Training & Coaching News from Smart Coaching Training

20/06/2017 By Isla Baliszewska

Presenting and Asking with Impact

You have 4 seconds to make an impression. (The average attention span in 2000 was 12 seconds, in 2015 it was 8.25 seconds!)

Phew, is that a challenge or what! The takeaway is that if you want to make the right impression, you need to be prepared. And making the right impression is something you will be wanting to do at different times of your life, be that in an interview, with your customers, with your colleagues, in a business pitch, making a presentation, on a date – goodness knows!

Delivering a good presentation doesn’t mean standing in front of an audience – you are presenting yourself all the time. Whether that’s in the queue at the supermarket, at a party, or at work. But before you freak out and think you can’t step out of the house without a 3 piece suit on or full battle make-up, take a step back and think about what you already have that makes you interesting and someone to listen to and engage with. We don’t have time here to work through that with you, so spend some time on picking 3 things that work for you.

Now for a few tips to help you master the art of your presenting…

1. Make very sure you are very clear about what you want as a result from your presentation or your ASK. If you don’t have a proper objective, you’re likely to go off piste, flounder and lose your focus.

2. Practice – practice – practice. Unless you are one of those lucky people who is great at impactful improvising, prepare your presentation in advance, rehearse it until you feel fluent and comfortable, and practice it out loud! If possible, get feedback from someone that you trust before you launch yourself on your audience.

3. A top tip from the master of Apple – Make it all about your audience, whether it is an audience of one or millions. Know who you are going to be addressing, think about them as you would your ideal customer, how can you give them some benefit and what hassles can you relieve them of.

4. “The success of your presentation will be judged not by the knowledge you send but by what the listener receives.” (Thank you Lily Walters). Back to the preparation and practice piece. With an added peppering of good clear language so there is no confusion or possibility to misunderstand your intentions and your message. Be sure the message you are giving out is the message they are receiving.

And finally, some ideas that might help you….

* For an impactful opening – A discussion of traditional and modern roles within a relationship recently revealed “Oh, we have always had a great arrangement; I make all the small decisions and my husband makes all the big ones.” Shock horror around the table until the speaker continued “And all our decisions are small ones” (accompanied with a wry smile).

* For a good compelling finish – “We are sure you can now see how much your contribution will improve the lives of ….. Before you go, tell us how you would like to make your donation…”

* And some humour, the right sort at the right time, relevant and properly delivered – “ At the very start, let me say that we both have something in common. You don’t know what I’m going to say… and neither do I.” (Thanks to Robert Orben from his Speaker’s Handbook of Humour).

We have so many tips and techniques and good ideas to help you with that special presenting moment, so don’t hold back – contact us to open the box of goodies!

Isla Baliszewska

20/06/2017 By Isla Baliszewska

Observations on the OverPromoted Manager

A Guest Blog by Michael Shanahan

“During everybody’s career it’s probable they will come across a senior manager that has been promoted above their abilities. People can often talk the talk but when it comes to delivering when elevated to positions of power and authority they flounder. Sometimes they just don’t have the confidence to push forward ideas and take risks, while others believe the promotion is the be all and end all and they can take their foot off the pedal and coast, leaving the hard work to the underlings.

How should those reporting to the overpromoted manager react, especially when credit for good work is taken by the boss and brickbats for foul-ups are hurled downwards?

Who could believe that one of the most interesting examples of an over-promoted boss is currently residing in the White House and is arguably the putative leader of the Free World? President Donald Trump certainly doesn’t fall into the group that lacks confidence in their own abilities and he’s certainly willing to take risks. And while you can’t accuse him of taking his foot off the pedal and coasting, he could be seen by some as being fundamentally lazy. It seems he can’t be bothered to read briefing notes, gets his news from TV and ignores advice, especially about giving up his Twitter addiction. And while it’s hard to feel sympathy for his acolytes in the Oval Office, they appear to be taking a daily kicking from the President for failing to remove him from the holes that he has spent the previous 24 hours digging. And so there’s no surprise that his organization is leaking like a sieve with bad news reports following bad news. His staff are doing what so many people do when they’re treated badly by an incompetent boss. They’re hanging him out to dry.”

Michael Shanahan – June 2017

Writer, recorder, erstwhile interviewer and editor, and long-term observer of people, events and life.

Our thanks to Michael for highlighting aspects of managerial/leadership behaviour that prompt the wrong kind of response from those on the receiving end of it. Thoughts like these prompt us to take a long hard look at what works well – get in touch with us to find out how we can work with you to create the right leadership.

30/05/2017 By Isla Baliszewska

Your Personal C-me Brand

Understanding Yourself and Your Personal Brand with

C-me Colour-Profiling

Everyone has a personal brand whether they like it or not. You can use emotional intelligence techniques to help you decide who you want to be and you can try to become it. You can craft the perfect personal brand on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram. And reflect yourself in the clothes you wear and the people you see.

But you cannot become just anyone you want to be. Reality is you are what you are – you can tinker with who you are but ultimately you cannot change it. So it is best to be comfortable with who you are rather than challenge it all the time.

