Training, an abdication from coaching?

“… so in conclusion then, I’ll arrange for you to go on a training course in that.”

Possible concluding words at the end of a formal appraisal or even the ever popular “one to ones”, but ask yourself before you utter them: Do they need formal training or should I be giving them more coaching?

Individual coaching by a Supervisor, Team Leader or Manager for someone in their group is time consuming, occasionally difficult, but frequently what is actually required.

Training is excellent at introducing or adding to specific skills or knowledge, but to enhance the use of a skill, embedding it into a skill set or working routine is much harder. This is where coaching takes over. My own rule of thumb is that coaching a person in a stretching area requires 3 or 4 times the number of training interactions. Now I’m not talking about coaching in basics here, but if you have deemed training important to add to one of your Team members’ skills or capabilities, then failing to coach in it adequately just throws money away.

Now don’t be alarmed. It doesn’t mean you have to coach everyone in everything. Discuss and make clear where the coaching should be focused. Discuss it in those “one to ones”. Put a timescale on the coaching period, so that it is clear to both parties when you both think the coaching should be over.

“ I think that I should coach you in this for the next two months. At the end of that period you should be fine”. Reviewing progress as part of the coaching will help confirm or disprove that timeline.

So remember to ask yourself the coaching question before you search for the training courses.

Organisational Linkages

What do the following all have in common?

o Multi-level, treacle like, hierarchical organisations

o The common “ procedures will be updated, re-training carried out” statement when there is a mis-selling or service level scandal

o Buying and selling Structured Debt vehicles that you don’t understand

o And possibly, the extensive earnings multiple between the highest and lowest employees

They are examples of linkages throughout a company getting stretched to, or beyond, breaking point. Not dissimilar to the “chain of command”, it also encompasses the values and principles that should govern an organisation at all levels.

When some common sense value needs re-stating in a training session, such as “ don’t sell inappropriate insurance” or “ don’t forge signatures” (a misdemeanour more serious in my field of Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices than even the Financial or Utility switching sectors), the linkage between the principles of the business and its employees is broken.

So what should be done about it? Pre-emptive actions could include:

o Meaningful self-audit programmes

o A Whistle blowing policy that encourages the declaration of broken links

o Audit by external people, with no vested interest in hiding the breaks.

More important are senior people, leaders, making clear by their words and their deeds what is important in an organisation, re-enforcing the links, re-enforcing the right behaviours, rather than fixing them after the breaks are discovered.

An old boss of mine, senior and removed from day-to-day Production, used to walk a part of the Factory floor where he was responsible every morning for 15 minutes before starting his day’s work. Over a number of weeks he covered his whole patch. Walking round he commented on tidiness, organisation, and attitudes. Everything that he saw that did, or didn’t meet his view of the world, received a comment to those present and the supervisor or team leader. He may have been right or wrong, but everyone knew what was expected of them.

He took the time, and demonstrated by his actions. Linkage wasn’t a problem there.

Leicester Tigers and Business Basics

My last blog on consulting skills and basketball was the most successful yet, so to continue the theme read on about Rugby, Leicester Tigers and Business basics.

Success in a game of Rugby depends on many factors, but before flair and clever hands, you have to get the basics and especially the set pieces right: Scrums, line outs, Re-starts, goal kicking.

I support Leicester Tigers, my local East Midlands Premier Rugby Team. When I visit Welford Road, the site of our home ground, the knowledgeable fans appreciate it when the Team get their set pieces right!

Well it occurred to me that there are some business basics and Set pieces that you need to have under your belt to be effective in a general business environment. Here is a list to start with, let me know your additions please:

• Running effective meetings
• Constructing a Project Gannt
• A successful Routine to keep up to date with emails, voicemail, texts etc.
• Able to write Capital investment proposals
• Planning your time with a calendar
• Write a one page précis of almost anything for exec. Review.

Yours?

