tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-79509767428488311812012-01-18T12:31:32.277-08:00Kwelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16179877515851132331noreply@blogger.comBlogger331100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950976742848831181.post-5283039567507146322012-01-18T12:25:00.000-08:002012-01-18T12:31:32.301-08:00

This is the 8th in a series of tips on Influencing without Authority: Managing UpOne thing I have realized in business is that everyone has upward reporting relationships. CEOs typically report to boards of directors. Mayors report to councils and publically elected officials are subservient to the public. Influencing one’s manager (or other 'boss' figure), however, deserves a special mention.

Kwelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16179877515851132331noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950976742848831181.post-31921805872299826002012-01-04T14:37:00.000-08:002012-01-04T14:42:09.246-08:00

This is the 7th in a series of tips on Influencing without Authority: Developing Your Personal PowerThere are two types of power in business – positional (i.e. the authority vested in you based on your position) and personal power. While the use of positional power is sometimes necessary, an overuse of it will quickly erode one’s personal power, leading to a dictatorial style of management. For

Kwelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16179877515851132331noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950976742848831181.post-19708451380197146722011-12-21T12:36:00.000-08:002011-12-21T12:50:58.664-08:00

This is the 6th in a series of tips on Influencing without Authority: How to Influence an "Analytical"Analyticals are systematic, structured, logical types. They care about things being thought through and being done right, and less about how people feel about it. If you need to convey an idea to an analytical, consider doing the following:• Show them how you arrived at your thinking. Any hard

Kwelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16179877515851132331noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950976742848831181.post-14769817499300674092011-12-08T13:31:00.000-08:002011-12-08T13:37:56.676-08:00

This is the 5th in a series of tips on Influencing without Authority: How to Influence an "Amiable"Amiables are dependable, easygoing, sensitive types. When in arguments they tend to be more timid and are likely to back down when tension rises. They don’t like to see people get hurt and tend to avoid risk. If you need to convey an idea to an amiable, consider doing the following:• Don’t take

Kwelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16179877515851132331noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950976742848831181.post-37890790181492332342011-11-24T14:53:00.000-08:002011-11-24T14:57:22.830-08:00

This is the 4th in a series of tips on Influencing without Authority: How to Influence an "Expressive"Expressives are outgoing, creative, social types. They enjoy human contact and don’t want to look bad in any social situation. If you need to convey an idea to an Expressive, consider doing the following:• Seek their input as much as possible when formulating new ideas – they want to be included,

Kwelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16179877515851132331noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950976742848831181.post-54818344582564112162011-11-09T15:16:00.000-08:002011-11-09T15:44:39.847-08:00

The following is a book review of "Getting Naked" by Patrick LencioniDespite the attention-getting title, showing up as you are is key to a consultancy practice.Exposing oneself does take courage and guts, and results in great dialogue, trust and loyalty. Ego has no place in consulting and is best left in the change room.This book by Patrick Lencioni is a story about his consulting practice and

Kwelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16179877515851132331noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950976742848831181.post-35253893929877197122011-10-21T16:29:00.000-07:002011-10-21T16:35:15.422-07:00

This is tip # 3 in our series on Influencing Without AuthorityDrivers are direct, results-orientated people and are usually not the most patient. If you need to convey an idea to a driver, consider doing the following:• Avoid “thinking aloud” - think before you get in the room instead and then give a coherent pitch.• Make your points efficiently and avoid repeating yourself – these folks are

Kwelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16179877515851132331noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950976742848831181.post-23828759108963579282011-10-07T13:59:00.000-07:002011-10-07T14:05:57.618-07:00

Tip #2 in the series on Influencing Without AuthorityThe majority of people are biased towards 1-2 of 4 social styles:• Driver: Direct, results-orientated• Expressive: Outgoing, creative, social• Amiable: Dependable, easygoing, sensitive• Analytical: Systematic, accurate, structured, logicalStep 1 is to understand your own biases and to learn how to moderate them when involved in the influencing

Kwelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16179877515851132331noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950976742848831181.post-80851269336725065062011-09-07T15:43:00.000-07:002011-09-12T15:21:59.432-07:00

Introducing our tip of the week series on influencing without authorityA key skill relevant to leaders at all levels is the ability to positively influence people in such a way that others willingly alter their thoughts and plans, versus merely complying because the leader has authority. This is the first of our “tip of the week” series on influencing without the use of authority, which is

Kwelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16179877515851132331noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950976742848831181.post-33342405945571490122011-06-15T13:22:00.000-07:002011-06-15T13:25:45.481-07:00

Figuratively speaking, each and every one of us is surrounded by 3 concentric circles. The first, and smallest, is our circle of control – the things we have authority over. The second, which is bigger, is our circle of influence – i.e. the things we may/may not control, but can influence.The third, outer circle, is the circle of concern. In addition to the things we can control and influence,

Kwelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16179877515851132331noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950976742848831181.post-5581858940780602502011-04-12T15:06:00.000-07:002011-04-12T15:12:54.518-07:00

