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The Power of influencing and Motivating

Owen Fitzpatrick – International keynote speaker, best-selling author, globetrotting psychologist and leading expert on influence delivered a fast paced dissection of the world of influence.

Commenting on the importance of influence Mr. Fitzpatrick said “Influence is one of the most vital and indispensable skills that all leaders must possess. Nowadays, with globalisation and social media dominating our world, how we communicate with each other has changed massively. Your ability to get others to agree has never been more important.”

In his  presentation he outlined the 3 different aspects of Influence.

1. The Attitude of Influence

There are 4 key factors that makes influence possible.  Mr Fitzpatrick outlined how how recent developments in neuroscience, behavioural economics and social psychology has given people a far better understanding of persuasion and influence.

Persuasion is about changing peoples beliefs.  In order to influence them you need to understand what beliefs they have formed about you in advance.  With this knowledge you can construct a way to influence them  State or emotion, how you feel or the emotion you express can make a big difference.  Focus, Physiology and Ethics are also key factors.

Owen pointed out the importance of Confirmation Bias where people convince themselves of a perspective and only look for cues that support this. Armed with this insight people can be more efficiency influenced.

2. The Psychology of Influence

The speaker proceeded to explain the 3 essential aspects of influence (source, audience and message).  People are impacted by who you are and frequently where the message came from is more important than the message.  Speaking on the audience Owen discussed the importance of identity and internal perceptions.  Finally on the message Owen asked  what do you want them to say.

There are 6 principals of influence

  1. Commitment/consistency.  Ask people to do something small before asking for something bigger
  2. Reciprocation.  People want to do something back.
  3. Liking.  If the like you or not
  4. Authority.
  5. Social Proof.  Doing something because everyone else did.
  6. Scarcity.  Easier to get something the less we value it.

 

3. The Language of Influence

Finally Mr Fitzpatrick revealed some of the most important phrases that determine how people feel and how to get people to say YES. He also shared how to structure communication to get buy in.

Using demeaning words to describe people can have a very big impact on the perception that people have about someone and action they take.

Use of words and framing also impacts greatly on behaviour and Owen shared example of using  lose/save, surcharge/discount death/survival to very different results.

The point in a sentence when you use the word BUT is important because it draws attention to the comments/words after it.

Research has also show that using the word BECAUSE as people are hard wired to assume it has logic.

Owen asked the group to pick the most powerful statement when thinking about the gym.

  • Like to
  • Want to
  • Can
  • Should
  • Need
  • Have to
  • Must
  • Will
  • Am going to
  • Am doing

Personal preference of phrase is important as it impacts how much they will do something.

Finally we are all driven by something from:

Success/Challenge/Ownership/Power/Money/Status/Recognition

The key is finding what people are motivated by.

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“Leaders Standard Work”

“During our Shingo Journey, Leaders Standard Work was a key enabler in allowing us to demonstrate and nurture the ideal behaviors required of the 4 dimensions of the Shingo Model: Cultural Enablers, Continuous Improvement, Enterprise Alignment and Results” said Sean Gayer – Site Director, Boston Scientific, Cork in his talk entitled ‘Leaders Standard Work’.

Leaders Standard Work (LSW) is a way that assesses and sustains the overall health of ALL systems. It includes a set of daily, weekly and monthly actions and behaviours that leaders apply to sustain a continuous improvement culture

Commenting on other methodologies Mr Gayer said “Lean is harder than is seems. Improvements gained through the use of lean tools can be hard to maintain as the force of habit is to go backwards.”

David Mann: Creating a Lean Culture: Tools to Sustain Lean Conversions

Mr Gayer then discussed the benefits of Leaders Standard Work which include; 

Go See:. The power of leaders is presence, where leaders spend their time determines what is important to the organisation.

Engage People: By being a visible leader engagement increases.

Focus on the Process: By focusing on the process we drive further improvements and build the team’s problem solving capability through coaching.

According to Mr Gayer, the foundation to successful LSW is TRUST.  A blame free culture where employees are comfortable highlighting problems and where leaders take note of these concerns, coach and support follow up.

For Leaders Standard Work to be of successful there has to be a frame work in place.  This should include:

  • Visual Controls so problems are visible
  • An active Daily Accountability Process
  • Robust Problem Solving/Continuous Improvement systems.

