making process, including what and how you buy things. You appreciate whether you tend to the rational or the emotional, the big picture or the detail. And you will know how you like people to engage with you. That is really powerful stuff when you are being sold to.

Standing in your customer’s shoes

Anyone in business is looking for customers. If you could assess potential customers using indicators that demonstrate their buying preferences, that would be amazing. You would be better equipped to know how to approach them, what to say, when to say it and how to deliver your message, whether written or spoken, social media or email. So brilliant if you can ask your clients to do a C-me, however that might be a bit tricky!

But…if you know your own preferences when it comes to communicating with potential customers, imagine how useful that would be. Maybe you aren’t comfortable with reaching for the phone and having that difficult negotiation. Maybe you find you can’t stop talking when you get in front of someone. A C-me profile will give you that knowledge and enable you to see how your clients are communicating with you and help you look for clues as to best ways of reaching out to them. And depending on how they communicate with you, you will know how much you may need to adapt your natural preferences to negotiate that sale. That could be the difference between failure and success.

You can only treat your customers the way they like to be treated when you know how they like to be treated. And you can only make that effective in sales terms if you know how you are communicating with them.

Find out more about how C-me Colour Profiling can help with your sales and enhance your relationships with your customers, both those you already have, and those you are approaching.

David Rigby 2017

When is a team not a team?

Punishment vs Positive Reinforcement: Can punishment help deliver a better way forward?

Are you selling to your customers the right way?

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