Last Sunday’s 2^nd Round debacle for England in the World Cup was a chastening experience for a lot of us who harbour hopes of witnessing football success for the national team in our lifetime.  On the past two weeks’ evidence, we’re going to be waiting a long time!

To some extent, Saturday’s 4-1 defeat by Germany wasn’t a surprise, following the poor performances of the group stage – and the epithets ‘abject’, ‘inept’, and ‘disastrous’ which were to the fore in the aftermath, were pretty well justified based on what we saw on the pitch.  One commentator, ex-England winger Chris Waddle, who made it to the semi-final with Bobby Robson’s England in 1990, has judged that the England team performed acceptably for about 45 minutes out of 360 en route to their failure.

I know I’m not the only person thinking about this, but I do find it astonishing that individuals of such proven pedigree (a lot of them are stars at some of the best clubs in Europe) should have looked anything but world-class in this tournament; and it set me thinking: was there something about how they functioned as a team (or a squad) that contributed to this?

Anyone who’s read Patrick Lencioni’s 5 Dysfunctions of a Team (an excellent book, quick to read and full of insights, but avoiding the infantilising tendency of many in that bracket), will know that he posits five things that get in the way of building a successful and performing team:

1. Absence of Trust
2. Fear of Conflict
3. Lack of Commitment
4. Avoidance of Accountability
5. Inattention to Results

So, I thought I’d just look at the England football performance through the prism of Lencioni and see if anything chimes.  Of course, the only people who currently know the truth of the matter are within the England camp, and for now that hasn’t been shared with us (no doubt a tell-all book will follow), so don’t phone, it’s just for fun…

Dysfunction 1: Absence of Trust — This occurs when team members are reluctant to be vulnerable with one another and are unwilling to admit their mistakes, weaknesses or needs for help.  Without a certain comfort level among team members, a foundation of trust is impossible.

In relation to England, one might briefly highlight the following as having been damaging to trust within the camp:

-          John Terry’s infidelity with his England and Chelsea team-mate’s partner.  Although as one of England’s best players JT’s team-mates were never going to want him out of the team, t was clear that many regarded this as ‘crossing the line’ and will have regarded his actions as a breach of trust.

-          The Capello Index.  Only a month before the tournament, Fabio Capello signed a contract with a media company to participate in a website by ‘marking’ his players game by game, based on their performances in the World Cup matches.  It’s hard not to laugh when one imagines what scores he would have given, hindsight is a wonderful thing!  However, as was pointed out at the time, it smacked of an error of judgement and will have damaged the ‘comfort level’ among the squad members.

Dysfunction 2: Fear of Conflict — Teams that are lacking on trust are incapable of engaging in unfiltered, passionate debate about key issues, causing situations where team conflict can easily turn into veiled discussions and back channel comments.  In a work setting where team members do not openly air their opinions, inferior decisions are the result.

-          After the second match, against Algeria, John Terry spoke out in an interview, and said that there would be a clear-the-air crisis meeting that night at which everyone would speak their minds, good or bad, and get things off their chest.  At the time, I remember thinking ‘good’, that will help them to overcome whatever inhibitions or problems there are, which clearly there must be.  However, tellingly, Terry was smacked down by his manager publicly (through ‘back channels’?) told he had spoken out of turn (Absence of Trust again), and 24 hours later Frank Lampard denied that any ‘crisis talks’ had taken place.

-          It is well documented that Capello has an authoritarian streak, and a command-and-control management style, so from the outside it looked like he had prevented any dissent being aired.  Not good for the team by Lencioni’s theory.

Dysfunction #3: Lack of Commitment — Without conflict, it is difficult for team members to commit to decisions, creating an environment where ambiguity prevails. Lack of direction and commitment can make employees, particularly star employees, disgruntled.

