Martin, Author at www.evolution-development.com

Using Cardboard to Start a Cultural Change Programme

I was recently involved in the introduction of a long cultural change project with a client in Cornwall.

Polymermedics Ltd. is a UK injection moulding company delivering high quality plastic products to the medical, hygiene and pharmaceutical market.

They are currently expanding and realise a need to work more effectively as a cross-shift/ Cross-departments team; recognising that the ‘silo’ approach to working which has been effective in the past will no longer meet their needs.

I spent a day with the Senior Management Team to help them articulate their vision for the future as the start of their cultural change project. We used the Navigator process which has proved to be extremely effective in a wide range of organisations and started to plan how to communicate this vision to the rest of the team and gain their understanding and support.

We took the whole company off site for a day (actually two days because we wanted to simulate the problems of cross shift communications).

Dave Yallop – operations director introduced the day with the vision for the future and described what would be needed to help Polymermedics achieve the vision of cultural change.

We spent the rest of the morning in a series of simple team tasks designed to get people from different teams/functions talking and working together – and competing.

Following lunch we set the whole company a task. They had to re-create the company logo in 3d using cardboard, tape, paint, tissue paper and various other simple materials.

The group on day one had to produce the first half of the logo – day two’s group then had to create the second half of the logo. It had to be 1m high and 15cm deep and completed by 4pm. That was the only brief the team had. They had to decide how to complete the task, allocate roles, design the logo and work together as a whole team rather than compete.

Very quickly one person took the lead (he was a packing operative – not a supervisor or manager) and organised the whole project, keeping an eye on progress throughout the afternoon.

The team decided late in the day that two of them would come back the following day to brief the second shift to ensure consistency of approach. The second group would not be able to see what group one had built before the end of the day.

Effectively briefed, the second group completed their part of the logo on time and accurately.

The workshop was a good metaphor for how the organisation is going to have to move from a culture of small, insular teams just focusing on their part of the process, to a more inclusive approach with everyone understanding their part in the big picture and being committed to success as a whole.

Following this extremely successful workshop starting the cultural change project, Polymermedics have introduced a mentoring programme for the Team Leaders, we are looking at developing a consistent approach to leadership across the organisation and we are already planning the next whole team event later in the summer to keep the momentum going.

What Colour is Your Black Belt?

By Carl Fitzsimons.

Carl is HR Director: UK, Ireland & Netherlands at John West Foods.

Carl sent me this piece he wrote recently and I wanted to share it with you – he kindly gave me permission to do so.

What colour is your black belt?

A strange question? Perhaps.

For some five years now I have been taking my children week in week out to learn Shotokan Karate. They have learned well, as all children do of course, given the right environment.

As an encouraging [my kids might even venture ‘pushy’] father on the sidelines, I spent the first few years sitting watching, offering unwanted advice [clearly an expert critic from the chair] and I enjoyed how expertly our 7^th Dan Sensei Keith Callaghan, and his team built their confidence and discipline in this martial art.

From my comfy seat I watched my children learn the basic sequence drills (Kata), take part in safe sparring (Kumite) and then perform well at various team and individual competitions… and in turn develop their skills to move through the various coloured belts on their hopeful quest for their own black belt, one day.

As I was sat watching my children for 2-3 hours each week taking part in a highly engaging and challenging activity which was doing wonders for their fitness, my time on the sidelines allowed me the opportunity to make 3 interesting observations, endure 3 uncomfortable thoughts, find 2 key Learning Points and ultimately enjoy 1 moment of inspiration :

Observation #1 :

I was actually spending the same amount of time each week as my children at the Karate Dojo (Classroom) but whilst they were getting fitter, taking part and enjoying learning a new sport, I was becoming an armchair critic. Why wasn’t I joining in too?

I knew the answer:

Uncomfortable thought #1: I was fearful. Not, as you might think fearful of the potential of physical harm in a martial art – the club is very well run, with good ‘spirit’ and clear guidelines on personal safety etc. – the fear of the physical side really didn’t enter my head. No, my fear was more profound than that, I was fearful that I just wouldn’t be very good.

Uncomfortable thought #2 :- If I joined in I would be the most junior student here, at 40 years of age – I would be outranked by 5 year olds…I would be stood with the youngest children at the end of the line (in the Dojo the belts stand in rank). I may even have to be taught by my children at some point. Wow, this really didn’t appeal.

