...except that in many conversations that have taken place today, people have not heard what the other person has been saying.
For an awful lot of people, 'listening' is simply the gap between the last thing they said and the next. It is a passive thing, rather than an active experience. If we want to really engage with people, we must work at making our listening far more active. This takes determination, it takes effort and it takes care - no wonder that so many people simply don't bother.
So what is active listening? Here are a few thoughts:
Observation - giving careful, non-evaluative attention to the person speaking and making appropriate eye contact will enable you to gauge the emotional element of the message that you are receiving. After all, there is always more to the message than the words that are being spoken.
Reflecting Facts - by reflecting back some of the information that you are receiving, perhaps by the use of paraphrases, should help turn listening into hearing.
Summarising - by occasionally summarising what has been said, we can check our understanding and thus gain clarity about the message we are receiving.
Reflecting Feelings - we have heard the words, hopefully understood their meaning and been able to reflect and summarise them back to the speaker. Now we should also consider feeding back the emotional part of the message that we have received.
If we try some of these ideas, it is just possible that we will raise the confidence level of the speaker that they really are being heard by us, and that has got to improve the level of communication that is taking place.
Active listening - give it a try!
Here's my suggestions for the top 10 New Year’s Resolutions for Business and Management Trainers:
Other suggestions are welcome...
Posted: Mon 9th of January, 2012
It may not be the most attractive building in the world, but for us, and the people in Nehemiah Primary School, it's one of the most exciting.
Nehemiah School is in the town of Yei in the world's newest nation - South Sudan, and this building is the newly emerging school library.
You may think that a new school library is still not the most exciting thing in the world, so here's a few facts:
It is therefore no surprise to learn that education is a major emphasis for this new country. That is why we at Roots have decided to put all our efforts in to ensuring that we get this library up and running (we are told that this library will be the first school library in the country...).
We have paid for the building, which is nearing completion. We have raised the funds to equip it with furniture and fittings. Now we need to fill it with learning - books!
As a trustee of Roots my main focus for the first part of this new year is to raise enough funds to allow our friends in Yei to purchase the books they require, and to pay for someone to run the library for them.
Interested in helping in some way?
Why not drop me an email at john@rootssudan.org
Happy New Year!
Are you interested in making sense of change management? This short interview with Patrick Mayfield may help you.
Our final principle of programme management - #7 Learning from Experience.
This principle is one that is also found among the seven principles of the project management method PRINCE2. Both programmes and projects perform better when members of the management teams assume the attitude of being learners.
In fact, a programme can be considered to be a learning environment, where we adjust and adapt our path through the programme.
Lessons should be something that we go and actively seek out, not passively record to pass on to 'someone else'.
An organisation's ability to learn from experience speaks volumes about its level of programme management maturity - how mature is your organisation's approach...?
This is one in a series of seven programme management principles that use the programme management guide MSP (Managing Successful Programmes). If you would like to know more about MSP, why not give us a call on freephone 0800 052 1600 or go to www.pearcemayfield.com
... that's not really a question for a programme, is it. We are planning to create a deliver some new or changes 'things'. We have outputs in mind, we are thinking of new and improved capabilities.
We have an idea of the 'To Be' state in our minds, don't we?
Where am I going with this?
I'm looking at another in our series of programme management principles. Now, #6 Designing and Delivering a Coherent Capability.
The essence of this principle is that we need to have a view of both our current capability (As is) and the intended future capability (To be). It is only when we have these views that we understand the capability gap that exists, which in turn helps us to determine the projects that we require to fill that capability gap.
The definition and explanation of this future capability is expressed in the programme Blueprint - a key piece of information for the programme.
Think of every project in the programme as a piece of a jigsaw. Without understanding the intended finished picture it is difficult to complete the jigsaw. The Blueprint is the picture that is on the lid of the jigsaw box.
How can we deliver a final capability that meets the needs of the organisation if we do not have a way of ensuring coherence throughout.
What is your Blueprint planning like?
Well, to answer that, we need to consider programme management principle #5 Adding Value.
The point that this principle is making is that to run a programme (and to run it well) costs money. Programme management teams do not come cheap (!), and the cost of them is above and beyond the cost of the various project management teams already in place.
The programme must therefore add value.
"A programme only remains valid if it adds value to the sum of its constituent projects and major activities." (MSP) Projects do not need the structure of a programme around them if that programme is simply a cost and adding no value.
How then, can a programme add value? Here's just three ideas:
Does your programme add value...?