-          Wayne Rooney was explicit in saying that he preferred to play a lone striker’s role up front, something which was denied him by the manager.  John Terry revealed explicitly (whether with tacit support of others I can’t say) that he thought Joe Cole should be starting the games, again overruled.  Steven Gerrard was asked to play wide on the left (not his natural position), and Frank Lampard was expected to play more of a holding role (not his natural one either).  If these four were the England ‘star employees’, would it be a surprise if they showed a lack of commitment, if they felt they were not listened to?  Wayne Rooney in particular looked disgruntled.

-          As a postscript here, I was struck how Joe Cole, in an interview the morning after England’s exit, prefaced his comments about the team’s exit by saying that ‘on a personal level, obviously I’m disappointed I didn’t play more’.  Not the words of a committed member of the squad; rather, someone thinking about himself first.

Dysfunction #4: Avoidance of Accountability — When teams don’t commit to a clear plan of action, even the most focused and driven individuals hesitate to call their peers on actions and behaviours that may seem counterproductive to the overall good of the team.

-          This dysfunction is less obvious in relation to the England team.  There was no lack of ‘taking responsibility’ in words at least, with every poor performance followed by interviews in which the captain or others shouldered the collective blame.  However, there is always a suspicion that that is lip service, and Wayne Rooney’s outburst “Nice to see your own fans boo you, that’s what loyal support is” after the Algeria game smacked of someone not admitting accountability to me.

Dysfunction #5: Inattention to Results — Team members naturally tend to put their own needs (ego, career development, recognition, etc.) ahead of the collective goals of the team when individuals aren’t held accountable.  If a team has lost sight of the need for achievement, the business ultimately suffers.

-          Need I say more?!  The tournament ends, and the players head home to their lovely lives, their lovely wives, and their lovely weekly pay-packets, playing in teams where they are completely valued and the systems of play are built around them.

-          The England players looked beaten down, uninspired, and afraid to express themselves.

-          Meanwhile, we see in the South American sides (4 out of the 8 quarter-finalists are from there: Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay), and in Germany also, a very evident relish for representing their country, with sparkling team play and performances that are greater than the sum of their parts.

At least the next 8 games should be more fun to watch!!

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At Phoenix we always place a great emphasis on understanding exactly what it is our clients are trying to achieve.  This part of the training process is so valuable and yet it is so rarely done as effectively as it might.  At best, it involves a meeting with a selection of key stakeholders, whereupon broad objectives are agreed and content is designed around these.  In many cases it is simply based upon managerial observations and anecdotal feedback which does not always get to the root of the real development issues.  What’s more, the participants themselves are rarely involved in this process which is also not ideal.  By consulting with at least some of those who will actually be attending the training, you not only get a better chance of designing something relevant but also of establishing participant “buy-in”.

This is a particular concern when designing content for telephone sales workshops.  We are often told that the participants need help on a particular skill – for example, closing, negotiating or questioning.  No problem – we’ll design something around these and in many cases, what we design will work pretty effectively and provide the participants with some key tools and techniques that will improve their results.  But how much better could it have been, had we been able to do some real analysis and actually listen to the quality of calls that the participants have been making to their potential or existing clients.

Call recording equipment has been around for many years, however, it is expensive to install and has usually only been utilised at larger call centre operations.  Improved technology has however now made it very easy for any type of organisation to benefit from call recording and here at Phoenix, we have really begun to see just how useful it can be.  Phonecoach provide a very straightforward system which enables call recording simply by adding a prefix to the number dialled – there’s no hardware involved and all the recorded calls are automatically saved as MP3 files.

By being able to listen to exactly what is being said, by both sales person and customer, we are in a much better position to identify what’s working and what skills need further developing.  From a design point of view this “reality check” enables us to focus only on those areas that really need it, ensuring that the training is lean and extremely relevant.  Where appropriate, we can even use the recorded calls to illustrate key learning points during the training itself – which can also be very powerful for the participants.