Mr Gayer added some final advice in accessing effectiveness “Your actions and behaviours as a leader is what make LSW successful. Not the tool you are using to track it.  How do you know it is successful? It is what the team says about you as a leader, their willingness to get involved in running the business and shaping the future.”

Output form the Table discussion

There was some level of leader std. work in place in some of the organisations. There is general understanding of the concept around the table.

There was acknowledgement that this type of event is powerful way to capture and develop the network. Capturing and sharing information is key to learning. So this type of process is a nice addition.

Good conversation between all groups, great interactions and sharing of different views. Good pace to the conversation and engagement.

4 groups discussed the topic

Main Points captured

  • Importance of presence of managers is key part of Leader Standard Work
  • How does LSW account for manager styles and how can this be applied to different styles of manager
  • Production Operator level have 100% defined by standard work and this changes in % as you go up the organisation
  • It’s to drive a standard on what is key to the system
  • As a senior leader your responsibility is around be seen, enable engagement ad recognition
  • Education of the Leadership team and getting buy in is key
  • What’ the “Why” – Needs to be understood
  • Trying to find out what’s important vs. urgent.
    • Prioritise appropriately
  • Reflection on what working and not and using this to influence the future.
  • Highlights problems and allows them to be corrected
  • Keep it visible and keep it simple – Allows all people to engage
  • What the training that is required –
    • One system had the instructions integrated into the system
  • Simplicity is key
  • Send a designate if you can’t attend, system needs to be supported
  • Management walking around is key
  • Elimination of Email thru the Pulse of the business meeting –
    • So easy to communicate a common message quickly
  • Operator like the face to face engagement option that recognition walks enable.
  • Quick and easy recognition is another key enabler to get engagement
  • LSW is about engagement but it may start of as a mechanical system.
  • Trust – is driven by focusing on the process and not the “who”
  • Accountability back to the person who identified the item, to close it.
  • What’s is meant by leader in “Leader Standard Work”, anyone
    • On group –Senior Leadership Team and Middle Managers
    • One group – Anyone who has a direct report
  • There is some cross over in LSW and standard work of Individual.

Group 2

Shared the last group’s topics and there was alignment with their observations.

Main Point Captured

  • Good understand of what is needed but How do we get there is unclear
    • In the middle of rolling out our Tier boards
    • Meeting Structure and agenda is driven by the board
    • Some levels of checks in place
    • Tier 2 meeting with Sup and Eng. team and manager working
      • Dir. will comes in and observe
      • No standard to what the dir. is looking at
    • Most elements are present but its hit and miss – Looking to drive consistency
    • Driven from the top is key to success.
  • Lacking Structure – Meeting and systems are in place.
  • Looking at LSW to remove waste and making meetings and systems more effective.
  • It’s not a tick the box exercise or engagement
  • Drives engagement
  • Challenge – Making things visible, if you don’t stick to it then you are lost
  • The system is flexible and can be changed to fit circumstances.
  • Needs to be genuine – can’t be saying great job just at a certain time and not calling it out in normal day to day interactions.
  • SME dedicated to support LSW to embed the system. They were tasked with driving engagement.
    • This process created a scorecard on health check
  • Focus on the process – Key to driving success – Not the person.
  • Day in the Life exercise – people jumped into the role to see what was preventing people getting LSW done.
    • Working from the position that people are trying to do the right thing to understand what is preventing them.
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Shaping Ireland’s future talent landscape – Views from HR Leaders and CEO’s

Sharing the results of research amongst HR leaders (PwC’s HRD and CEO Pulse Surveys) Louise Shannon, Senior Manager, People and Organisation,  PwC, spoke about “Shaping Ireland’s Future Talent Landscape – Views from HR Leaders and CEO’s”

Some of the key issues and trends she identified include:

The lack of availability of key talent: This remains a key concern amongst Irish HRDs (77%), with the greatest shortages experienced in IT, data analytics, risk and finance. Similarly, our CEO Pulse survey shows that the lack of availability of key skills (81%) is a top business threat to growth.

Diverse workforce: While organisations are recognising the benefits of having a diverse workforce there is still significant room for progress – with almost half (45%) of Irish HR leaders confirming that they have no formal strategy in place to promote diversity and inclusiveness.

