Meetings, meetings and, oops, another meeting

Stephen Lynch from Results.com has a great strategy he uses to ensure when he is meeting with a team member, its a productive discussion:

As a leader, you want to encourage your people to think though the issues first, and make good decisions themselves.  Alternatively, if it is a situation where they really do need your input or sign off – you want them to present all the options along with their thoughtful recommendation as to what the right decision should be.

I recommend training your people to use GROW framework to think through the issues – and even have them present issues to you in this manner.

G = Goal

What is the goal?  What is the outcome we want to achieve here?

R = Reality

What is the current reality?  What is happening and why?

O = Options

What options do we have?  What are the implications of each option?

W = Will

What WILL we do?  Here is my recommendation

Yes, things may take longer to resolve initially – but you must be disciplined if you want to stop getting sucked into “reverse delegation.” Push back, and tell your people to go away and present their issues to you in this manner until it becomes their new default behavior.

In effect, you are now learning to delegate more effectively.  You GROW your people by making these situations a valuable coaching opportunity – with the intent to teach your team how to problem solve and make great decisions without you needing to be there all the time.

Simple, but you can see how it would be effective.

Till next time.

“Life is for Living”.

  

 Also thrown into the mix of the last month, was a John Shackleton seminar that was attended by a large group of our clients and their guests. Once again John really impressed with his talk on health, wealth and happiness. Our staff will be following up with those clients who set 10 week goals at the event, as we would expect our clients to follow up on us with our goals from the event! Those of you who were not lucky enough to get along to the event are invited to look in our library when you next come into our offices as John very kindly left some copies of his book titled “Life is for Living”. As I have mentioned before we have many excellent publications in our library and would encourage all our clients and interested parties to come along to see what is available.

Cheers

Lincoln

Blog back from holiday!

It appears that, when looking at my last posting, my blog is still on holiday while I have returned to work.  While holidays can be restful, relaxing, family time, or a chance to catch up with those non work tasks and goals that you haven’t been able to do during the year, it is always a struggle to return to the right head space for work.  I find the easiest way to get back on track is to take the time to sit down, clarify and prioritise tasks, set goals, and basically have a good think about what I want to achieve over the coming year.  This time of year is generally good for this purpose as most other businesses and organisations are also just finding their feet after the Xmas break. 

Now is a great time to also be looking at establishing some goals for your business over the coming 12 months.  As we wind down to the end of this financial year, and approaching what appears to be the light at the end of the tunnel as far as the recession is concerned, we are in an enviable position in that we can look forward to a year of positive (as compared to 2009) possibilities.  I know myself and all the staff at Campbell Tyson Cooper White are looking forward to achieving as much as possible with our clients in the near future.

 Have a cracker week.

Lincoln