For just £24 + vat, we can record up to 500 minutes of calls, which is usually enough to get a good selection of a team’s telephone sales activity over a week or so.  After some thorough analysis, we report our findings back to the client and only then, will we design a course based on what’s actually happening.  This ensures that any sloppy techniques can be instantly identified & addressed, leading to a direct impact on an individual’s sales performance. Which is, after all, exactly what any high quality sales training should do.

Time Management is a part of everybody’s life, both personal & professional. Below are some great quotes relating to Time Management which I hope you find thought provoking:

• “Time is the scarcest resource of the manager; If it is not managed, nothing else can be managed.” (Peter Drucker)
• “Time equals Life, Therefore, waste your time and waste of your life, or master your time and master your life.” (Alan Lakein)
• “I get up every morning determined to both change the world and to have one hell of a good time. Sometimes, this makes planning the day difficult.” (E.B. White)
• “Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs.” (Henry Ford)
• “The few things that work fantastically well should be identified, cultivated, nurtured, and multiplied.” (Richard Koch)
• “Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things that matter least.” (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
• “This loving person is a person who abhors waste–waste of time, waste of human potential. How much time we waste. As if we were going to live forever.” (Leo Buscaglia)
• “We live in deeds, not years; In thoughts not breaths; In feelings, not in figures on a dial. We should count time by heart throbs …” (Aristotle)
• “Guard well your spare moments. They are like uncut diamonds. Discard them and their value will never be known. Improve them and they will become the brightest gems in a useful life.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
• “Many people fail in life, not for lack of ability or brains or even courage but simply because they have never organized their energies around a goal.” (Elbert Hubbard)
• “A man who dares to waste one hour of life has not discovered the value of life.” (Charles Darwin)
• “Do something every day that you don’t want to do; this is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain.” (Mark Twain)
• “Don’t start your day until you have it finished on paper first.” (Jim Rohn)
• “We think much more about the use of money, which is renewable, than we do about the use of time, which is irreplaceable” (J.L Servan-Schreiber)
• “As far as we are able to discover, no one, on their death bed, vowed “I wish I’d spent more time at work” (Rob Parsons)
• “If you have someone who is good in a crisis, get rid of them, otherwise you’ll always have one” (Anon.)
• “And remember that time waits for no one. Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery.  Today is a gift.  That’s why it’s called the present.” (Anon)

Mike Brearley, ex – England cricket captain and now President of the Pyscho-analysts society, talking about leadership.  The actual title was “Leadership – Theory and Practice” I focused straight away on the prospect of an “almost childhood hero” talking about leading my real childhood heroes into cricketing battle against the Australians in the 1980’s.  Brearley was/is regarded as one of the most intelligent and astute cricket captains of all time,  using what are broadly termed “man management” skills to get the best out of his team of hugely talented but hugely diverse characters and personalities.  Sports like Cricket and Rugby often produce teams made  up of a wide variety of personalities and social background.  (I am sure there are other examples but those two sports stand out for me as the prime examples.)  Cricket captains also have to contend with managing players who have to go out and perform fundamentally on their own but as part of a team.  So pulling them all together is a massive challenge, as well as having to deal with the tactical aspects of the game.

My colleague and I turned up on the night, anticipating Brearley describing how he managed to get the best out of Botham, Boycott, Willis, Dilley et al and win the Ashes in amazing circumstances in 1981.  A lecture containing cricket anecdotes that could be passed on in a superior manner at our local club or even better at Lords, so we could be overheard sounding knowledgeable.  (Maybe I am just speaking for myself).  I think maybe twenty per cent were in our camp.  Obvious cricket fans, waiting for one of the most successful captains to tell us how to do it!