I have been thinking about courage as a key attribute of great leadership. Leading is synonymous with having courage. In simple terms, it takes courage to merely stand alone, make decisions, take action ... all of which invite commentary or criticism. In more complex terms, leadership also requires courage to navigate in ambiguity, to take action with incomplete information, and to take

Kwelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16179877515851132331noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950976742848831181.post-45486158491143862662011-02-15T10:10:00.000-08:002011-02-15T10:18:06.560-08:00

I was contemplating the other day, why we, as humans, face the prospect of feedback with such anxiety and trepidation. You know, when your boss comes to you and says “can we talk”? Or when you start feeling anxious going into your annual performance review meeting.The research supports it: people generally do not like receiving feedback, particularly if it is constructive or challenging in any

Kwelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16179877515851132331noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950976742848831181.post-7455476006819302402011-01-11T10:03:00.000-08:002011-01-11T10:05:27.308-08:00

I was reflecting today on some of the tougher coaching assignments that I’ve done and have found that the hardest ones are invariably remedial in nature – i.e. the person’s manager is sending the employee for coaching to get better at something, as an alternative to eventual termination.I have to admit that I have not been successful at coaching in all of these situations, however the so-called “

Kwelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16179877515851132331noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950976742848831181.post-25980901195580305702010-11-04T15:57:00.000-07:002010-11-04T16:00:15.241-07:00

At Kwela, our work takes us into many different organizations across a range of industries, which gives us the fortunate position of seeing common themes and challenges in the world of management and leadership. Of particular interest to me lately is career development in organizations.It is no surprise that with an increasingly competitive environment and challenging economic times,

Kwelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16179877515851132331noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950976742848831181.post-70243804702167767252010-09-15T10:24:00.000-07:002010-09-15T10:29:42.887-07:00

I recall growing up that I had the impression that life would be like building a house. You start with a foundation (mostly education), then add the walls (get a job, get married, etc.), then put on the roof (have kids, get a house, etc) and then you are done. Maybe this came from watching too many Disney cartoons and seeing that no matter what, they always seem to live happily ever after. Having

Kwelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16179877515851132331noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950976742848831181.post-19941809461582679832010-07-30T09:42:00.000-07:002010-07-30T09:46:47.075-07:00

Organizations in many sectors of society focus on strengthening teamwork. Consider a sports team, a ballet troupe or an orchestra. They tend to invest a great deal of time and energy figuring out what they can do more of to be better. Yet, in business this rarely happens. Think about the amount of time your management team has spent in the last 12 months discussing their performance as a team? I

Kwelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16179877515851132331noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950976742848831181.post-74452897540286186642010-06-15T14:08:00.000-07:002010-06-15T14:25:07.695-07:00

I don’t know any managers who would not want to see their employees go the 'extra mile'. But what does this really mean? For some managers it could mean 'work as many hours as I do or 'be on call 24/7'. For many it simply means visible hard work.I don’t know many employees that are not juggling work responsibilities with other things like family time, sports, leisure and all those good things

Kwelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16179877515851132331noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950976742848831181.post-55489198219864550292010-04-27T18:06:00.000-07:002010-04-27T18:11:33.017-07:00

I was recently asked what I was observing as “hot trends” in organizations with which we work. It took just a few seconds to consider the question before concluding that a key issue is leading change. Every organization needs to continuously adapt to the business environment that it operates in. Responding to external changes requires leaders to make internal changes. These changes can range from

Kwelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16179877515851132331noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950976742848831181.post-16033492930682630322010-01-28T11:02:00.000-08:002010-01-28T14:58:05.715-08:00

I remember one of my early jobs as an electronic engineer – providing telephone support for a worldwide client base that was integrating our products. I’m only 43, but how different the world was then! If you needed to move information around, options were pretty much limited to faxes and Fedex/UPS. Large meetings were few and far between, because frankly it was so difficult to set them up

Kwelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16179877515851132331noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950976742848831181.post-19716951166605932652009-11-09T08:55:00.000-08:002009-11-09T09:08:29.528-08:00

When we work with people who struggle to be great leaders, a root cause we sometimes identify is a lack of belief that managing others is as important as their other responsibilities. These individuals all too often say the right things and tend to understand (at least at an intellectual level) that managing people requires their time and attention; but their actions seldom reflect what they

Kwelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16179877515851132331noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950976742848831181.post-47306289344672970372009-09-08T09:04:00.000-07:002009-09-08T09:10:22.344-07:00

Many years ago I recall being in a management class given by another trainer. All her stories were about her kids and although I was a manager, frankly I could not relate since I never had any. I came away feeling quite disappointed. Fast forward a few years.... I now have a 4 year old, and I’m discovering a lot!I think my number one revelation is that the main difference between a child (

Kwelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16179877515851132331noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950976742848831181.post-56658306899735540092009-07-03T08:26:00.000-07:002009-07-03T08:31:13.732-07:00

In this post I’m going to share some personal stuff on values and priorities...Since starting our own business, I often get asked by people if it was “worth the sacrifice”. What they are often referring to is the huge workload of carrying so many responsibilities and wearing so many hats, on top of being the one that actually delivers the service. You see, one of the differences between working

Kwelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16179877515851132331noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950976742848831181.post-48860926452881566962009-05-14T09:53:00.000-07:002009-05-14T10:03:51.740-07:00

My wife and I are taking 'Funky West Coast Swing' dance lessons–-this is a real stretch for me as I have two left feet! Our dance instructor regularly talks about the need to develop 'muscle memory'. This is what he says: This is a new skill that you need to develop. You need to find time in between our weekly lessons to practice over and over again. Consistent and intensive practice builds

Kwelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16179877515851132331noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950976742848831181.post-84474244313301054002009-04-07T13:18:00.000-07:002009-05-14T09:52:57.680-07:00

Leadership is a complex topic, however three simple words can go a long way to ensuring effectiveness: “please”, “sorry” and “thank-you”. Let’s look at why this is so:“Please” – There are two ways to get people to do things, namely the carrot and the stick. The “stick” ranges from “I need you to do the following” to “if you don’t do the following the consequences will be...”. The carrot is simply

Kwelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16179877515851132331noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950976742848831181.post-75168497320627913882009-03-19T09:56:00.000-07:002009-03-19T10:02:08.662-07:00

Prime Minister Tony Blair is attributed with having said: “The art of leadership is saying no, not yes. It is very easy to say yes.” I worked with client a few weeks ago and it dawned on me how true this maxim is. During a strategic planning session, we arrived at 17 priorities that the management team felt needed to be implemented over the next quarter. In addition, we generated another 35

Kwelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16179877515851132331noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950976742848831181.post-935653755858392862009-02-28T09:36:00.000-08:002009-03-02T09:42:15.988-08:00

Our economy these days seems to be in free fall – we hear one bad new story after another, and at the end of all those stories are ordinary people, fearful of the future and in many cases, devoid of hope. I like to remind people that this is not a natural disaster – there was no earthquake, flood or drought. No, rather this was a failure in our collective thinking. I live in the beautiful city of

Kwelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16179877515851132331noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950976742848831181.post-85354910836738288132009-01-01T13:45:00.000-08:002009-01-01T13:45:00.834-08:00

I recall watching a “live via satellite” presentation by then GE Chairman, Jack Welch, and being struck by a point he made. He said that a significant part of his job was to make his direct reports feel more confident. Why did his resonate? It was because the people that reported to Jack were “captains of industry” and accomplished CEOs and yet he felt that their confidence could be enhanced. He

Kwelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16179877515851132331noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950976742848831181.post-1923806824067032672008-11-18T10:38:00.000-08:002008-11-18T10:42:58.585-08:00

Sustainability - a household word these days, but what exactly does it mean? These days many organizations have sustainability initiatives, a very good sign in this world of human-induced climate change and a rate of extinction unsurpassed since the demise of the dinosaurs 100’s of millions of years ago. The devil is in the details however – every individual has a different definition of the word

Kwelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16179877515851132331noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950976742848831181.post-62789168221371687672008-08-20T13:01:00.000-07:002008-08-20T13:11:22.541-07:00

As CEO of GE, Jack Welsh stated that “It’s a sin to lose a top performer”. Most organizations that we know are concerned about keeping top performers, and many pay them more – some substantially more. While this is an excellent idea, the devil is in the details... some pay-for-performance systems can actually have the effect of reducing overall engagement, along with performance! One of the most

Kwelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16179877515851132331noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950976742848831181.post-42766338763453890512008-08-01T09:28:00.000-07:002008-08-01T09:34:57.011-07:00

I recently read a fascinating New York Times article (Living and Learning, Changing and Winning, by George Vecsey – July 27, 2008) about Tom Coughlin the coach of the Giants who won the Superbowl in 2008. At 61 years of age, one would expect that this seasoned “leopard” could not really change his spots. Right? Well, not quite. According to the article, Coughlin used to come off as “grumpy and

Kwelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16179877515851132331noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950976742848831181.post-86275763284454707512008-07-09T16:10:00.000-07:002008-07-09T16:23:00.818-07:00

Do members of your executive team take their own development as seriously as they would like to see middle management improve?We recently delivered a leadership development program in a small business grappling with multiple issues from adverse market conditions to leadership succession. After we designed the program the CEO asked if he could take part – interesting I thought, because so many

Kwelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16179877515851132331noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950976742848831181.post-43622912010943128032008-06-03T14:19:00.000-07:002008-06-09T14:31:10.380-07:00

We all know that people are unique – or are they? In coaching so many leaders in all walks of life over the past years, I have consistently found that at least 60% fall into a relatively small set of work patterns, with the balance not showing any specific trend. Here are my top 5 “stereotypes” and a description of how they show up in 360-degree feedback (feedback that comes from boss, peers and

Kwelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16179877515851132331noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950976742848831181.post-76702290773668364072008-05-30T14:12:00.000-07:002008-05-30T18:51:37.976-07:00

This is a new endeavour for us and we're really looking forward to getting going! We will be using our blog to share useful things we learn along the incredible journey of doing leadership development work with clients. We are committed to sticking to things that are useful and relevant, and hope that you’ll subscribe or check back regularly.Best regards - Russel and Nic

Kwelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16179877515851132331noreply@blogger.com