Uncomfortable thought #3

If I failed – I would have to return red faced to the sides again to take up my position as “watcher”, how would I look to the other parents, the club officials, most importantly my family…the guy who just couldn’t hack it …How could I or anyone face this ?

My Ego was shouting very loudly “THIS IS A REALLY BAD IDEA CARL, LET IT GO. BE VERY CAREFUL HERE – YOU COULD BREAK US”

These thoughts sat with me for a while, weeks in fact and they burrowed away. Here I was a reasonably successful person with a lovely family, worried about failing at something that no-one in the world actually expected of me. The only person judging me here was me…annoyingly for me I was a tough judge.

My Learning Point #1 :

“The fear of failure is not simply an immobilizer – it doesn’t just stop you – it actively holds you down.”

So, here I was annoyed at myself for failing at not starting something. How bizarre.

As a relatively tolerant person – someone who often has to defuse tensions between others (I work in HR after all!) I realized I had to do something – even if the rising tensions suggested the fight coming was only with myself. I really didn’t like this feeling of letting myself down. I had to do something.

So I devised a simple plan – I would be able to talk myself either into or out of the decision – by finding out more about the topic. An interesting tactic here – If in doubt – delay – use the opportunity to find out more…but nevertheless, the feeling of unease lessened, I was doing something.

I started reading around the topic of Karate, its history, its meaning, its techniques, its systems. It was a hugely fascinating read by the way, one I would recommend, but that’s for another time.

Observation #2 :

During this period of research – I also noticed something quite interesting at the time of the various classes and gradings my children were attending. The hugely positive effect that gaining and holding the next coloured belts had on the confidence levels of all of the students

I learned that the Coloured belts system in Karate is actually a relatively modern day invention dating from the early part of the last century, previous to this time, graduating martial arts students may have been presented with a certificate at best – they would not openly wear any insignia that showed their level of competence. It simply wasn’t done.

The Belt system, even today can vary between associations, my childrens Karate club used a system which progresses through 10 levels (or Kyu’s):

White, Orange, Red, Yellow, Green, Purple, Purple & White, Brown, Brown & White and then Black.

The Sensei’s decide at what point individuals progress through his/her ranks at formal Gradings

For the uninitiated – a Grading is quite a grand affair – it’s a time when all students young and old have to formally demonstrate their new skills to their sensei, each other and their family and friends – a chance to prove they have what it takes to wear the next and higher belt. It’s a pressurized experience yes, but a supportive environment – if you are entered to grade – you have the skills, your Sensei presents you for grading when he/she knows you have the ability – the challenge here simply is to show the world what you can do.

For my kids – I always looked forward to these events (they didn’t!) – as it was their opportunity do justice to the new skills they had acquired. If you fail to perform on the day, you don’t grade… a good life lesson here I thought for my children …you need to step up when it matters.

At the end of a grading the various students who achieved their standard are presented with a brand new coloured belt to signify to others their skills, the belt is so new and starched it can hardly be tied in a knot.

At each grading there are bags full of brand new belts presented to an array of smiling faces, belts of all colours including new black belts for those students attaining the first summit of achieving their Dan grade. Understandably these students usually wore the biggest smiles

Observation #3:

What struck me as really odd though – was this…despite the ready and available supply of new black belts at these Gradings – all the senior Sensei’s wore Black belts that were actually quite threadbare – the colour of black hardly recognizable, the dye worn and the once tough cotton, now soft and frayed. They looked scruffy almost.

Was this some odd cost saving measure? – were Black belts more frugal than most ?

Maybe it was a trust thing…you only get one belt – so don’t lose it, right?

If I was a Black belt – wouldn’t I want to look as smart as those newly appointed to my ranks?

Why were the senior Dan grades not proud enough to want to look their best in front of their students and the watching public?

These simple questions intrigued me.

The single answer to them all –proved to be hugely insightful, an epiphany almost – an insight into the philosophy underpinning Karate which changed my entire outlook on the sport – my personal fear of failure and in truth altered my approach to any future challenges I now take on.

Let me share what I learned.

There is a very clear reason for the condition of a Senior Sensei’s belt. It is based on traditional Japanese thinking and it goes to the very heart of learning, leadership and personal growth.

The answer is this :

The coloured belt system exists only to satisfy the ego of the Karate student. As the pupil gets stronger in the art, he/she has their ego rewarded by the ‘outward’ trophy of another coloured belt – one closer to the black belt they ultimately crave. The colored belt tells the world the student’s level of proficiency, their skill, at best it’s a reference point for further improvement , at worst it can even serve boastful tendencies

However – when the black belt is finally achieved – the individual transitions quickly from pupil to teacher. This is an important change.