Programme Management Principles: "Envisioning and Communicating a better future"
(This is based on a post originally made last week, but inadvertently deleted by me as I wrote this week's post on Benefits, messing up the permalinks in the process!)
Vision - it's one of the main weapons in the programme leaders armoury. Something that describes the better, more desirable future has got to be good news if we are attempting to bring about transformational change.
A good vision inspires, attracts support and indicates to the organisation that we are in line with their strategic objectives. It also provides an excellent basis for communicating to the world what this programme is about.
The clear and consistent communication of the vision is essential if we want (and we should) the engagement of stakeholders.
Programme leaders take note - a programme without a clear, well-articulated vision confuses people, and has a reduced chance of success.
Get your vision clear from the start!
Programme Management Principles #4 Focusing on the benefits and the threats to them
One of Stephen Covey's famous sayings is, "The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing." It's a quote that we in pearcemayfield use to explain the emphasis that good programme management approaches (such as MSP) place on the realisation of benefits.
In fact, to quote the MSP guide, "Best practice programme management aligns everything towards satisfying strategic objectives by realising the end benefits."
Ultimately, a programme should be judged by its ability to realise benefits that are relevant to the organisation sponsoring that programme. The programme will do many things during its life - plan and implement projects, manage issues, engage stakeholders, manage vast amounts of information - but unless it focuses its attention on the main thing, it will not be considered a success.
And the main thing?
Benefits!
I'm indebted to the writings of Michael Gerber ('The E-Myth Manager' and other associated titles) for explaining the common error that many of us who lead growing businesses can fall into: we get seduced into working mostly in the business rather than working on it. I find that this time of year is particularly good to stand back and reflect more broadly on how it ought to develop.
However, I find even this perpsective is becoming a little limited for me. For example, time and again, I hear experienced venture capitalists remark that the pitch is often not the thing that swings it for them in deciding to invest in this company or that; they find that they do not so much invest in a business plan or a business model as in the leaders themselves. They invest in the people; people who strike them as so remarkable and invigorating that they will back them with their own money, all in order to become part of their story.
So I find myself standing back from working in the business, even from working on the business, and working on me. This becomes a different take on the tradition of New Year's resolutions. The question I ask myself is, 'How can I develop in 2012 in four areas of my life?'
Of course, all these areas affect each other, so I must attend to them all.
If you, dear reader, think I have missed anything, I'd value hearing from you.
As we all enter 2012, may I wish you and your loved ones well, a year in which we all grow. Remember the most important thing any of us can work on is ourselves.
Posted: Fri 30th of December, 2011
I came across this story about in one of the groups I subscribe to on LinkedIn. It is attributed to Ken Keyes Jr.:
The Japanese monkey, Macaca Fuscata, had been observed in the wild for a period of over 30 years. In 1952, on the island of Koshima, scientists were providing monkeys with sweet potatoes dropped in the sand. The monkey liked the taste of the raw sweet potatoes, but they found the dirt unpleasant. An 18-month-old female named Imo found she could solve the problem by washing the potatoes in a nearby stream. She taught this trick to her mother. Her playmates also learned this new way and they taught their mothers too. This cultural innovation was gradually picked up by various monkeys before the eyes of the scientists. Between 1952 and 1958 all the young monkeys learned to wash the sandy sweet potatoes to make them more palatable. Only the adults who imitated their children learned this social improvement. Other adults kept eating the dirty sweet potatoes. Then something startling took place. In the autumn of 1958, a certain number of Koshima monkeys were washing sweet potatoes -- the exact number is not known. Let us suppose that when the sun rose one morning there were 99 monkeys on Koshima Island who had learned to wash their sweet potatoes. Let's further suppose that later that morning, the hundredth monkey learned to wash potatoes.
THEN IT HAPPENED! By that evening almost everyone in the tribe was washing sweet potatoes before eating them. The added energy of this hundredth monkey somehow created an ideological breakthrough! But notice: A most surprising thing observed by these scientists was that the habit of washing sweet potatoes then jumped over the sea...Colonies of monkeys on other islands and the mainland troop of monkeys at Takasakiyama began washing their sweet potatoes. Thus, when a certain critical number achieves an awareness, this new awareness may be communicated from mind to mind. Although the exact number may vary, this Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon means that when only a limited number of people know of a new way, it may remain the conscious property of these people. But there is a point at which if only one more person tunes-in to a new awareness, a field is strengthened so that this awareness is picked up by almost everyone!
