In Australia,  almost one half of organisations are not effective in finding and developing leaders, which identifies some critical challenges for employers if they are to take advantage of the economic recovery – this situation has been  revealed in a recent study

The report, Gearing up for Growth,  found that 44% of organisations rated themselves not effective in finding and developing leaders. Furthermore, improving retention of skilled employees was the most important people challenge facing employers in a growing economy. This was mirrored in the report’s findings that 72% of organisations expect to face skills shortages this year at the same time as accelerating staff turnover, with one-quarter of employees expecting to move employers in 2010.

“With economic recovery now gathering pace, as further evidenced by the IMF forecast, employers are recognising that they have a critical challenge to remotivate and engage their workforces [and] leadership will be one of the key drivers behind the growth that corporate Australia and businesses will have to focus on.”

Improving the retention of skilled employees was also top of the list of people management priorities for employers (94%). Whilst this is an Australian study, the same could be said of countries such as Singapore. This situation is partly caused by cutting back on leadership development during the downturn and so the wisdom of a strategic approach to leadership development is now evident.

Source: Human Resources Leader

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I just got a call from Australia, from James who needed a coach for one his bank’s people in Singapore. The reason I got the call was that James had heard about me from Yuvi who had previously used me for some communication training and the reason he used me is that he had heard about me from Carole who had been introduced to me by Stephanie who I met at a conference in Kuala Lumpur!

How much was that conversation worth?

Well it might not have been worth anything if I hadn’t built the relationship by being helpful, following up and when the opportunity arose – did good work.

We have just signed a major client for 2 pilot programs. The story started last year with me telling a friend about how the Global Meltdown had affected some of our clients and asking him if he knew anybody that might need our services – he did and introduced me to lady who introduced me to guy who later referred me to somebody that needed a program on influence. Well if this is not a story about the power of building relationships and influence I don’t know what is!

Now don’t get me wrong; I am not suggesting that we put a price on all our relationships and become like an Amway distributor preying on friendships but it does reinforce the power of word of mouth.

In the first example the word of mouth advertising worked because some people are happy to refer when they get good service, however in the second case if I hadn’t talked about my need for referrals my friend of many years would not have accessed his Rolodex.

So it is import to:

1. Tell people what you do and what you need
2. Do good work and exceed expectations
3. Say thank you for the referal and reciprocate if possible

Seems simple right? But sometimes the simplest truths are the most profound.

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The Certified Speaking Professional (CSP) designation, conferred by the National Speakers Association (USA and Australia) and the International Federation for Professional Speakers, is the speaking profession’s international measure of professional platform skills. There are less than 600 CSP’s in the world and only 3 currently in Singapore.

If you are a meeting planner or planning a meeting, hiring a professional speaker who has achieved CSP means that you have insured that your event will be a success because the speaker has demonstrated competency in:

• Professional platform skills
• Professional business management
• Professional education
• Professional association

In addition the speaker has received excellent ratings from past clients on performance evaluations.

If you are a speaker or want to become a professional speaker I highly recommend that you join an IFFPS association, I am a member of the Asian Professional Speakers Singapore and you can read my blog post on presentation skills.

See you on the platform, Andrew Bryant CSP an expert who speaks on Self Leadership, Coaching and People Development.

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As I write this blog I have a sense of relief and excitement as a package has just left my hands in Singapore, and headed to Australia via the post office. The package contains evidence of my professional development for accreditation by the International Federation for Professional Speakers (IFFPS). The accreditation of Certified Professional Speaker (CPS), should I be successful, will in some way validate the work I have done as a professional speaker in the last 10 years – But most importantly the process of accreditation forced me to look at my competencies and business practices and make sure they were of the highest standard.

This is just one of the professional development goals I set for myself this year. I am also undergoing credentialing with the International Coach Federation (ICF) for the level of Professional Certified Coach (PCC). Why am I doing this? Well because at the beginning of this year I had a bit of time due to the downturn and I set the intention to make sure I was aligned with the fastest growing professional body for executive coaches. Do I need the credential? Probably not as my coaching practice is pretty healthy with regular referrals from satisfied clients, but the process of meeting the requirements has caused me to step back and consider how I engage as an executive coach and how I run my business.