As a Sensei they are deemed to have acquired sufficient knowledge that they are now trusted to teach others. From this moment on – the Sensei’s purpose should be devoting their time and attention to build the capability of others.

And so, over time, as the Sensei ties and reties their belt to teach, the colour and texture of their shiny black belt begins to fade and wear…until eventually, over many hours and years of teaching their black belt loses its colour and slowly returns to the colour white.

For the Sensei this is a good thing as a threadbare white belt serves as a symbol, a constant reminder, that he/she was only ever a white belt all along.

An honourable and experienced Sensei needs no further trophy to acknowledge their progress. Ego no longer is a driving force for the individual; they have no truck with it. Energy must now be invested in others.

Becoming a successful Black belt is actually an object lesson in humility.

My Learning Point #2

How often do we as Leaders in our various worlds, stop to reflect that as we get closer to the pinnacle of our profession, our industry, that our single greatest challenge is actually to adopt humility? Our focus should move from achieving our own ambition to helping others achieve theirs.

The humbleness required for a leader to become a “capability builder” in others, before they have reached their own personal career goal – is quite a remarkable challenge. But the rewards, for all here, are immense.

In fact, in Karate, humbleness does still lead to recognition, its just that it’s seen as a by-product rather than a fixated goal or promise. The highest Dan Grade in the sport ( 7^th to 10^th Dan) are actually honourary leadership grades achieved not through an individual’s self-promotion or technical capability but rather through the ambition others hold for them. The energy of the senior ranks the Sensei has humbly trained around them becomes quite considerable and it is this group that then publically pushes to formally recognize and acknowledge the individuals service to the highest accolade in the sport.

So how do you make a start on becoming a humble great leader?. I humbly offer that maybe the first step to becoming a great leader is to recognize that we never have the right to think of ourselves as one.

If you are a leader worthy of note, others will decide this for you, in time. In short, our ego has no role to play in this debate.

Challenge yourself to remove your reliance on your ego. Sure, it has comforted & supported you so far, but the final steps on the journey must be made alone. Remove this reliance and anything is possible.

My Epilogue (and inspiration):

So here I sat…watching my family in the Karate class with the personal insight that the very thing that was holding me back, my ego, was the very thing this martial art sort to remove.

“THIS IS A REALLY BAD IDEA CARL, LET IT GO. BE VERY CAREFUL HERE – YOU COULD BREAK US”

We needed to be broken.

Next class I lined up, at the far left end of the line, with a 5 year old red belt to my right, who slowly looked me up and down from head to toe and then told me “you look funny, and you’re too big and old to be stood here”.

My ego’s first test. I bit my lip, smiled and suppressed the urge to walk. I persevered.

2 years on…my Children have both achieved their shiny Black Belts and are comfortably making the transition into teachers. My teachers. There is plenty of time for their colour to fade.

Me? I am immensely proud of their journey and I am enjoying my own. I have stuck it out, I was poor at the start and then I got better, slowly, week by week. Not great, but better. I get better each class.

I now stand in the middle of the lineup, proudly at 4^th Kyu (Purple & White belt)…I enjoy the training, I even enjoy looking foolish occasionally as I turn one way, at the wrong time, only to find the rest of the class all facing me and smiling at my error.

I have even managed to win a shiny medal or two at the odd tournament (ego still being nourished a little we note!)…but more importantly I am just enjoying the ride, learning to learn again. I have learned to be taught with and by many different people, often with my own children being my toughest and most critical of teachers.

At work – well, I now actively try to promote and push others in my team, my peers and business to develop, to trust their inner voice to take a risk and do something new. Their progress can be startling at times, even humbling.

As a senior leader in my business my “Black belt” is still quite new, but hopefully the fading process is starting.

Carl Fitzsimons FCIPD

HR Director of John West,

Autumnal blues

This week has been characterised by grey skies, chilly evenings and rain here in Cornwall and these autumnal blues mean my social media networks have been populated by misery laden updates mourning the end of summer and the rapid onset of winter.

In reality we are barely at the beginning of autumn and there is still the potential for some sunshine before the clocks change and the nights really start to draw in. So this is probably a good time to take stock of our emotional and psychological wellbeing.

