Be Authentic Archives - Nick Robinson

3 Handy Ways to Avoid Doing Great Delegation (Part 1/3)

This is the first of three short posts with some handy tips for avoiding the dangers of doing half-way decent delegation – and of being seen as vaguely competent and therefore deserving of yet more responsibility, stress and leadership burden at work!

TIP 1️⃣: Never start by describing the OUTCOME that you want to achieve.
🧭 This tip is almost too easy; starting with the Outcome is surely just a backwards way of doing things and risks having way too much clarity and direction. Better to get going with the first step that comes to mind and only then figure out where you’re going, and why, along the way. People will thank you for not overloading them with this kind of focus. 🗺

TIP 2️⃣: Always tell people HOW they should do the thing you’re delegating to them.
🔬 This is where a lot of managers go wrong, by imagining that people might have their own way of doing things. Or even, that they might come up with a better way than you had thought of. That kind of thinking is just ridiculous! It’s much safer – and offers much more scope for subsequent micro-managing – if you treat people like robots and tell them EXACTLY how you would do the thing you’re delegating to them, if only you had time to do everything. 🤖

TIP 3️⃣: Don’t offer SUPPORT or set out a process for check-ins and coaching along the way.
⛑ If they need support, what’s the point of delegating in the first place – might as well have done it yourself! If only you had the time; or the effort. Anyway, whatever, the kind of structured check-ins and coaching that supports somebody as they try a task for the first time, or learn to stretch themselves, is soooo demanding of your attention. It is boring. Please people, just go away and get on with the thing I told (sorry, asked) you to do, in the way I said to do it. Just tell me when it’s done. Whenever that is; did we agree a deadline; I forget … 🏖

If any of this strikes a chord, please check out my possibly helpful ebooklet on Amazon:

What doesn’t kill you

New research suggests that we should stop saying “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” – Because it doesn’t!

I found some interesting research recently, based on the experiences of people in Chile and neighbouring countries who went through devastating earthquakes and a tsunami in 2010 (link to full article below).

In short, those people who had previously experienced four or more ‘stressors’ were at a much greater risk of developing a post-disaster mental health disorder compared to those who had experienced few or no prior stressors.

The researchers defined a ‘stressor’ as serious illness or injury, death of a loved one, divorce, unemployment or financial struggles, legal troubles or loss of a valuable possession.

In the world of people development, it’s very common to see that “What doesn’t kill you …” quote from Nietzsche used with the intention of boosting people’s confidence or resilience in the face of extreme difficulty. It’s the so-called “stress inoculation hypothesis”.

But some Nietzsche scholars believe that the German philosopher was actually poking fun at the kind of thinking which regards repeated adversity as a source of strength. It was common for Nietzsche to do this – say one thing, but mean another. It’s perhaps unfortunate that his pithy sayings are so quotable!

As usual, I wonder if the truth is somewhere in the middle:

It’s clear from the Chilean research that repeated exposure to stressful experiences makes you more vulnerable to negative impacts from extreme events – not stronger at all
But perhaps it’s possible that it does make you more empathetic towards others who have also experienced stressful times? In itself, this is a very useful success skill.

Similarly, a big cause of stress in life and at work is the gap between our expectations of how things somehow “should” be – and how they really, actually are:

In times of stress, that gap can seem huge (“My life and work should be successful/happy/fulfilling/safe – but it is actually not”);
Perhaps it’s also possible that exposure to stressful experiences gives us a kind of, if not inoculation, than maybe a kind of world-weary assumption that sh*t does occasionally happen – and maybe that helps a little?

Let me know what you’re noticing about the impact of stressful events on your own resilience please.

Either leave a comment below if they’re still open at the time of reading, or tweet me @nickrobcoach.

What your view? is it true that 'What doesn't kill you makes you stronger'? Or is it more nuanced than that? Click To Tweet

Click here to see the research article.

The Antidote for too much Snippiness at Work is more Self-Compassion

I’ve noticed there’s a lot more snippiness at work at the moment than is good. People losing their temper and sounding-off; others fault-finding and blaming when there really isn’t any need. I’ve seen it in a couple of board-meetings and in some team-working just over the last few weeks.

Given the circumstances right now, it’s understandable that people might be more stressed than usual and end-up taking it out on others. The answer is to take better care of ourselves first.

Fortunately, I’ve also noticed that there’s much more awareness of how this kind of behaviour in a group or team setting is ‘sub-optimal’ than there was, say ten years ago.

Lots of really useful concepts have made their way into our everyday language:

Things like “Hangry” – a portmanteau of hungry and angry, where someone’s hunger is making them increasingly upset, irritable or even angry.

I’ve even heard people use the HALT acronym – derived from addiction recovery, it reminds people to take a moment (HALT) and ask if they are feeling Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired. It seems simple enough, but when those basic needs are not met, people can be susceptible to destructive behaviours.