There is a similar observation in the Heath Brothers' book on how change can happen, Switch: How to change things when change is hard, in human society. They record the remarkable rehabilitation of many American troops who returned from Vietnam addicted to heroin. Such was the strength of social norms back in the communities that these troops returned to, that it had a powerful change affect in helping these individuals get clean and establish new lifestyles.
We look for change to happen sometimes over too limited a field - a few key individuals here and there; when change gains traction more and more people come on board. We now have the term 'The Wisdom of Crowds'. There is also the Power of Crowds.
Posted: Wed 28th of December, 2011
Gary Barlow, song-writer and member of Take That! was asked recently how he, generally considered all-round Mr Nice Guy, could be so cruel and cutting wth some of the contestants he was judging on the UK TV's "X Factor". The excuse he gave was that when he found himself up on stage behind the judges' table he experienced being in "a bubble" that made him suspend his normal considerations for people.
Also interviewed recently on BBC's Radio 4 was a former journalist for the British tabloid newspaper "The Daily Star". He was being asked about Lord Leveson's inquiry into alleged excessive and intrusive practices of tabloid journalism. He described the Star's newsroom as a sort of "bubble", where the personal pain inflicted on subjects written about and on their families was rarely, if ever, considered; merely whether a story would "stand up" (boost circulation).
This dissociation of what we say about people with the consequences on them isn't confined to reality TV judges or tabloid journalists, of course. We learn that bankers, politicians, wheel-clampers, burglers and bureaucrats also have their own bubbles that they live within.
The world right now seems replete with bubbles but rather short on empathy, the ability to put oneself in another's shoes.
This week, I've been leading our leading Change Management Practitioner course and some delegates have commented on the theme of empathy that has emerged from a number of authorities in this field: Daniel Goleman, Stephen Covey and Carl Rogers, to name but three. There is an overwhelming argument from such authorities that empathy is a key skill in influencing the people around us.
I think this world would be a better place if we were little more self-aware and burst a few of these bubbles. What do you think?
Posted: Fri 2nd of December, 2011
One of the techniques I use is to practice. I always give my worst presentations in private. Rehearsing has given me the crucial feedback that my written notes/mind map would never give me and saved me from much public embarrassment, and saved the public from many a tedious, incoherent rambling.
Although rehearsing in private is hard work and feels artificial I have learned to value it as a private discipline. More times than not I would prefer to put the first rehearsal off. I find myself drawn to the graphics I will use and squander many an hour searching for that illusive 'right' image on the web.
On average I like to rehearse three times. It gives me a fluency of phrase, a confidence to be less dependent on my own notes/mind map, and helps me hear first the tempo and emphasis of what I have prepared.
Malcolm Gladwell in 'Outliers: the Story of Success' formulates a rough rule that it takes about 10,000 hours to master any complex skill, be it ice hockey, a musical instrument, or software development. Whether this figure is absolute for all skills or even true when it comes to public speacking, I don't know. But what I do know is that most of us only get a few crucial minutes in public to get our message across with clarity and impact. Private rehearsal is the only way I know of giving ourselves the mastery development time for this crucial influencing skill.
I'm speaking tomorrow, in fact, at the Best Practice User Group's Annual Members Conference in Milton Keynes. I'll be speaking on Programme Communications within MSP: Best Management Practice from Experience. If you see me there, please come and say 'hello.
P.S. I promise not to do 'Death by PowerPoint'. I'll be using Prezi.
Posted: Tue 22nd of November, 2011
The whole process of stakeholder engagement must not be thought of as purely linear. Management guides on this such as MSP(Managing Successful Programmes) have this sort of sequence:
In reality it looks more like this:
I came across this account yesterday by a programme manager leading a huge physical move of his organisation to new HQ premises:
“I found from talking to staff that many knew little about the programme and were anxious to know more. Consequently I developed the ... Strategy.”
He goes on to describe the new communications channels he set up and how he planned key messages that flowed through them.Once again we find that the best management ‘map’ may be useful, but it is not quite the ‘territory’ we find ourselves travelling through.
Posted: Fri 18th of November, 2011
Recently we launched an audio series on the increasingly popular PRINCE2 project management method on our website... and it's really taken off!
What we set out to do was to record 'informed conversations between John Edmonds and me, where I interrogate John in a friendly, conversational sort of way, since John was one of the authors of the most recent edition.
I think people appreciate that we have hit upon a fairly accesible way of getting into an otherwise dry management reference.