Performance management: While nearly all (97%)of organisations operate a formal performance management programme, the majority (75%) are changing their performance model to recognise the importance of having more frequent performance discussions.

Improving reward strategies: Almost half of the HRD survey respondents (46%) revealed that their reward strategy is not appropriately renumerating their best people. In addition, 96% are not tailoring their reward offerings to meet the different generational needs of their workforce. Recognising that one size does not fit all will be key to generating an engaged workforce across all generations and levels in the future.

Gaining insights from analytics: Almost 40% of HR leaders do not have analytics capability within their HR function. HR analytics (53%) and data analysis (38%) are noted as the areas with the largest skills gap. However, on a positive note, this skills deficiency may be in the process of being addressed as the majority of HR leaders (62%) plan to increase spending on HR technology in the coming 18 months.

Benchmarking for success: While a large majority of HR functions measure key HR benchmarks such as absenteeism and turnover rates, very few measure the return on people investment (13%) and HR function performance (5%). These are important areas requiring attention.

Deploying your people: With critical shortages in talent in specific markets and disciplines, employee mobility has moved up the organisational agenda. The critical need for companies to shore up skills in particular disciplines, regions and projects is changing attitudes to international assignments with short-term ‘purpose-based’ assignments becoming increasingly popular.

Background to PwC’s 2017 HRD Pulse Survey

PwC’s 2017 HRD Pulse Survey captures the thoughts and views of Ireland’s HR leaders on the key challenges and opportunities facing HR functions, as well as upcoming priorities and trends. This survey was conducted in November 2016 and represents 67 HR leaders from all industry sectors in Ireland.

The 2016 CEO Pulse Survey reflects the views of over 250 local and multinational business leaders on key issues critical to Irish business. This survey was carried out in April/May 2016.

 

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“The importance of agreeing and publishing Core Values in a Turnaround’

Patrick Jordan, Atlantic Aviation Group.


“4 years ago I was not a believer and thought all this stuff about core values was text book stuff but that has changed now” was a refreshing opening by Patrick Jordan and his journey to seeing the importance of Core Value to an organisation.

Patrick guided the audience through his broad backgrounds and business ventured but interestingly highlighted a psychology of success course in 2002 as one of the anchors for his future mental approaches to life and business covering

  • Feel terrific – regardless of circumstances
  • I like myself –
  • I think of the worst possible outcome
  • I am responsible

After existing some business and investing in start-ups Patrick entered the world of aviation.

Despite the opportunity there was risk with a potential €250,000 a week loss if hangars were empty, highly unionised, large reliance on key customers and his own lack of understanding about aviation.  However as Patrick points out “You get to the point when you have to make a decision.  Rather than focus on the reasons not to invest I focused on the reasons why which were significant including worldwide demand, payment security and pipeline.”

The offer stage was complicated with changes to work practice, redundancies and removal of historic days off.  After a few months the deal was approved and the problems moved from the examiner to Patrick.

“Sometimes you just need a new team and people were tired and needed to see new people” said Patrick as he discussed the building of the new team from a new CEO followed by a COO, marketing and finally HR & training manager who became the central team to turn around the company.  None had aviation experience.

Speaking on his experience of turning around successful companies “If you have a problem you have it in one of three departments sales, operations or finance.”

He also outlined the different challenges of growing a business where you recruit people organically to taking over a business where people are suspicious.

With the team in place Patrick narrated the Turn Around Journey which started with the creation of a new identity.  Patrick confessed to be sceptical about the process of forming the values behind the new identity.  During the sessions the values evolved were:

  • Trust
  • Ambitition
  • Committed to Excellence
  • Agile
  • Fun
  • Customer Focused
  • People Focused

In order to make them real they published the core values on the canteen wall and discussed with employees.  This was followed up with work on visualisation which was captured in “Where do you want to be in 10 years time and what will you do in the next 20 days to get there.”

Using the agreed core values key business pillars were built that help to govern the business

  • Focus on people and culture
  • Deliver a superior customer experience
  • Create excellence at all levels
  • Drive growth and profitablity
  • Be market and customer aware

In order in implement the change the management team also focus on creating a great place to work.  This ranges from office environment to created a right first impression with significant investment in painting the shop floor to collateral.

Continuing the change management process HR’s function became Employee Engagement.

