The Real Challenge for Managers | Kevin Eyre

Kevin Eyre began his talk by recalling the great conversations and inputs that took place over the group discussion.  For him what is relevant is the talk and not behaviour and how conscious we are of what we are actually saying.

According to Kevin we give a lot of attention to how people think but behaviour (the acts they take) all require the use of language.

It is not possible to do any of these things without the use of language.

What is the effect that talk has on how we think and behave

Can we influence what happens to people?

He encourage people to ponder “How do I feel, how might I be inclined to act once someone tells me what to do versus when someone asks me how I feel.”

This has a massively differently impact.

If someone takes an interest I can quickly get engaged and its my responsibility to take ownership.

All is a consequence of asking a question rather than telling someone what to do.

Kevin outlined the typical challenges that managers face and the different roles they play from Commander, Instructor, Agent Provocateur, Negotiator, Trainer, Mediator, Consultant, Faciilitator, Mentor and Coach.  In addition they are also expected to not just respond, but to create  A Growth Mindset as well covering

  •  Collaboration
  •  Excellence
  •  Innovation
  •  Engagement

This demanding challenge and the pressure of what managers feel causes them to sound off.

They spend most of their time telling and suggesting.

“As children we ask, have fun, be curious, moment where everything was amazing, we lose this as managers” added Kevin.

For a manager sometimes talk is a part of our action (Depends on how I interact.  What I say and how I say it.), most often, action is a part of our talk and sometimes, our talk is action (what we say is what we are doing).

Lots of behaviour is fixed but talk is habitual and changeable and has a big effect on mood state. It all starts to change behaviour.

In changing our Inter action with employees a sudden change can be alarming.

We need to explain why we are choosing to interact differently and work through this strange new world and way of communicating.  We need to be able to talk about the talk as we are changing the relationship.

According to Kevin the real challenge for manager is developing and deploy sensitive, skilful and timely dialogue.

In answering questions from the audience Kevin added that some managers can feel a short term loss of control as they modify their dialogue skills but they find they actually get more control by asking than dictating.