As we found a spare couple of seats, I remembered the whole title of the event – The Freud Memorial Lecture, Michael Brearley, Leadership – Theory and Practice.  Not Mike Brearley talks cricket!  The depth of the occasion struck me.  We were going to be listening to a genuine expert, not just in cricket, but in Psychology.  He is a psycho-analyst, not just an ex cricket captain.  Brearley spoke for about forty five minutes, mentioned cricket about five times, but mentioned Jung and Freud about fifty five times.  It wasn’t what I expected but it was extremely interesting, fascinating and challenging.  I work with managers and leaders almost every week, I consider myself to know about management and leadership, but what came out of the lecture for me was that I know very little beyond the practical issues involved.  What Brearley alerted me to was the depth of the subject and all the issues that lie behind the day to day “stuff” that revolves around management and leadership issues.   He talked widely about narcissistic leaders and the reasons for their decisions, he discussed decision making amongst managers and “self image”.  He explored “sophisticated bullying tactics” and how leaders try to cope.  He also discussed how leaders don’t simply lead, as in the dictionary definition (from the front) but position themselves all around and amongst the team. One element of the discussion focused on “born leaders” and there was some research, from Canada I believe, that examined traits in children and how they related to their future roles.  The trait most associated with children who went on to be the leaders was generosity and not what you might expect, i.e. confidence or positivity.  That would certainly be one conversation that I would bring to the training room to help managers and leaders think about what is really required to be successful.

All of these subjects were hung off the back drop of Jung and Freud’s theories and ideas, which added the depth and interest and the challenge.  I left feeling much more knowledgeable and “expert” not as I had expected being able to recount cricket stories but by being able to link leadership and management theory and practice by understanding and quoting Brearly’s expertise and knowledge.

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I’m often asked by potential customers, what exactly are the key differences between open and tailored training. This got me thinking that it might be useful to develop a quick reference guide that will help you make a more informed decision.

Open Courses

1. Open courses provide the participants with a brilliant overview of their chosen subject – whether it’s Introduction to Sales, Essential Management or Inspirational Leadership.
2. Open courses enable you to work alongside individuals from different industries but often with very similar concerns. They also provide you with great networking opportunities!
3. Open courses provide an off site learning environment to discuss openly challenges & concerns which in some cases individuals feel more open to talk about when not in the company of colleagues.
4. Open courses represent a highly cost effective solution where only one or two individuals require development in a particular area.
5. Open courses give individuals a new set of skills and the opportunity to practice them in a ‘safe’ environment and build their confidence to apply the newly learnt skills back in their own workplace.

Tailored Training

1. Tailored training provides you with a comprehensive training needs analysis conducted in advance of any events we deliver on your behalf.
2. Tailored training enables us to include a wide range of disciplines within a single given event.
3. Tailored training will meet a specific requirement through the unique design to match the objectives of the individual or group.
4. Tailored training offers the possibility to design a specific programme for the whole organisation where everyone will be involved, this enables lasting change which is encouraged and supported internally & externally.
5. Tailored training can be designed specifically to a given company and industry with a choice of ‘best fit’ Learning Consultant
6. Tailored Training allows more flexibility with training dates and location.

I hope this was useful and if you would like to discuss either option in more detail please get in touch and I will be delighted to help.

Over the last few years, coaching and mentoring have become much more widely used within the business world. As their popularity has grown however, so have the range of different definitions and understandings. In an attempt to clarify things, I have spoken to our Head of Learning – Martin le Comte and would like to share with you our definition of coaching and mentoring and how you it can benefit you, your team and organisation.

“Martin, please identify your definition of coaching and mentoring?”

Firstly, can I say that you are right – there is lots of current debate about coaching and mentoring and the distinctions have become blurred somewhat. My view is that mentoring encompasses a variety of development approaches dependant on the needs of the learner in question. An effective Mentor may use one or a number of the following skills to help the development of the individual being mentored including feedback, coaching, training, advice and guidance.

The mentor is frequently seen as a role model by the business or organisation for the individual being mentored and will often have specific and relevant task specific skills and knowledge in the same or similar area.

Coaching on the other hand is a specific skill. An individual coach will effectively use a series of questions to help and challenge the coachee. The questions will help the individual to explore ideas and options to help them to overcome a current challenge or obstacle that is affecting their performance.  Expert knowledge of the specific area is not required and is in fact often not desirable.