Psychologically, autumn is a time when people start to withdraw and become less sociable and more inward looking. In evolutionary terms this is an entirely understandable phenomenon; if we look at the agricultural model summer was a social time when the big jobs, like harvesting, were shared amongst large groups of people. Produce was taken to markets in the larger towns and farmers took the opportunity to catch up on gossip, meet friends and generally let their hair down. As autumn progressed the working days became shorter, crops were sparser and people didn’t linger in the fields but hurried home for warmth and safety. Livestock was brought inside as there was no grass to graze and travel along muddy, rutted lanes became impossible. There was little option to do anything other than retreat from the world.

Despite the fact that most of our lives are no longer governed by the availability of natural light or the agricultural calendar, we still have this innate tendency to retreat. This can have a profound effect on people and, left unchecked, this inward focus can lead to a depressed mood and a “can’t do” frame of mind. We are not talking about clinical depression here or even SADS, just the kind of low mood which affects us all from time to time and can have a negative effect on our motivation our social lives and our work.

However, a negative outcome is far from inevitable and there is much which can be done to counteract the effects of the autumnal blues.

Personal

At a personal level there are a number of things that you can do to keep the blues at bay:

Spend as much time outside as you can; windy walks can be incredibly invigorating and you are still exposing yourself to natural daylight.
Notice and appreciate the beauty in the changing landscape; autumn leaves, dramatic skies, reflections on wet pavements etc.
Eat brightly coloured fruit and vegetables so that food looks appetising and cheerful as well as tasting good. Add a bit of spice – chilli is known to raise your mood.
Get some exercise – you might not want to go for a run in the rain but why not go to the local pool for a swim?
Be sociable; arrange to meet regularly with family and friends and take part in activities which use energy and make you laugh – bowling, a walk in the forest kicking up leaves or, if you really don’t want to go out, play active computer games like Wii sports.
Enjoy the quiet time that dark evenings allow you; light a fire, read a book, watch a great film that makes you feel good.
Create a mindset that says “autumn is a good time for me” and list all the reasons why.
Be creative; use the evenings or wet weekends to make something – take up painting or sewing, carpentry or knitting. If you don’t know how – attend an evening class.

Business

If you run a business which employs people then you have a vested interest in helping to raise mood and avoid a mass slide into the autumn blues. Think about the changing seasons as just one more element of change that you need to manage. Consider the following:

The working environment: Maximise natural light; keep blinds up and consider the use of daylight bulbs if you don’t have many windows. Keep rooms warm but well ventilated – being cold or too hot and stuffy is not likely to lead to an improvement in mood. Introduce some bright colours by hanging pictures/posters, introducing plants etc.
Working Hours: Just as farmers didn’t want to linger in the fields in the autumn, your employees don’t want to stay too late in the office; encourage people to manage their hours properly. Make sure people take regular breaks away from their desks – preferably outside.
Increase social interaction: Hold regular team meetings, make them focussed and productive and use the opportunity to let people know how much you value them. Encourage lots of work-based interaction – set team objectives, organise collaborative projects (internally and with other businesses).
Lead by example; be cheerful, smile at people and say hello every morning, be positive in your communication – you set the tone.
Have fun; make your business an enjoyable place to work. If you don’t know how to do that ask your staff for their ideas.
Engage with your community; this will help your employees to be more outward looking and to feel better about themselves and it will also increase your standing locally.
Think about your customers; it’s autumn for them too. Engage with them, use your social media platforms and face to face encounters to raise their spirits and put a positive spin on the weather. You don’t have to sell wellies to embrace the rain.

If you take care of yourself now and maintain a positive outlook then you and your business will be in great shape when winter really kicks in.

5 Ways to Motivate Your Workforce

The Myth of Money as a Motivator

Fiona Crump is a founding partner of evolution personal and Corporate Development Ltd. and is Director of Personal Development. She is an NLP Master Practitioner and NLP Coach and has a huge amount of experience from working with a wide range of organisations across the UK.

Here she talks about ways to motivate your workforce.

Every time I pick up a newspaper or turn on the radio it seems that there is yet another item on bonuses where failing organisations are publicly castigated for paying large bonuses to their top employees. This got me thinking about the efficacy of such bonuses and, more importantly, about what really motivates people to work harder.

There are two key types of motivation – intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation is determined in our own minds as a result of our personal beliefs and values – for example a person may be motivated to work efficiently by the pleasure he/she takes in the satisfaction of a job well done. Extrinsic motivation is determined by external factors – such as performance related pay i.e. work harder and earn more.

However, research often shows that bonuses are actually counter-productive.