A component of Self Leadership is self-directed learning. John F. Kennedy said, “Leadership and Learning are Indispensable.” By challenging ourselves to read more, connect with peers or mentors, we constantly grow and develop and this growth makes us more marketable.

Have you set a goal to be at the top of your field? What would it take?

Remember there are no prizes for excellence in goofing off!

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If you give enough presentations, there’s a good chance that someday you’re going to find yourself the target of an uncooperative or hostile audience member. As in most crisis situations, you will be in good stead to have a plan of how to respond. There are many verbal techniques available which will help you handle hostile or difficult audiences, some of which I am able to outline here. These are all tried and tested over the course of the last 10 years during my own personal training and presentation courses. Use them with confidence – they really work!

1. Questions that keep on coming

One of the most common difficulties you’re likely to encounter is a barrage of questions from a single or several audience members. Sometimes these people really want answers to their questions but at other times the interrupter has a hostile motive.

Usually, this sort of person does not want to attack you personally. On the contrary, the questioner is launching an attack on the material that you are presenting. This is a very important distinction, because the most effective way to attack the material that you are presenting is to draw you off topic into areas that you are not prepared to speak about. Don’t go there –stick to your guns and the messages that you have pre-prepared for yourself.

Short sharp concise answers

The least confrontational way of dealing with a constant stream of questions is to answer each question as briefly as possible. Limit your answers to one breath in length. And before stating your answer, ask yourself if this material will be covered later in your presentation. If it will be, tell the interrupter that the material will be covered later. Don’t expand on your answer, because lengthy replies containing additional details will only serve to give the questioner additional opportunity. After giving your succinct brief answer, go straight into the next topic.

While you may not want to take time to answer unexpected and off the topic questions, if the interrupter is an authority figure, you may feel obligated to do just that and answer the questions. Remember, keeping your answers brief minimises the negative effect of the interruptions and allows you to move on.

Set Limits

Setting limits is a great way to discourage constant interruptions. State the limits at the outset of your delivery and tell the audience why these limits will benefit them.

Acknowledge and Delay

Please don’t ignore a question. Doing so may be taken as a sign of hostility on your part. Even if questions are inappropriate or ill-timed, try to acknowledge them.
If short answers and setting limits haven’t deterred interruptions, acknowledge the question but delay the answer. By using bridging techniques which are words or phrases which allow you to acknowledge and move on, no-one will ever think you rude and dismissive.

2. Off-topic Questions and Discussions

A handful of off-topic questions from your audience shouldn’t pose a problem for you. However, if they are many, a problem may well exist. If the off-topic questions emanate from several people, this could be a sign that your presentation is unsuitable.

If the off-topic questions stem from one person, then your presentation may be unsuitable for that person or the person may be hostile to your material. The interrupter may be trying to make your material look bad because he or she will benefit from its failure.

Ask for Relevance

One technique for dealing with an off-topic question is to ask for its relevance to the current topic. This must be done tactfully, to avoid offending or embarrassing the questioner. The sooner you can relate the question to the current topic, the sooner you can tell the audience member that the answer can be found in another part of your presentation.

Write Down Questions

If there are a stream of off-topic questions that you can’t relate directly to your course material, you could offer the audience the opportunity of writing down their questions in the hope that you will answer as many as possible at the conclusion of your presentation.

3. Confrontational Questions

When dealing with a confrontational question, separate the attitude of the questioner from the content of the question.

Separate Content from Tone and Restate calmly.

Separating the tone of a question from its content defuses a question. If the tone is challenging and you respond to the tone, with a challenging or sarcastic response, you decrease your credibility. Never ever lose your cool. If you display emotion, the game is up.

If however the content poses a legitimate question, and you are able to rephrase and restate the question in a conciliatory way, all confrontation will be defused.
When faced with a confrontational question or statement, pause and look for the legitimate question within it. Restate it and answer it as honestly and completely as you can. You will have turned an obstacle to your advantage.

Address Hostility behind Closed Doors

If defusing hostile comments doesn’t work well, you may need to speak privately with the questioner. Keep the discussion focused strictly on the training process, not on their problem and offer to have a chat with the person at the conclusion of the event.