In wrapping up Patrick shared what he has learnt from the journey

  • Constantly improving
  • Talks to the right people
  • Build forums
  • Work on visualisation
  • Living the core values
  • Constantly on your toes
  • Don’t be afraid to change business
  • Identify and publish values
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The (r)Evolution of Performance Management to unleash Organisation & Individual Potential

Paul Aherne, Ascend Associate started his presentation on ‘(r)Evolution of Performance Management’ with an overview of Performance Management,

Performance Management has been with us for almost 100 years, evolving over time from its origins in a US military ranking approach equating employee’s performance with individual inherent capabilities and largely ignoring individual’s capability to grow. GE popularised this forced ranking approach and used performance appraisals to hold employees accountable and allocate rewards.

Synopsising the area he added “Performance Management is a process by which organizations align their resources, systems and employees to strategic objectives and priorities to enable them to achieve results.”

As such, Performance Management can be regarded as Critical Strategic Business Process and a Pillar of Business Excellence.

However according to Mr Aherne current data suggests:

  • 50% of executives believe that current performance management process is not an effective use of anyone’s time.
  • 3% said it delivers exceptional value.
  • Less than half (45%) of employees feel performance review helps them improve their performance.
  • The average manager spends more than 200 hours a year on activities related to performance reviews.

Sources: Deloitte Consulting: Global Human Capital Trends Report 2014/2015 CEB Global: Performance Management Survey 2014, World at Work Survey, 2016.

“They are scary numbers for a strategic business process” said Paul commenting the poor ratings.

Reflecting these statistics Mr Aherne commented that Senior Leaders are questioning performance management in terms of:

  • Effectiveness
  • Efficiency
  • Value for money
  • Impact on motivation and morale

Highlighting the current status of sector Mr Ahern said “You could conclude that performance management is either completely broken or in need of radical change.  Are continued evolutions or radical revolution required to meet the needs of a changing work environment and a changing workforce.”

However several companies are making radical changes in performance management leveraging a philosophical approach based on:

  1. Creating approaches to follow natural cycle of work, provide feedback, coaching and guidance as projects finish, milestones are reached and challenges pop up. Providing feedback when it is relevant, allowing people to solve problems in current performance whilst also developing skills for the future.
  2. Spending time focussed on enabling future performance rather than retrospectively looking back at past, fostering team work rather than individual accountability.
  3. Coaching and developing people to be successful.
  4. Motivating people to perform for their personal growth and sense of progress.

Reflecting the world of continuous change Mr Aherne highlighted some innovative practices including:

  • Abandoning the Annual performance review cycle.
  • Removing individual performance ratings.
  • Releasing the focus on evaluation and appraisal.
  • Simplifying the process supported by tools and technology (going digital to encourage real time structured growth, crowd sourced and social feedback; gamification).
  • Changing the link between pay and performance.
  • Integrating into way we work (Business Owned Process).
  • Connecting between organisation purpose and performance to enable a high-performance culture.

Mr Aherne had some solid advice for attendees suggesting that in order to spark a performance revolution in their companies they should consider:

  • Creating clarity regarding the purpose of Performance Management. Know what you want to achieve, why and how.
  • Clarifying this purpose for everyone in your organisation.
  • Developing a simple, agile process aligned with natural flow of work in your organisation.
  • Leveraging a customer centric deisgn approach to create experiences employees love.
  • Setting expectations regarding frequency of managers and employees talking about goals, clarity, performance and development.
  • Investing in skills of people managers to clarify and provide feedback well.
  • Spending less time on formal meetings, forms, processes and reinvesting time in less formal conversations focussed on clarifying and developing.
  • Measuring desired outcomes regularly (for example: “I am clear what is expected in me in my role; I know how my objectives relate to the organisations; I know how I am performing; I know what I need to do to create more impact; my manager supports me in performing in my role)

He also had some strong advice to spark personal/individual high performance mindset, reminding attendees that they perform at your best as an individual when:

  1. There is a clear outcome you are driving towards
  2. You are motivated from within (intrinsic)
  3. You feel competent to do it but it is challenging
  4. You get feedback and support on the journey
  5. You review progress and consciously learn
  6. You have clarity on whether you achieved it
  7. You feel connected to those you are working with

Mr Ahern finished his presentation with a challenge to the delegated asking them to question:

Is your Performance Management Approach delivering value for you, your teams, your company?