In summary, many people managers rightly use coaching skills to develop their people in their role. It is however important to remember that coaching   should be just one of the tools at their disposal rather than the only answer. The skill of the people manager is on identifying which of the tools they need to use dependant on the needs of the individual.

“How can you tell whether you should be using coaching or one of the other mentoring tools – feedback, coaching, training, advice and/or guidance?”

In my experience, the best and I might be bullish enough to suggest, the only sure fire way to identify which approach is the most appropriate is to be skilled in asking a couple of great questions initially and then almost more importantly, listen to the resulting response. The skilled people developer does not make assumptions about what is required instead they ask great questions to seek to understand what the individual needs.

Many people say that this is very similar to the start of a coaching dialogue and I would not disagree, however at this point coaching may or may not be the answer. Let me give you a practical example –

I’m a driver and have been driving for years but know nothing about what is going on under the bonnet. If I break down by the side of the road I don’t want or need someone to ask me what I think is wrong with it, I want them to ask me a couple of questions to ascertain what happened and then tell me exactly what to do. If they keep asking me to think about what could be wrong, I will get extremely frustrated and it will take me a hell of a long time to get home. When I do eventually get home I will think twice about taking my car out on long journeys in the future and I will certainly be changing my roadside assistance provider.  If the original roadside assistance provider had just asked me a couple of simple questions about my current knowledge and expertise and what had happened before I broke down, they would have quickly identified that my battery was flat and changed it there and then. They then would have advised me what to look out for in the future to avoid it happening again and what to do if it did happen again. I leave the roadside quickly happy with knowledge and expertise and more importantly I get home quickly.

I had a quote from a client recently about an inappropriate use of coaching, which I think highlights this point really well.

“I had coaching from somebody but they never gave me any answers, which is what I actually needed, all they did was ask me lots of questions. It was a complete waste of time and I felt abandoned.”

“What are the biggest challenges you face when coaching and mentoring individuals?”

From my perspective most organisations will ask me and my colleagues at Phoenix for coaching when that might not be what they need at all. In the past I was sometimes reluctant to initially deviate from the process and try unsuccessfully to use coaching when that was clearly not what the individual wanted or needed. What’s the point in asking some open ended coaching questions when they really have no idea what the answer is…I’m sure you can imagine just how frustrating and unproductive that is for all involved!!

What I have learnt is that often when a client is asking you for some coaching, unless you asked to undertake contracted coaching, what they are actually asking you to do is help develop their people.  They are actually interested in the end result rather than the approach that you use.

Marina, as a final thought if you want some additional tips on how to successfully recognise the correct development approach, keep in mind 3 of Phoenix’s Golden Rules of Leadership

1. Know your people, know your people, know your people.

2. Treat people as they need to be treated.

3. Stop it, it’s not about you.

Written by Marina Wirkner, Sales Executive

Whatever the result of the General Election taking place in the UK today, the expectation is that there is a period of belt-tightening on its way.  Some are even talking about an ‘Age of Austerity’, and I think that may well be the case, relative to the past 30 years at least.  The UK’s public indebtedness is so large that in order to reduce the deficit, cuts in spending by government plus rises in taxes seem to be a certainty.

However, the economy has only recently come back to growth and no administration will want to send us back into recession if they can help it, so whoever ends up in charge at Downing St (numbers 10 & 11) will want to manage the process of debt reduction without stifling the business recovery.

So, we wait to see whether and where the axe will fall – and those of us in Learning & Development wait specifically to see the ramifications for us.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to predict that the public sector will see major cutbacks, in budgets, in staffing levels, perhaps both.  In the private sector, increased taxation (however it comes) may discourage firms from taking on additional headcount in the short term.  But it’s my view that this period is bringing with it great opportunity for improving organisational productivity.  We have already seen that the recession of the past couple of years has forced a lot of organisations to be leaner and more focused, and the prescription looks like being more of the same going forward.

Whatever happens, planners and senior managers in both sectors (and the third sector too) will surely be looking for increased efficiency – getting more out of less – and it’s not before time as far as many parts of the public sector are concerned.