This topic was discussed on a recent BBC Radio 4 programme (All in the Mind, 16^th May 2012) and reference was made to a number of studies conducted using children as subjects. In one study children were sent out to collect money for charity, they were motivated to do well by the fact that it feels good to do something to help other people.

Some of the children were told that they could keep 1% of the money they collected. It might be expected that adding extrinsic motivation to the pre-existing intrinsic motivation would make them even more motivated but unfortunately the opposite is true: Adding personal gain (money) to the equation diminished the sense of selflessly doing good and these children actually collected around 37% less money than those children who were not paid. Increasing the amount of money mitigated this effect to some extent but paid participants still collected less money than their unpaid counterparts.

Back in the adult world this could provide evidence for paying ever- higher bonuses in recompense, almost, for the loss of intrinsic factors such as feeling good about the work itself. The problem with this approach is that research also shows us that a certain type of person (typically male, less trusting, higher risk taker) is attracted to a job which provides financial reward for performance. This does not necessarily lead to the best working practices.

One of the factors which is known to work on motivation is fairness – people who believe that they are fairly rewarded (by pay, conditions, recognition etc) tend to be motivated to perform well. High bonuses at the top of an organisation are often perceived as unfair by those at the bottom of the organisational structure and so serve to de-motivate the larger part of the workforce, making it very difficult for directors to achieve their objectives and therefore their bonuses. When bonuses are paid anyway – despite the poor performance of the organisation – it is difficult to see why a manager should care about performance in the rest of the business.

The belief that money is a great motivator is a pervasive one. When I am engaged in Leadership training it amazes me that managers know nothing about motivational theory. I am often told that teams are de-motivated or that morale is low but managers (particularly middle managers) tell me that they can do nothing about it because they don’t have any power over pay decisions or bonuses. They feel helpless because they believe the money myth.

So how can you motivate your workforce?

There are many, many theories of motivation which can realistically be applied to the workplace but one of the most powerful is based on the work of Hertzberg.

Hertzberg found that certain factors will act to de-motivate people (e.g. poor working conditions, a lack of job security, badly constructed policies and procedures) but that removing these factors is not enough to motivate them – addressing these problems serves only to put people in a neutral state – neither satisfied nor dis-satisfied. Money is one of these factors, unfairly low pay will act as a de-motivator but, whilst increasing pay will stop someone from being de-motivated, it won’t have a significant impact on their productivity on a daily basis.

It takes a completely separate set of factors to truly motivate a workforce. The most important of these are: achievement, recognition, intrinsic interest in the work, responsibility, and advancement. As a manager it is really quite simple to apply this theory to your team:

Achievement Set clear, unambiguous objectives and agree them with your employees. These objectives should be realistically achievable (no-one is motivated by the impossible) but also stretching and challenging so that the sense of achievement is genuine.

Recognition Acknowledge a job well done, praise people, thank them for their hard work. When things go wrong recognise what went right and people will want to come back tomorrow to fix the rest of the problem. Show that you value every member of your team for the contribution he/she makes especially if he/she doesn’t have the most glamorous or exciting of roles.

Interest Make every job as interesting as possible. Ensure that people have the opportunity to learn new skills. Add variety by multi-skilling (this also pays dividends when someone is absent as you will always have trained cover).

Responsibility People generally respond well to additional responsibility. Look at areas of work that can be delegated (not dumped) and delegate responsibility along with the task.

Advancement Develop a succession plan and ensure that people develop the skills needed so that, when an opportunity arises, they will be suitable for promotion. Promotion from within cuts down on recruitment costs, reduces the time lost when someone is settling into a new role and offers hope of advancement to the rest of the workforce – it is a real win win.

In a small business there may be limited opportunities for advancement and you may need to accept that you are developing someone to leave your business. This is still a good move because it’s better to have a capable, motivated employee for two years than a de-motivated one for 5 years. Plus, if you have successfully developed your succession plan, you will have a home grown replacement ready to take over.

In the current climate most SMEs don’t have the financial resources to offer big pay rises or bonuses and may even be in the difficult position of laying people off.

This doesn’t mean that they need to have a miserable workforce – with a few simple steps it is entirely possible to have a happy motivated team who are more than capable of delivering great performance with a smile on their faces too.

Need help finding other, non-financial ways to improve performance in your business? Contact evolution to arrange a discussion – initial consultations are always free of charge.