Remember that if someone or a group of people start being disruptive during your presentation, you won’t be the only one who’ll be annoyed or upset. You can use the audience to support you in dealing with difficult members within it. You are the speaker and therefore the person in control. Don’t let one audience member ruin it for everyone else.

Tips for Answering Difficult Questions:

1. Treat your audience with the respect you’d like to have shown to you. Answer their questions directly and honestly.

2. “I don’t know” is a very acceptable answer to some difficult questions. So relax. Never feel like you do have to know everything.

3. If you’re asked a question and you feel you should know the answer, please consider saying: “Thank you. That’s a very interesting question. I’ll have to get back to you on that, after I’ve spoken to (whomever).”

4. Set a time and a time limit for questions
In any presentation it’s always a good idea to set a time when the audience can ask questions. It’s also good to set a limit to that question time.

5. Never end your presentations with a Q and A session
While it’s great to keep the questions until after you’ve spoken, please make sure that you have the last word. Literally. When you’ve answered questions, be sure to end your presentation with a strong assertion of your main message(s).

Sandy Kaye offers Presentation Skills Training and Media Skills Training in Australia and Singapore with Self Leadership International.

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As I engage in one of my favourite past times (people watching), I notice how different passengers handle the compression of their personal space. The ubiquitous iPod is everywhere as people use a wall of sound to block out their fellow travelers; but some are engaged in quiet conversation and others in deep reflection.

I had forgotten how trance inducing, train journeys are. It is easy to drift away into your own thoughts and gain new perspectives on life. I have had several conversations this week with people about how they gain clarity and sort through complex issues whilst bombarded with constant interruptions.

My host in Sydney has built himself a small sauna at his house. Being Finnish by birth, he considers sitting in a heated pine box and throwing water on hot coals to not only be sensible but necessary to his sanity. Yari, his name, says that he gets his greatest ideas in the Sauna and regularly uses his time there to solve problems.

One of the participants in the training course I am conducting shared that she does Pilates at home each morning and uses this time to clear out the mental clutter and focus on the key issues she must solve for the day.

Research has repeatedly shown that managers have little time to step back from urgent tasks and think critically; the constant interruptions from e-mail and co-workers makes it almost impossible to think creatively and consider alternatives to knee jerk reactions.

As an executive coach, I have often facilitated my clients to find a ‘special’ place and time where they can think without interruptions; that they should take a blank notepad and a pen and jot down or mind map their thoughts. Those that have followed through on this action have often reported that they were surprised how much more time they have gained because they became more efficient.

Of course you can continue to do your thinking in the car, the train, the shower or build your own Sauna at the office!

Oops this is my stop – blog later.

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Communication

Good communication skills are essential to lead yourself and influence others. Poor communication causes pain, conflict, loss of productivity and profit.

Listen to a  podcast on Communication Skills.

To win the communication game you must know and apply the rules of the game; and the #1 rule of communication is that -  All communication occurs inside a frame.

A communication frame gives the listener reference points to know how to handle the information they hear from you. A communication frame points the listener’s mind in a particular direction and when used correctly will create trust and remove misunderstandings.

Any time we say “In terms of …” we set the boundaries of the discussion and hence the frame. Often two or more people in conflict are actually discussing different topics or perspectives, using “in terms of…” allows us to focus on the specific topic or to challenge people who have gone off topic.

For example:

• “In terms of reaching a decision in the next hour, let me make this point…”
• “In terms of us working together in this team, how would you like me to interpret your behaviour?”
• “In terms of our stated budget, do you think this is a wise purchase?”

Here are some other simple examples of communication frames and how to use them:

The Workshop Frame:
“Just work shopping – what if we did…x”. This frame is great for putting ideas out; it reduces reactions because it sets the frame that it is ok for the other person to give input.

The Sharing Frame:
“I’m just sharing, this is the way I feel about… x”. This frame allows you to share your feelings without the other person needing to take your emotional state personally.

The ‘What if’ Frame:
“I know we have never done this before, but what if we did?” This is a great frame for setting for pushing the boundaries and creative thinking.