Now ... where are the out-takes?
Posted: Thu 17th of November, 2011
One way I explain 'what we do' is as a sort of alchemy. We turn the base metal of dry management theory and turn it into the pure gold of business performance.
Now although parts of the PRINCE2 reference book on project management include passages originally written by yours truly and more recently and extensively by my colleague and fellow-blogger, John Edmonds, nevertheless I will admit something...
... the PRINCE2 reference is quite a boring read.
It's boring if you try to read it from beginning to end, as you would, say, a novel. It's dry if you read huge chunks in one go. (Although I do know clients who have done this.) It does not have any unifying 'story' of a project to lead you through it by example.
So our business is simply to bring this dry book - and others like it such as MSP, P3O, M_o_R, Making Sense of Change Management, and so on - to life. We turn the lead into gold.
I say 'simply', but these seems to be beyond many in the management training business. 'Bringing to life' for me includes:
I've bemoaned often enough the black-and-white slide copies that pass for course materials or study guides, how PowerPoint visuals are mistaken for dense bullet lists, how material is presented in a way that suits the lecturer, not the delegate.
I continue to bemoan these practices because they are becoming all the more common, it seems. In these lean times, we see a resurgence of this as the norm, particularly as the market demands 'commodity training' to be delivered ever more cheaply.
When will the people who buy such nonsense ask themselves what outcomes they are really buying? If you pay base prices, you are likely to get base metal.
Posted: Mon 7th of November, 2011
I was talking with a friend last night and our conversation turned to our work.
"What is it your company actually does?"
"We help our client make their strategies happen."
My friend, a retired accountant replied
"That's interesting. Do you help also them do their strategic planning?"
"We can do, but in our experience that is a relatively well-tilled field. The really hard part for our clients is putting their strategic plans into practice so that they get the outcomes and performance they really want."
My mind flipped back to Captain Jean-Luc Picard. It's relatively easier to say the equivalent of , "Make it so." the senior executive feels its a courageous, defining moment, and she can easily delude herself that the decision is the hard part done.
But really it is all in the execution. All our planning and decision-making comes to nothing if we can't make it happen.
So my friend probed further:
"Is there such a thing as a poor strategy?"
"Of course."
My mind touched on the most common reasons for poor strategy:
But whatever the strategy is, it stands or falls in its execution through programme, project and change management, and the joined up governance between these.
Posted: Tue 1st of November, 2011
We've been doing research around what people in programmes and projects actually think and do. One of the really disturbing phenomena we have uncovered is that most project managers spend a lot of time reading and writing reports about what has happened.
Consider this for a moment. The focus appears to be in the past. The past is past. It has happened. It's history. So it is immutable. (... unless you are a journalist or a politician.)
Only the future is malleable. As leaders we can only affect future outcomes.
Some of our subjects claim to spend over 40% of their week working on reports against achievement. This is equivalent to driving by the rear-view mirror, an accident waiting to happen.
So why do we have this obsession with status reports that are out of date soon after they are written? The answers are dreary and deceptive. I'll leave that for another article.
Meantime, think about 'when' you focus your attention as you lead your organisation through change. Is it in the past, now or in the future?
Finally: What's the difference between an accountant and a leader? It's 'when' they focus their attention.
Posted: Thu 20th of October, 2011
I've just read the trainer report of our first OBASHI Foundation course. It was a two-day event run at Eynsham Hall, Oxfordshire earlier this week. It seems to have gone extremely well, with Richard Rose, the course owner and trainer, being very positive about the course outcome and the potential of OBASHI.
What is OBASHI? Well, an approach for all people - from senior executives to technical people - in an organisation to agree and discuss the structure of that organisation, identify where there may be waste and duplication, and decide what the future capability (design) of the organisation should be.
'OBASHI' is an acronym for Owner, Business Process, Application, Server, Hardware, and Infrastructure. (When I first heard the term, I thought 'OBASHI' was the latest management concept coming out of Japan...)
Developed originally to map the complex configuration of pipes in oil refineries, this technique was translated to general business processes and systems. Using OBASHI can, for example, go a long way in helping define a programme Blueprint, of both the current capability and the target capability.
The two-day course is accredited and ends with a short exam. Alternatively we already have an e-learning product for this qualification. Click here to know more.
Posted: Thu 22nd of September, 2011_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
PRINCE2® is a Registered Trade Mark of the Office of Government Commerce in the United Kingdom and other countries
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