Are you a Bat Leader or a Frog Leader

To cope and thrive in today’s business environment are you resilient enough.  Here’s Ruth giving us a quick introduction to resilience and whether your leadership is helping you or hindering you.

Authentic Leadership Development – Using archetypes to improve your emotional intelligence

Ruler seeks Magician to help restore the kingdom

Jester seeks Creator to get right outside the box

Damsel in distress seeks knight, must have own horse.

The examples at the beginning may seem like strange lonely heart ads, but they’re universal patterns that we function around.

Take great movies like ET, Harry Potter, Pretty Woman, Cinderella, and those up for Oscars this year like Avatar.  Each is so powerful and successful because the characters embody a clear archetype and the story line is one we’re familiar with.  King Arthur needs his Merlin for Camelot to be healthy

An Archetype then is a root word that encodes a complete pattern.  If I said his leadership style is little Hitler you know exactly what I mean.

A picture may paint a thousand words, but archetypes convey everything in the word.  Archetypes carry the seed and energy in a universal language.  What’s so powerful is that you respond at a deep unconscious level and either the archetype draws you in or you pull away quickly.

Within business we’re also running our personal archetypal patterns.

The thing about archetypes is that over time we develop our favourites, and we have those that we out and out reject.  Yet all have their place and purpose.  I remember when I first worked with my archetypes.  My destroyer had in the past done just that, destroyed, so when I really needed to let go of things that no longer served a purpose I didn’t, I hung on, and hung on, and then experienced situations where ‘the baby went out with the bath water’.  My experiences with that archetype hadn’t been pleasant, so when it was required, it ran me rather than me using it.  Not good, and even less so as a leader.  We can do all the Emotional Intelligence stuff in the world, but trust me when I say that Archetypes run much deeper, so if you haven’t got a handle on them then you can only go so far.  Now of course things are different, I can sense when the destroyer is required, so I pay attention, what do I need to let go of  – it could be something physical, like a good office tidy up, it could be mental, like a belief, it could be emotional, maybe I’m not being true to how I feel and I’ve been ignoring myself.  When I know what it is I can work with it, and the destroyer is an Allie.  I also appear way more Emotionally Intelligent – and I am, because I’m paying attention to signals from the core of who am I.

Archetypes then are free powerful resources with a specific purpose, if you’re not aware of them, then they run you, when you are aware of them then you can use them.

As a leader your success – and ability to run a productive business with a  highly engaged workforce – is determined by your level of self awareness.  If you’re ready to take huge leaps forward then join me in April where I’ll be helping 12 leaders understand their archetypal patterns, access these phenomenally powerful resources and use them productively.  You can find more information here on our Archetypal leadership development course or contact us to secure your place.

Increasing Staff Engagement – When Money Isn’t The Answer

As the economy and organisations emerge from survival to growth what about staff morale and engagement?  Just as leaders can get caught in post recession paralysis, so can employees.  After all the uncertainty and insecurity and with companies maybe asking that bit extra of staff to make it through the recession, what’s next in moving forward?

Well the most superficial response will be bonus’s and pay rises.  Yes of course rewarding your staff is key.  But as Frederick Herzberg said donkey’s years ago, pay is a hygiene factor and not a motivator.  Without it you’ve got serious problems, but there is a point beyond which it doesn’t motivate or engage staff.

In fact Lord Richard Layard wrote a book Happiness – Lessons from a new science.  Research shows that there is a fiscal point above which earning anymore doesn’t make you happier.  If memory serves me right it’s £25K.

So what does increase employee engagement?  Achievement, Recognition, Responsibility, Promotion / Career Progression, Learning and Development, Relationships / Team work, Flexible Working.  These softer, more intrinsic aspects are what  we should ensure are present.  Typically when they aren’t that’s when people start demanding more money.  It’s a sign that they don’t feel valued but are at a loss to put in place the intrinsic factors, so the tangible cash solution is a sticking plaster that patches things up for a while.

As the profits increase staff will, quite rightly, expect a share of that somehow.  Yet in this emergent state your company may not be in a position to offer cash bonus’s.  However if you use the extra cash you have to invest in ensuring the more intangible, intrinsic motivators are present then the payoff’s could be far higher than a pure cash solution.