There are, of course, frames that you already use and many more you could learn to use. The frames we use in language often reflect our frames of mind, do you have a ‘can do’ frame’? Or do you operate from a ‘can’t do’ frame?

Training yourself to become aware of your frames of mind and frames of speech is a fundamental of self-leadership and using the technology of Neuro Semantics (an evolution of NLP) we can set frames for great relationships, health and even wealth.

Want to know more? For Communication Skills Workshops in Singapore, Australia, Malaysia, India or the Middle East  contact us.

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These are perennial questions in the field of leadership development and the answers vary depending on who you talk to.

The concept of a leadership pipeline is that as we start supervising/managing we will be more transactional (performance management) and as we move up through the organisation we will become more transformational (visionary/inspiring).

In reality the modern manager must be adept at both transactional and transformational leadership and the the earlier s/he can do both the more successful they will be.

Transactional Leadership is classic management – organising people and resources towards agreed corporate goals. The four elements of transactional leadership are:

1. Goal Setting – creating specific, measurable, acheivable targets that focus effort in line with the corporate vision.
2. Monitoring Performance – making sure goals are achieved. Providing regular performance reviews either in a structured or fluid fashion.
3. Providing Feedback – letting people know how they are doing relevant to the target/benchmark. Good  feedback must be understood, believed and accepted.
4. Developing Careers – By demonstrating genuine interest in others needs, interests and desires. Being able to connect individual aspirations with the needs of the organisation.

Transformational Leadership style  is where the manager engages with others in such a way that the leader and followers raise one another to higher levels of motivation and purpose. The three elements of transformational leadership are:

1. Creating a Vision – motivating, inspiring and influencing others to see a new possibilities for themselves and the company. A clear vision creates passion, commitment and focus.
2. Stimulating the Environment – creating a positive and challenging work environment that causes people to think, re-examine their ideas and find creative alternatives. Such an environment breeds imagination and innovation.
3. Treating People as Individuals -making people feel valued and encouraging them to contribute. Recognising that people have unique talents, strengths and weakness and allowing for these differences without judgment.

Burns (1978) first introduced the concepts of transformational and transactional leadership in his treatment of political leadership – and I wonder what you think of the graphic I chose and the difference in style between former President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama?

At Self Leadership International we use the transactional/transformational leadership concept with it’s seven competencies as part of executive coaching and leadership development programmes. We are based in Singapore but work in Australia, Malaysia, India and the Middle East.

We have a public workshop – Leadership for Managers in Singapore, April 2009.

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Harvard Business Review (HBR Jan 09) has just published a review of the field of executive coaching and makes some significant points on how to effectively use executive coaching as a self-leadership or business tool.

Coaching used to be used to address toxic behaviours, some of which clearly needed therapy such as narcissism but most of which fall in the category of poor people management. Now coaching is seen as ideal to facilitate the development of high potential employees.

Quoting HBR:

• 48% of coaches surveyed were engaged to coach high potentials or
facilitate a transition.
• 26% to act as a sounding board, and
• 12% to address a derailing behaviour

I was speaking today to a coach in the finance sector who reports that, as organisations have let a large number of older (read more expensive) executives go; the remaining younger managers need help to rapidly upgrade their leadership skills.

Because of the fluid nature of the coaching profession the prevailing question remains, “How to choose the right coach for the right coachee.”

Starting with the coachee – they must really want to be developed and be prepared to take some constructive feedback. Many coachees will pay lip service to the process but are not yet ready to change – a good coach will not take on such a coaching assignment, I know I won’t.

As for the coach, there must be some ‘chemistry’ between the coach and the coachee; after all they are going to spend quite some time together. But this chemistry should be a catalyst for change not a validation of the status quo. As for a buyer guide, according to HBR here are the top reasons for choosing the right coach:

1. Experience coaching in a similar setting 65%
2. Clear methodology 61%
3. Quality of client list 50%
4. Ability to measure ROI 32%

Personally I have experienced numerous ‘interview the coach’ sessions and I agree with HBR’s findings. If you are looking for an experienced executive coach feel free to drop us a line.

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