How would you know if it was?

What could you do to spark your own high performance revolution:

  • In your organisation
  • As an individual employee
  • As a People Manager
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Engaging the business in driving growth through storytelling

Catherine Neilson – Kerry Foods, Director of Strategy.

Engaging the business in driving growth through storytelling

With an ever expanding set of products and with a wide geographically spread Kerry turned to a core story telling strategy to engage employees and harness the passion of the management team.

“Simply telling was not enough so we took a story telling approach which could generate an emotional connection.  A rational approach would not have touched hearts and minds.  Powerpoint would not achieve what we wanted – you would be telling them and not engaging.  Developing the values was an important starting point and the story telling was co-created with the management team.” commented speaker Catherine Neilson, Kerry Foods journey.

Although the story telling was manifested in many forms from posters, images, LinkedIn, commercial media and on site, one of the biggest forms was a mini highly visual animated film that communicated the values while capturing the essence of the business.  The film featured food and ingredients as the heroes with cheese gorges to butter rivers.

Some of the comments that the story telling ‘Delivered the most clarity on what makes us distinctive’ showed the power of the approach.

The programme was launched with 120 of their leaders, many who started off sceptical only to openly share stories of fear to excitement which all added to the authenticity.  In order to spread the campaign through the organisation they created toolkits to help senior management communicate it to all 6500 employees, who had equal opportunity to connect and tell one of their stories.  Catherine captured the power of this in a story of one shop floor employee who revealed  she learnt to read through a Kerry Foods programme and was finally able to read a story to her grandchildren.

“Many of these stories would not have been told if this approach not been developed and we have translated them into 6 languages.” said Catherine.

Catherine also described the steps they have taken to keeping the initiative alive within the organisation which includes:

  • ‘striking out conversation’ inspire to take action.
  • Link action to conversations to strategic goals.
  • Dragons Den trail blazers.

According to Catherine the story telling programme has led to a powerful shift in employee perception of leaders and has strongly engaged the business rather than just telling them.  Proving the success their Trail Blazer campaign has had over 845 ideas submitted.

In closing Catherine’s advice to the group was “You need to put trust in the storytelling process.  Growth strategy will be delivered by colleagues who feel an emotional attachment to the business.”

 

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Employing Continuous Improvement as a Means to Engage the Disengaged

Noel Hennessy: Continuous Improvement Director, Lake Region Medical.

How to deal with the 62% of people who potentially suck the energy out of your business was a central component of Noel Hennessy’s doctorate and presentation.

Over the course of 4 years and 50 hours of interviews he sought to establish if there was a link between continuous improvement and employee engagement?

New data clearly shows that twice as many people reported to be disengaged as engaged within organisations.

In looking for the answer Noel dug deep into Social Exchange theory which centers on constantly weighing up risk and reward.  This led to the 3 main objectives of his research.

Noel found clear evidence of social exchange within continuous improvement with employees articulating the importance of trust/obligation and respect.  He also found that a close connection with managers has a deep impact on their connection with the organisation.

So if it exists what are the catalysts that enable it? Noel highlighted some key areas including:

  • Leaders providing resources to get things done, direction, emotional support, (people need someone else to believe in them).
  • People  should be able to influence their own working environment.
  • Employee recognition is a huge factor builds loyalty, trust and making a connection.
  • Personal development opportunity – showcase their skills, show potential, achieve ambition.

Some of the impacts of continuous improvement can lead to powerful transformations and range from pride, a greater understanding of the organisation and people pulling together to get things done.

In finishing up Noel shared his key takeaways:

  • Continuous improvement is a perfect way to engage employees and results in more satisfaction and a greater contribution to the organisation.