"If You Can’t Measure It, You Can’t Manage It"

I watched a Horizon programme on self monitoring recently and it reminded me of something I say on most courses I run, “if you aren’t aware of it – you can’t influence it”, or “if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.”

If you don’t know a customer has a problem, you can’t put it right for them. If you don’t know one of your team members is struggling you can’t help them. If you don’t know there’s a problem with yourself, either physically or mentally, you can’t change what will happen.

“If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it”

One of the astounding things introduced in the programme for me was the England Rugby Sevens squad who are constantly monitored while they train. All sorts of parameters are measured and recorded including heart rate, speed, distance travelled and a host of others. The amazing thing is that all this information means that the Coaches can tell when someone is ill up to 24 hours before they become aware of it themselves! According to one of the Coaches, they have reduced soft tissue injuries in the squad by 80% since using this approach.

Watch the video

What a Coincidence!

I listened to ‘The Life Scientific’ on Radio 4 recently which was a fascinating interview with David Spiegelhalter, a Statistician.

He was talking about chance and probability. He uses a measure (developed by Ronald A Howard) of the chance of an accidental death which is called a ‘micro mort’ this lists the number of times you have to carry out a particular activity to have a one in a million chance of dying while doing it.

Barriers to Transformational Change and running a marathon in under three hours

By Nik Green

Nik is a member of the Evolution Team, has worked extensively with adventure training in a schools environment and is an NLP Master Practitioner and certified NLP coach.

I bought a new pair of running shoes the other day and according to the sales bumpf these should have me running a sub three hour marathon on my first attempt, I’ve worn them once and they are currently in the box with that strange packet of silica stuff that no one know what it’s for. However despite the brochure sales patter I’m still running in my old shoes which despite the holes and lack of grip just feel more comfortable.

This brings me onto organisational change which is a favourite topic of mine and as Martin said in a recent article:

The only constant is change

Many of us would like the world to stay as it is today, well as it was about twenty years ago and to not have too many surprises in store for us tomorrow; in other words we filter for sameness.

Unfortunately if your organisation stays doing the same things tomorrow as it is doing today it will lose market share, lose customers and end up going the same way as Blockbusters who didn’t realise that walking to the video shop was not the highlight of anyone’s day.

How Can Shreddies Help Me Manage Change?

If your brain was a computer, metaprogrammes would be the software running on the computer.

Just as a computer has to take in and analyse huge amounts of data to produce something we can make sense of, our brains have to do the same. Without the software, a computer would be unable to do this task, just as, without metaprogrammes, our brains would be unable to sort, analyse and form a perception from the huge amount of data available to us.

These metaprogrammes decide what information we are going to take notice of and what we are going to delete; they decide how we are going to distort the information and what generalisations we are going to apply to the information we are processing.

This is why several people can have the same experience and respond to it in totally different ways. Looking at an audience in a presentation, some people may be hanging on your every word, some people may be bored, some may just not have a clue what you’re talking about.

Understanding metaprogrammes can help you in all areas of life including managing change, sales and marketing, improving communication, self confidence and relationships.

How To Build A Cathedral

By Martin Crump.

Martin is a Director and co-founder of Evolution. He is a certified NLP Master Trainer with a wealth of experience of working with organisations of all sizes and types across the UK.

We have recently finished a really interesting piece of work with the Diocese of Truro.

The Church of England, like many old established organisations is currently going through a time of massive change.

We have been working with Truro’s Diocesan House to help them plan how they are going to help the Diocese manage this change and continue to thrive in the current climate.

We have so far used a mix of ‘Navigator’ (To develop the Strategy for change), coaching for the Diocesan Secretary, an Employee Survey (to set a benchmark and understand the initial level of employee engagement and a structured Away Day with the whole team to introduce the reason for change and the future approach to meeting the needs of the changing environment.

In the initial strategic sessions we used ‘Navigator’ to look at the current environment, behaviours, capabilities, beliefs and values and identity of the Diocesan House.

We then moved on to define the purpose of the team.

Well Being Gift Packs

I was recently asked to write some well being gift packs for Out Of This World Gifts. These packs are designed to help you overcome phobias, conquer insomnia, look after your back or improve your general happiness.

I’m really pleased with the results, both the content and the way they look – see below.

Each pack contains a booklet full of tips and helpful information and a self hypnosis CD (the ‘Better Back’ pack doesn’t contain a CD but includes a voucher for a consultation with a Registered Osteopath near you).

« Previous 1 … 5 6 7 8 9 … 13 Next »

Author: Martin