Consulting Tools, Skills and Basketball

It occurred to me recently that when Consultants list out the tools that they use, or unfortunately the only tool that they use (thinking everything looks like a nail when you only have a hammer..), that Skills should have greater profile.

The real key to whether you can use a tool is when the pressure is on, the client has an urgent or critical problem, the room is lost, the way forward unclear. The ability to deploy a tool or technique in a training situation bears no relation to that test.

Which brings me to basketball. Years ago when my children were young, I attended the annual Parents/Award Giving at my son's Basketball club. As the parents gathered on benches at the back of the gym, a tall stately, elderly gentleman walked in with his grandson. After the coach had presented awards and reviewed the year, the guest speaker was revealed. You guessed it, the Granddad.

He was an ex England national player from the '50's. He spoke eloquently about the need for the kids to practise their basic skills, until they could ALWAYS make that shot in the dying seconds of a match. As he said all this he had in his hands a basketball. He had done nothing with it throughout his time in the gym, but as he closed his speech, he said" You have to know you can make the shot", and as he said it threw a shot to a Basket, 5 metres away...

Now if he had fluffed that shot, his speech was a disaster, but of course he didn't...

Can we always use our tools, techniques and personal interventions with that sort of skill? Thats what the client wants... skills not just tools.

Happy Christmas!

Ethical motivation in the Pharma and medical device industry

We read a lot of bad press about the pharmaceutical business: the high cost of drugs, supplies to third works countries, me-too new drug applications....But let's not forget the good that drugs can do and so the motivation for everyone in the industry that makes drugs to do a job that "Makes A Difference."

In industries that manufacture household goods, white goods or plumbing supplies, the motivation to produce high quality goods, deliver on time and write records or monitor processes lacks a little meaning in comparison.

If you work in the Supply of pharmaceutical products, and thousands do, don't forget to:

• Make sure you and your team know what your drug does
• The indication it addresses
• What the key properties of the product are.

If you're in our Sector and you want to engage your team in any improvement activity don't forget your and your team's ethical responsibility to the patients. You are part of the same chain of custody as a pharmacist in the high street. When they check the bag, your name and address they are completing the process that you have protected through GMP, GLP, in fact all GXP!

Execution

In my experience there is a danger in expending vast amounts of effort in designing your Strategy and Goals. Often this type of work is comfortable and unthreatening. We don't have to face the real world yet, as we are still "Strategising"

Now don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying don't think things through, challenge your goals, or develop plans; but consider the following:

• The old adage about the survival of the plan when it meets the enemy
• The importance of speed in today's world. Speed to market, speed to communicate etc
• The energy needed to construct the plan and the danger of "relaxing" into implementation.
• You can learn very fast about the strengths and weaknesses in your plan, or thinking, by testing it out, adapting and moving forward

So what should you do? Well good leaders everywhere recognise the need to bias towards action. They ask when things will start happening, changing, because while it doesn't guarantee completion it's a good indicator!

Visual Management

Managing the invisible is a real challenge. Talk to the bankers and regulators in the invisible world of Off-Balance Sheet instruments!

Of course there are different and less controversial ways of making things invisible. Consider the humble laptop. How many spreadsheets have you seen crushed into a tiny Laptop screen or projected in hope onto a wobbly screen? The beauty of computers is the amount of data that can be collected, analysed and manipulated. I wouldn't be without mine either, but the trouble starts when you have to manage with the data and even more when you have to work with a team of people using that information.

The solution? Go big, go visual, and put the picture on the wall. Print out that spreadsheet out on a big bit of paper, or use a big whiteboard. Easy to read as a team, easy to modify together, easy to see gaps, problems or patterns. As a team. When all, or nearly all can see it the job if solving the problem, getting buy-in, and deciding what to do becomes much simpler.

Give it a try, think visual and think big in more ways than one. It's also harder to ignore a problem writ so large, more power to your elbow and harder for your boss to brush away too when you have an idea.