However the benefits also extend to the managers who find continuous improvement can:

  • Break down barriers
  • Gain new advocates
  • Develop loyalty and trust
  • Develop new skills
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Personal Perspectives from Table 8

Following a discussion on ‘Employing Continuous Improvement as a means to engage the disengaged’ the group felt it most impacted on the individual through the following areas:

  • There is huge potential in the untapped resource of the disengaged and the complexity of managing them.  Philosophy of engagement as a concept, role of management in creating and managing disengagement, limit to the effort that should be put into dealing with the disengaged.
  • Posed the question does Continuous Improvement bring Employee Engagement or is it Employee Engagement that bring Continuous Improvement. If the resources are not tapped the company is the looser in the long run.
  • Surprised at the very high disengagement, highly engaged is low, to have the large middle group is hard to believe. Who do you focus on to engage? This is a challenge. It may be a flow between each state, it is necessary to try and engage everyone.
  • Ideas come from teamwork. The disengaged give up and do not support, they are hard to manager and drag others down, even the highly engaged. Thy may have skills but they could be influencers.
  • Important for manager to identify individuals and recognise their skills and access the untapped resource.
  • Employee recognition, as a tool to improve EE, public recognition internally, and or small gifts. Gifys help support morale.
  • Leadership support is vital, but clarity around what is the managers role this area. How can the manager bring them along if they don’t have these skills.
  • Profile of employee
    Highly motivated people can increase engagement, through their language and attitude.
  • Negative people resist change and it is usual try to avoid them.
    The middle ground are easier to manager.
  • It is not always the loudest person that will ensure the project will be successful, this needs to be recognised. There is complexity in the management of Employee Engagement.
  • Disengaged individuals. What is driving the behaviour. What has changed since you hired them. Is it financial, personal, recognition, fit with the organisation , value and respect. The disengaged can sabotage a project. How can you change their behaviour.
  • Immediate inclination is to fix the disengages, focusing on the engaged is important. Prefer productive vs non productive.
    How is engagement measured? The stats seem incredible.
    Unless they are worth it don’t waste time on the disengaged. Is flavour of the month a factor in disengagement.
  • The disengaged are frustrating when other are working hard and they are dragging the group down. A process map can expose the behaviour. Trying to use the highly engage to improve the disengaged is not a good idea. Everyone is entitled to a chance, to help them. The worst thing to see is the managements tolerating the disengaged.
  • Disengagement can be a product of managements attitude to them, living down to the label. Everyone has had a moment in their career when they are disengaged. Management needed to change their attitude.
  • It is rewarding to engage the disengaged. People do not come into work to do a bad job and they were not hired that way. Do people stay in a role too long, does comfort bring complacency, boredom. Encouraged to change role.
  • The disengaged employee can be very different outside work.
  • A quiet employee should not mistaken for a disengaged engaged employee.
  • Is 100% engaged workforce a realistic expectation? Engage people to their potential, through the organisation hierarchy. Not everyone can be the CEO.
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Personal Perspectives from Table 7

The topic of ‘The(r)Evolution of Performance Management to unleash Organisation & Individual Potential’ generated a lot of animated discussion. People felt there is a lot of dissatisfaction on the “rating” system – This came up again and again.  Other comments included:

  • The topic gave new thinking – outside the box
  • Needs to be more future orientated rather than past
  • Should be a connection between organisation purpose and performance process
  • PM needs to link back to business strategy
  • Would be great if it could be a more informal process
  • 30 for 30 performance – 30 minutes every 30 days
  • Thomas Barr – the example of his wonderful achievement in Olympics would be seen as a “D” in an organisation
  • Are we empowering or are we controlling?
  • Requirement to separate goals, coaching and performance from rating and distribution
  • Brought awareness of rating systems
  • Feedback needs to be clear and agree why rating was given
  • Other organisations are going through same issues
  • Recognising success in day-to day performances
  • Look forward – set ourselves up for success
  • Nobody likes being rated
  • Current review system reflects badly on all 3 autonomy certainty and status
  • Widespread dissatisfaction
  • Discussion on rating distracts from goals
  • Causes uncertainty – causes threat reaction
  • Parental Vs Supporting
  • PM system not an enabler to empower people
  • Some organisations moving away and some are stuck
  • Performance management around a long time yet it hasn’t evolved to winning  formula
  • Cultural driver
  • Should be seen as positive
  • Individual seek autonomy and certainty
  • Increases awareness of how other apply the process
  • A new approach and view what really brings value
  • Look at bigger picture and what brings value
  • Focus development of 1 to 1 looking – forward not back
  • Value of the more informal coffee conversations
  • Focus on the positives – Thomas Barr example
  • All know our jobs – forward looking and setting ourselves up for success and include in future performance Reviews
  • No right or wrong – should be seen as opportunity to improve
  • Question the current PMS – not adding value
  • What do we want to achieve as an org
  • Give people clear goals
  • Look forward at skills rather than at past performance
  • Metric driven ticking box – it’s not the right way to do it
  • Some organisations are moving from annual conversation – now trying to make it at start and at end of year
  • Organisations want to fit people into boxes  – distribution on scale
  • Think outside the box
  • Great to know that other orgs in same boat – difficult to do how t make as seamless as possible – can have big impact
  • Language used is so important
  • “war room” – not a negative thing – huddle, sharing and feedback
  • Validates feeling general dissatisfaction with the system
  • No negative feedback – advice
  • Immediate recognition use technology
  • Its is a human interaction needs to be personal
  • We’re not alone – other organisations suffering too
  • It is both an organisational issue AND an individual issue
  • Organisation value should be linked to PM process
  • People should be linked to the business survival
  • PM is very important but not used properly – no one looking forward to it
  • Language is very important – “advice” instead of “feedback”
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Personal Perspectives from Table 6