So who are you?

C-me Colour Profiling can enable you to understand just who you are and how you flex and adapt. Starting with an on-line questionnaire you will get to understand whether you are a logical thinker or emotionally aware, whether you tend towards being introverted or extraverted, whether you like this or that, how you like to be communicated with, what your strengths are. And you will be assigned your most predominant colour (red, yellow, green or blue) in a spectrum of preferences.

Interestingly when undergoing ‘games’ to become more aware you will typically assign yourself to one colour (this is who I am), and others will invariably assign you to another one (this is who they think you are – or this is the impression you give). You, and others, start to make set statements about yourself.

But wait! That isn’t what C-me is about. C-me is much more sophisticated and insightful, helping you discover your personal preferences – how you tend to be, do and behave. YOU are a delightful mix of strengths, talents, abilities, that ebb and flow depending on your activity, the context, the social environment, your emotional state, and a lot of other variables.

As with emotional intelligence, which is about understanding yourself and also your relationship with others, colour profiling can help you understand yourself and explain why it’s easy to talk to some people but not with others. Whoever you are its OK, but there are behaviours you can adopt and adapt to become more successful with others and others with you.

Your personal brand must be based on some semblance of reality otherwise you will never live it, and it is so difficult to live a perpetual lie. C-me Colour profiling can help you understand how you really are, especially when life gets tough. And it can help you develop your personal brand based on how you actually are as well as who you aspire to be.

David Rigby

June 2017

23/05/2017 By Isla Baliszewska

Men vs Women in the Workplace – Gender equality?

What is really going on in the workplace?

Sheryl Sandberg wrote in the Times in 2016 about ‘an entire segment of the population that is vastly underrepresented in the small business economy”. At the time she was writing some recent research estimated that 2.7 million women in the UK were thinking of starting a business. Phew! That’s a lot. But….most of them don’t get going and the main thing stopping them is a lack of confidence.

The CMI Women campaign which surveyed 851 managers found that 50% of managers had observed gender bias in recruitment/promotion decisions, 42% had observed inequality in pay and awards and 69% had seen women having a hard time in board meetings.

So what to do?

It isn’t just women that need to initiate change, men need to be involved as well and have an equally important role to play in promoting gender equality, to initiate and drive change. The CMI survey demonstrated that 84% of men wanted an equal balanced workplace and that 75% of them agreed that they needed to play a part and take responsibility for supporting women to progress in the workplace. The next stage in the CMI research ‘Men as Role Models’ is working on this positive approach by doing what it says on the tin, finding men to be role models and champion women.

And remember – gender equality works both ways

And an interesting case in the USA in 2015 had Gregory Anderson, an erstwhile Yahoo employee accusing the company, of discriminating in favour or women saying they “intentionally hired and promoted women because of their gender, while terminating, demoting or laying off male employees because of their gender”. (That despite the fact that at the time 75% of Yahoo’s leaders were men.)

We invite you to read the second part of Women at the Top Leadership Research – 2; more fascinating insights on Women at the Top’s reflections on leadership by Halina Jaroszewska.

Halina’s research is an ongoing project and a valuable contribution to this dynamic subject; if you feel you have something to contribute or you know of a woman who does, please get in touch with Halina.

28/04/2017 By Isla Baliszewska

Women at the Top

Wow! So much in the media about women’s place at work!

Greg Hurst in the Times pointed out that female leaders are better than their male counterparts.

……The Wall Street Journal last year reported on how men won more promotions and women felt that gender issues contributed to them not getting promotions.

……Last year the Fawcett Society called for more action to tackle the gender pay gap.

……The Guardian reported that despite the increase in the number of women in UK boardrooms, they still tend to hold non-executive and non-CEO or Chair positions.

……According to a report from Coutts and the Centre for Entrepreneurs 38%of serial entrepreneurs under 35 are women.

……And Royal Bank of Scotland’s research showed that in 2015 businesses led by women contributed £3.51bn to the UK economy and created 77,000 jobs in 2015.

Wow indeed. And so the big questions:

1. Are women getting the same opportunities in the workplace and in setting up businesses?

2. Are women being treated equally in the business world to men?

3. What do we need to do to make sure this happens?

Sorry, we don’t have the answers all neatly packaged here for you now. But we are going to explore this issue in the coming months so we encourage you to visit our news page and have a look at our newsletter to get some answers and create some actions in the right direction.

Starting off, please read the first part of Women at the Top Leadership Research; fascinating insights on Women at the Top’s reflections on leadership by Halina Jaroszewska.

Presenting and Asking with Impact

Observations on the OverPromoted Manager

Your Personal C-me Brand

Understanding Yourself and Your Personal Brand with

C-me Colour-Profiling

Men vs Women in the Workplace – Gender equality?

What is really going on in the workplace?

So what to do?

And remember – gender equality works both ways

Women at the Top

Wow! So much in the media about women’s place at work!

Wow indeed. And so the big questions:

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