The big question for managers and learning & development professionals is what the impact of the new austerity will be on development budgets.  The obvious response and instinct from some will be a thick red line through the training allocation; but those who stop to think it through may actually go the other way…

For if the objective is to get more done, to a higher standard, by fewer people, then training has a massive role to play.  It’s not enough to tell people to work harder – you need to give them the tools to work smarter.  Where working hours are closely defined and overtime attracts a premium cost, the challenge is really to overhaul mindsets and eliminate wastage, both of which training & coaching can help with.  The private sector faces the same to differing degrees, plus it has the added challenge of fierce competition for talent, and retaining the talent it attracts.

Dealing with change, effective leadership, improved communication, better performance management, alignment of team goals, efficient time & self management… The list is long.  These are fundamental skills and behaviours that learning & development can improve, and they are the drivers that will deliver the efficiencies that organisations everywhere need in the years to come.

Compared to what Ken Blanchard calls the ‘cost of doing nothing’, tailored, targeted and professional training & development can make a huge contribution to pulling the UK out of the mire – the key is to concentrate on outcomes and use professionals with proven track record.

Tim Holmes, Director

This was no doubt partly due to the fact that we couldn’t really offer our clients anything along these lines, but more so due to my belief that this type of training was the very antithesis of everything that makes Phoenix special.

Our focus has always been on delivering practical, results based training where the emphasis is on what gets done differently once participants return to work, not on how many credits they have been awarded or what type of certificate they will receive.  In my experience, too much training is simply commissioned on the basis of what form of recognition the participants get.  Traditionally, this is meant to provide some form of motivation but if the training is not up to scratch, then no matter what they receive at the end, participant levels of engagement will still sink very quickly.

Having said all that, we have often wished for some kind of independent recognition for the quality of our delivery and content and who better to provide this than the Institute of Leadership & Management – the world’s best known accrediting body.

Through their endorsed award scheme, the ILM have provided us with the ideal solution.  Phoenix have been able to retain all the best aspects of our programmes’ content and delivery, whilst adding an assessment section that ensures the participants put into practice everything that they have learnt on the course.  In many ways, the additional assessment has really strengthened our offering and it fits perfectly with our results focussed training.  Now participants and their colleagues will see exactly how the learning has been used, as it has to be documented on a regular basis over a six week period.  A 500 word case study is also required which again will indicate the participants’ understanding of the content and how best to use it.

On successful completion of both the course and the assessment, participants are indeed awarded an ILM certificate however, for most participants this is only a subsidiary benefit.  The real prize is becoming a better manager and leader and being able to demonstrate this to their colleagues.

Phoenix currently deliver ILM Endorsed open courses in Essential Management Skills & Inspirational Leadership and are about to offer endorsed modular programmes in both Management & Leadership Skills.  Our unique approach, style of delivery and focus on results will remain as strong as ever, but with the ILM’s Endorsement our products are now even more attractive to a wide range of clients & participants across the world.

I will always believe that good training should be about improving performance and delivering results, but if you can achieve this and also provide participants with some kind of appropriate recognition then perhaps we have an ideal solution.

Written by Oliver Osmond – Sales Director

Image by Hamed Saber via Flickr

One of the first things that I was taught on becoming a leader, and a message that I have heard throughout my career as a leader and people manager, is the need to lead people from the front.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently and I believe that if you take this literally you will only find trouble.

So what does leading from the front actually mean?  Does it mean blazing a trail with everyone else following, or something different?

If your definition of leading from the front is the first one, I’d urge you to try it and see what actually happens.  If you were to really physically lead from the front, just have a think about what you’d actually see.  Your view would only be of what is in front of you.

Now, lots of people say that is a good thing, and ‘vision’ is one of the words that people often refer to when they talk about leading from the front.  However, in order to have ‘vision’ you need to be able to see the full picture and you can’t do that from the front; but you can see the full picture if you start leading from the back.