Leadership Development 2010 – You, Your Values & The Company’s Culture

The culture of your organisation is fundamental to business growth, especially if you’re wondering how to get the best from your people and increase your organisations’ performance.

As leader’s we need to be aware both of our presence and the wake we leave behind, these are powerful forces that impact our ability to encourage our staff to live the company’s values.

We might ask our employees for Creativity, Commitment or Integrity, but they have to choose to give them.  They’re not skills but intrinsic traits which we can only encourage to be expressed.

Join us on this 1 day workshop to discover your personal fit with your organisation’s current and desired culture and learn about the common barriers to business growth and cultural transformation.

What will I learn?

You will complete your own Individual Values Assessment before the day and we’ll take you through what the results mean.   Looking at what it means to you, your leadership, the current and desired culture of the organisation.  You’ll have a cleared idea of what’s important to you and what’s required of your leadership in 2010.

You’ll also learn the common barriers to business growth, the cost and symptoms of these and the 4 steps you can take to avoid them.

Plus we’ll share with you some aspects of best practice in the role values play in business performance and releasing human potential.  There will also be the opportunity to learn from your peers as you share your experiences and insights.  The event has been designed to be interactive, informative and experiential.

Who is this designed for?

This day is aimed at CEO’s, MD’s, FD’s and HRD’s who want to improve the performance of their organisation and create a profitable and healthy culture.

Date, Location, Investment

4^th February 2010

Manchester, venue to be confirmed

8:30 Registration and coffee

9:00 – 16:00 Event

Your investment for this event including all materials, lunch and refreshments is £247+ VAT.  Places must be booked before 31^st December to allow sufficient time for you to complete your Individual Values Assessment and for the results to be processed.

To book or find out more contact us now.

Routes to Business Growth – Emerging From A Recession

The creation of a values-led corporate culture within one of Britain’s most successful healthcare companies had engaged its workforce, driven growth and resulted in turnover rocketing from £60 million to £100 million in a handful of years, according to Chris Harrison of North West pharma company Fresenius Kabi.

Addressing business leaders from across the North West at this week’s ‘Emerging from the Recession’ conference at Manchester’s MacDonald Hotel, the Runcorn based Group Managing Director said the adoption of values-led leadership could assist organisations in weathering the economic storm.

“At Fresenius Kabi, values have provided an important underpinning of what we do as a business and they have enabled everybody within that business to be engaged,” he added.” I am convinced that our progress would not have been as sustainable without values.”

Ruth Sanderson,one of the conference organisers and MD of blue pea POD, the Chester based leadership consultancy told the delegates that all the speakers would outline their experiences of corporate culture and its impact on performance.

“The uncertain times have seen many companies lose their way,” she said:” But forward-thinking CEOs are working with their corporate culture and leadership values because they know these hold the key to business growth.

“The level of interest in this conference in Manchester is, in my view, a clear indication of the growing acknowledgement of the role of values in corporate life. We have senior players in attendance today who have all experienced the positive impact of company values. We want them to share their experiences with all our delegates.”

Her co-organiser Sue Coyne, Executive Coach and Culture Change Consultant of Stockport-based Connectiveness Ltd added that research had shown that the adoption of a values based corporate culture within an organisation had a measurable effect on performance from sales figures to the bottom line.

Mike Stevens, the Manchester based Group and UK Human Resources Director for the £300 million turnover Odeon and UCI Cinema Group told the conference that he became involved in building a values based corporate company when the Odeon and UCI operations were being integrated.

“We conducted a company wide survey of our employees and as a company we were shaken to the core when the results showed a worrying level of disengagement and negativity.”

“We made a conscious decision to apply values to the culture using engagement, communication and development. We have already seen some very positive results from our work and now values are integral in every aspect of our business.”

After the conference Ruth Sanderson said: “Many companies are now looking forward to emerging from this long and difficult recession and this conference was the start of a series of events to give our delegates the benefit of the experiences of our speakers, all of whom spoke very positively about values-led leadership and corporate culture.

“We believe in the effectiveness of values-led leadership and the end of the recession will give many companies the opportunity to examine the many positives from this approach to business. Putting in those values now will pay huge dividends as time goes on.”