Following a discussion on ‘The Power of Influencing & Motivating’ the group felt the impact on the individual was:

  •  Putting Framework and methodology in place and how that can aid us in influencing.
  • Understanding what peoples beliefs are. To understand what way people think in order for us to understand what they feel about the subject or  to understand that they may have a different opinion.
  • People you work close with that we try and get more understanding of their thinking. Language that is used is so important. especially with the correct use of the word BUT.
  • Don’t underestimate the value of the framework. Knowledge that can be shared within organisation and benefit is multiple.
  • Tricks to use with head of their company in respect of language. Struck by emphasis of what is in it for them.
  • Decision based on emotion versus logic, with lean we always talk about fact base decision making. With this it is a struggle we need to be conscious not be bias.  Asking people to just give facts is not realistic as they will always have own bias.
  • From experience programmes have ran and at the end they did the mindset and behaviours so should really have done from outset.  Win the individuals hear ts and minds first.
  • One of barriers to influencing is the misperception that there is a motive or they are being manipulated or being taken advantage of. Can be a barrier.  Getting clearer about what is manipulation or influence.   The skill to ascertain what the individual needs.
  • There has to be logic and structure but being able to diagnose what is needed and why.
  • The power of language and words that could be used to control what people are hearing from what we say. Switch to think what is the message we want the audience to hear from what we say.  Tailor message according  to the audience you are delivering it to.
  • Empathy is implied in what was delivered in the presentation and the likability factor. Understand what the  recepient needs .
  • To have the conversation with the individual to understand what it is they need.
  • Very often people don’t want a thing they want a feeling.
  • Give individual ownership of what is required from them.
  • Positive recognition is remembered.
  • Decisions can be based on emotion and confirmation that we are bias, and decisions are made on what we know already even though there is valid argument for the opposition.
  • Language with BUT and the use of that.
  • Use of positive language and what works for you. Importance  of language and how message can get lost if you are not careful with language. Key words to use to get message across.
  • Habits that are built up over time can work as negative on the way we come across.
  • Lots of common sense in the presentation but ended up with more questions than answers at the end. As managers how do you assess what is in it when it comes to a large group.  Different people responding to different language and how do you negotiate.
  • Presentation was engaging and different types of leadership and good attributes but the challenge is  trying to bring it back to work everyday with a larger group.
  • Trying to keep the message consistent and clear.
  • Framing conversation and choice of words. People behaving like your leaders.  Attitude of self as leaders is filtered out in organisation.
  • Likability, expertise, trustability are useful concepts to bring back to our working environment.
  • Self awareness and delivery of message is key.
  • Key is authenticity and have to work on it. To be seen to be authentic.
  • Making decisions based on emotion rather than logic and trying to influence.
  • Use of words that influence, I can, I will and doing or whichever works for you.
  • Manipulation versus influencing – there is a fine line.
  • In respect of lean we have to motivate ourselves to deliver a message and if you get negative feedback from others  we have to try and stay positive  and get everyone else on board and give them the message correctly to get them on board.  Can be difficult.
  • Normally we focus on the message and task and not focus on the method of how its delivered.
  • We are all driven by something and what motivates us is key. Where have we done well and where have we done not so well.  Trying to find out what motivates people  and adapting it the individual.
  • Take an approach if you know an individual is against the concept and try and get them on board to try and get others to follow suit.