Leading from the back you can see the road ahead, but crucially you can also see the team and most importantly the individuals within it.  John Adair states that in order to be a successful leader you need to be able to ‘achieve the task’, ‘build the team’ and ‘develop the individual’.  Adair also states that you need to be able to identify which of these areas you need to focus on at any given time.

Remembering that starting to lead from the back rather than always leading from the back is a vitally important differentiation.  Sometimes you will still need to be at the front forging the way ahead or protecting your team.

“Your job as a leader is to develop people to a point where you are no longer required” is the number one Golden Rule of Leadership. It’s easy to see that being at the front all the time will minimise the opportunities for people within the team to develop and grow, and subsequently you will always be required.

So what does leading from the front really mean?

“If you want people to demonstrate a behaviour, go there first!” is another Golden Rule of Leadership that is a truer reflection of leading from the front.  Role modelling the behaviours that you need your people to demonstrate as they work to achieve the task is the right way to lead from the front.

The behaviours you demonstrate set the tone, the pace and desire of your team. If any of those are not currently there, you need to look in the mirror first.

So, if you want to really lead from the front, lead with your behaviour rather than taking the lead all the time.

Martin le Comte – Head of Learning

The challenges seem to be similar for most clients: one day you have your people nicely corralled in your workplace under your blanket supervision; the next they’re out there somewhere, hopefully in some sort of gainful employment, but hand-on-heart you have not got one clue!  They’re either out on the road and visiting the office is seen as dead time when they could be out earning, or they’re working from home with all its negative connotations of swinging bits of lead!  Additionally, all your traditional management tools and techniques are now being severely challenged.  What to do?

In the last ten years or so I have been a remote worker, a remote manager and latterly, both.  So, in keeping with my philosophy that there are always simple answers I set the grey cells to work. This trawled up an interesting case study that has clearly had an impact on my own ‘remote management’ success.

Image by slworking2 via Flickr

Let’s cut to the chase.  Remote working has its challenges for both worker and manager.  When viewed as separate challenges they contradict each other.  The worker needs to motivate ‘self’ in the knowledge that there’s no-one else around to do it for them.  They need be inspired to get down to work.  They need to resist the temptations to do nice things instead of important things.  They need to feel trusted to get on with it and they feel grateful for the flexibility. Just to be clear – motivation, inspiration & trust.

The manager, applying traditional workplace management assumes that the remote worker will need discipline and organisation in order to discharge their duties.  Accepted, the worker may well need to be organised and disciplined (for themselves) however if the manager wants and needs ‘evidence’, the manager’s behaviour is likely to be interpreted as ‘surveillance’.  Interestingly some brief research shows that the internet is littered with ways of ‘knowing where your people are’ and IT solutions for knowing who’s logged on to the server.  How useful is this information to the remote manager?  Frankly – I think it’s a waste of money.  The whole ethos of remote working is underpinned by reduced cost and flexibility for the worker delivering tangible increases in productivity, quality and engagement.  I would assert that, in order to get the most from remote working, the manager needs to discard any notion of ‘surveillance’.  Controversial? – read on!

Try a quick case study for yourself!

You delegated a report to one of your team on Friday with an achievable deadline of noon today, assuming he disregards all other work, which you have instructed him to do.  It’s Monday and you’re travelling between meetings and you need an update.  You call your remote worker and you can hear his car engine in the background and he fumbles to turn off the car radio!  You expected him to be at home ‘working’. You’ve already checked the server and he hasn’t logged on today.  You’re not looking forward to your next meeting, your blood pressure is rising, your language is deteriorating and you’re rueing the day your company went to remote working. In your opinion, there’s no way he’ll be able to get that report done with enough time for you to read and understand it before your meeting with the MD at noon.

Think about what you’d say to him, how you’d say it and what you want him to say.

• How does the call go?
• What does your tone of voice and challenging language do for the conversation?
• How ‘trusted’ will he feel?
• How motivational do you need to be?
• How inspiring do you need to be?