The importance of this kind of stuff, in terms of doing well at work, can’t be overstated. Years of co-operation can be written-off with a badly-timed and unfair outburst. Credibility as a competent manager can be lost by a poorly-judged public criticism. Trying to get stuff done when you don’t have a good relationship with the people you depend on is non-starter.

I use my own modified (and backwards) version of the Emotional Intelligence model to help unpick and re-wire how we behave at work. In simple terms, it looks like this:

Leading < Relating < Self-Management < Self-Awareness

If you want to lead well (which is basically, getting stuff done with the co-operation of others), then you need to be aware of how other people are feeling and doing, and manage your relationship with them. And you can’t do that without being aware of how you yourself are doing and then effectively managing your own behaviours.

Start with that Self-Awareness step:

Are you Hangry?
Do you need to HALT?
Are your anxieties taking over?
If you were able to be more compassionate with yourself, what would you do?

Let me know what you’re noticing about our self-management these days please?

Either leave a comment below if they’re still open at the time of reading, or tweet me @nickrobcoach.

We're more stressed-out than usual now and might take it out on others at work. The answer is to take better care of ourselves first. Click To Tweet

Self-Accountability not Self-Criticism

Four simple questions that easily help to develop more self-accountability and avoid falling into the trap of self-criticism instead

What do you notice about your own self-accountability? Please leave a comment below if they’re still open at the time of reading, or tweet me @nickrobcoach

The best way to be true to your word is to be more self-accountable, and *less* self-critical. Click To Tweet

Health and Work

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Well-being has a huge impact on success at work. Can you be physically and emotionally healthy and hold down a demanding job?

Modern working life seems to make it tough to be healthy physically.

I’m struck by how many of my clients are dealing with poor-ish health. They’re often carrying minor health issues that haven’t been (or can’t really be permanently) ‘fixed’. They suffer from problems caused by sitting around in front of a screen all day, from long hours and the impact this has on diet, from emotional eating and drinking in response to the stresses and strains of demanding jobs, and from frequent coughs and sneezes.

And I write this, as it happens just a few days away from the shortest, darkest day of the year, when dealing with those health-related issues seems harder than ever.

I know these are all “first-world” problems really.

In the scheme of things, my bad back, caused by such a sedentary working day, is just a minor niggle. Yes, I can get a bit snappy and do tend to take the worry home with me if I’ve had a particularly stressful day. And yes, the coffee I’m chugging all day to raise enough energy to get through the afternoon does make me sleep poorly, but at least I’ve got somewhere safe and warm to sleep – it isn’t really such a big issue, is it?

Except it is a big issue really.

In a big picture sense, it’s an important issue because in the UK just those factors of stress, anxiety and musculoskeletal disorders account for around 20 million lost working days every year (HSE link).

On a more individual level, I think it’s also a big issue, because poor physical health and un-managed stress have such a huge impact on emotional well-being. And emotional well-being is the key to the self-awareness and good relationship-management that actually drives so much of our success (or otherwise) at work.

As Bruce Lee famously said:

You cannot pour from an empty cup.

If our physical and emotional reserves are low, our interactions with colleagues will be less effective and our work will suffer.

Not all of my clients are dealing with poor-ish health though. Some put a lot into maintaining their health and do it very successfully. And of those who do carry health conditions that will aways need managing, some manage them very well indeed.

My own health and emotional well-being seems to go up and down in long phases. I can have many years where I’m cycling or running regularly, eating healthily and living a well-balanced life, and then something happens to knock that off course and it might take a couple of years for me to get it back on track again.

I don’t know what the key to the physical side of all this is.

Having read about and trained with and followed a number of regimes, I still couldn’t say “Here are the seven steps to psychical well-being” with anything like certainty.

I do know that for me, changing things for the better has often involved quite small starts – deciding to go out for 20 minute walk at lunchtime no matter the weather, for example. Or just mentioning I was feeling physically drained to a friend resulting in an unexpected invitation to a long-distance bike ride – with enough time to train for it!

Actually, maybe those are part of the key:

Do something small; and
Reach out and ask for help.

What’s your experience been – how’s your health and well-being; does it have an impact on your ‘success’ at work; how did you change your health for the better?

My instinct is that this is such a big issue that I should reach out myself to a few people I know and get some more about this up on my website – watch this space.

As usual, please leave me a comment if they’re still open below, or tweet me @NickRobCoach. And be healthy.

Self-Awareness (1)

9 Expert Questions and one handy Diagram for Building great Self-Awareness

The best starting point for any development and growth at work, whether as a leader, a team member or just as your individual self, is the place of “self-awareness”.

And I’m talking here of self-awareness in a wide sense.

If you’re looking at self-awareness just as an emotional intelligence tool, then you’ll be focussed too narrowly, just on the awareness of your own feelings. What I want you to get, is a self-awareness about the whole you. That’ll include your drives, flaws, experiences, ambitions, assumptions, patterns of behaviour, values, resourcefulness and more. But also, and maybe more importantly, the big picture of what it’s like to be you. And what’s it like to experience who you are.