……or were you thinking of dishing out a good telling-off?  You were?  You are not alone!

Well, a few years ago I was in this very position: not the manager, the worker!

My manager called me and immediately challenged me on what she could hear in the background, ‘Where are you exactly?’ Sure enough I wasn’t at home.

I was challenged on my progress with the report and accused of ‘taking advantage’ (different wording though!).

I was reminded that my contracted hours were 9-5 (which I knew).

She went on to explain that she was having huge problems managing the team remotely and that she was considering solving her problems with an action plan where we [her team] would call her between 7.30 and 9.00 am every day to review the plan for the day.  I would also have to spend every Monday with her.  Finally, she explained that not delivering the report by 12 noon was unacceptable and she would be recording this incident as evidence for my up-coming review.  I listened, mainly because I didn’t get a chance to speak.

She eventually ran out of expletives and thinly veiled threats and waited for my reply.  I explained that I had emailed the report to her at 11pm the night before (Sunday) and she should check her BlackBerry!  I went on to say that in that email I had explained that I had finished the report over the weekend so that I could drop my boys off at school in the morning. Which, incidentally, I had been told was one of the perks of remote working. I had also explained that I had called at the supermarket on the way back to buy something for lunch so I could work through the day uninterrupted to make sure tomorrow’s ‘drop-deadline’ was met.

For the next few months I went into the office 9 to 5, Monday to Friday.  I did exactly what was expected and no more.  Passively aggressive I admit but I began to enjoy Sundays again.  She got the bare-minimum of effort from me and I got my weekends back – result. What little respect I’d had for her was gone.  Actually, she never really got it back before she left the organisation.  Integrity prevents me from elaborating!

Here’s a challenge for every remote manager reading this.  Remote management is NOT management.  It’s leadership.  If you feel the need to ‘manage’ your remote worker then it is not working.  Why not bring them back to a ‘workplace’ where they can be ‘supervised’.  If you do this, they will still know you don’t trust them but at least you’ll know what they’re up to – and you’ll get…..the bare-minimum.  Still!

Is there a simple answer?  Of course there is.  It’s underpinned by trust.  [At this point you could do worse than reading 'The Five Dysfunctions of a Team' by Patrick Lencioni or save yourself a few hours and accept that you need ‘trust’ to permeate your remote team and that’s YOUR job].

Demonstrate your trust, often and consistently. This is very simple but does require you to suppress any desire to monitor and control, at least in the traditional sense.

Our watchword for training here at Phoenix is practical, so if you need some pointers try these hints, tips, do’s and don’ts:

• Set the ground rules for home working VERY clearly and precisely and be seen to work to them yourself
• Don’t question what your team are doing unless you need to know – most of the time YOU DON’T.  No really – YOU DON’T.
• Consistently ask about achievements, not what’s been done
• Praise the effort that you don’t see – you’ll know from the quality and quantity of the outputs
• Do regular, scheduled, meaningful one-to-one’s – don’t just drop in
• Pre-arrange phone conversations where possible
• Don’t keep your diary and movements a secret from your team just to ‘keep them on their toes’
• Encourage your team to share their diaries but allow ‘private’ time
• Praise their ability to manage work-life balance
• Balance the need for team meetings against the need for the team to get things done
• Track outputs over activity
• Give developmental feedback on evidence not assumption – this needs you to change as well as them!

Overarching all of the above, here’s one of those ‘training room’ check-lists….

Step 1 – Get to know your people

Step 2 – Get to know your people better

Step 3 – Go back to step 2

I know. Sorry.

After spending the last two years as a successful sales manager, managing a diverse team across hundreds of square miles, I can honestly say that I did not ‘manage’ to change anything about the people in my team. I just changed me – style, language and skill set – that’s all.

Just to be clear, the solution to successful remote working is not technology, it’s people. It’s you, and your leadership.

Written by Lawrence White, Senior Learning Consultant