This kind of deep self-awareness really is essential to any kind of development. It’ll answer questions right down at a tactical level about what you want to be doing with your time and effort and how best to interact with the world. And it’ll act as a kind of beacon, keeping you heading towards the more important, bigger picture of what you’re about.

Sometimes this kind of self-awareness is forced upon us when something we’re trying to achieve goes wrong. Then we have to re-assess things on a personal level. And at other times, self-awareness comes out of a ‘gap’, a sense that something’s missing or unfulfilled.

Overcoming the uneasiness and discomfort around this kind of self-knowledge is important both to make sense of what’s happened so far and to move forward.

If you wanted to get some more self-awareness without being forced into it by that kind of circumstance, how would you go about it?

One of the best ways is to pretend to be your own observer.
Check out the diagram alongside. (If you click it and then right-click it, you should be able to download a copy.)

First, imagine ‘seeing’ a version of yourself. Get a sense of who this person is, and what’s important to them.

Second, imagine you could observe how this person goes about interacting with the world about them and with other people.

There are many things you could be observing and getting a sense of, but to get you started here’s some of the things I’ll typically be asking my clients about to help them develop their self-awareness. We talk about them as if they were another person, so instead of saying “what’s important to you”, I’ll get them to practice being an impartial observer of themselves by asking, “what’s important to this person?”.

Here’s some of the aspects you might be considering as you pretend to observe yourself. It’s a fairly long and deep list, so don’t feel you have to get all of this straight away:

What kind of things are really important to this person?
What’s the story of how they got to where they are today? And what did they have to overcome, sacrifice or achieve to get here?
What are they like, at their absolute best?
What qualities do they have that make them a resourceful person? What personal attributes, skills and knowledge can they call upon?
What holds them back or keeps them stuck?
As they interact with the world, how clear are they about what outcomes they want?
Thinking of a specific interaction that you want to understand more about, what was their intention at the outset? Did what they wanted to have happen, actually happen?
How wide is the range of choices they have about how they approach things; do they have one typical way of operating or a wider range?
What are some of the assumptions, hidden beliefs or ‘rules’ that they have about the world, about themselves and about others?

10 Ways to be a Smarter Leader

How to be Smart in a World of Dumb Leaders

Thank you for reading this. There is so much to be done in the way that some people lead and run businesses and organisations, that it really needs folks to spread the word about how things could be instead.

So many times I’ll be sitting in a work-group observing, or be finding-out second-hand about something a leader has said or done that just makes me cringe: “Ouch! Why did they need to say or do it that way?” You’ve probably seen or heard about something similar yourself?

I just looked back through my notes over the last few months to find these ten examples of what I reckon are the most important differences between Smart and Dumb leaders – it wasn’t hard to find these!

Please get out there and spread the word. Let’s have much more smart leadership.

Dumb Leaders:	Smart Leaders:
Pretend to know all the answers	Are brave enough to ask the tough questions
Struggle to hide their weaknesses	Use their vulnerabilities as a chance to learn from and develop others
Never stop to see themselves how others see them	Take the time to walk in different worlds and explore multiple viewpoints
Inflict their mood-swings on everyone else	Successfully manage their emotions, to help read and influence the moods of others
Always look for the heroic, Hail Mary long shots	Make sure the daily grind is being done well, to make the most of the right opportunities
Will happily, noisily and frequently tell you what they think – and even what you think	Apply the principal of one mouth, two ears – seek to listen and understand before being understood
Don’t care who you are nor what’s important to you	See each team member as an individual deserving of their attention
Slap-down ideas and actions that don’t fit into their way of doing things	Encourage creative thinking and prudent risk-taking
Keep their plans secret	Know how to use their vision of the future to motivate and inspire people
Have low standards for their own behaviours and will justify doing as they want, when they want	Role-model the kind of high ethical behaviour that instils pride and earns respect and trust.

Coaching Techniques

Coaching with clients’ symbolic non-verbal cues with respect and empowerment

One of the many things I love when I’m one-to-one coaching is when clients unconsciously start drawing shapes in the air, or writing on an imaginary whiteboard or using their hands to position symbolic thoughts, people and objects in different places around themselves. It’s clear that people’s hands and bodies are directly connected to the inner workings of their mind and are often able to represent things quicker and with more clarity than words alone can do.

In my experience, all the qualities of these shapes, diagrams, air-writings and positionings are great doorways into deeper understanding and will open up many new possibilities for insight and action with my client, if I treat them right.

I always try to be really respectful of what they’ve just ‘drawn’ and to not impose my own frame of reference on things. Here’s a technique that I like to use which I believe really helps to get more insight and action, without me the coach getting in the way.

Because my client is often sitting across from, not next to me, I’m not seeing what they’ve ‘drawn’ from their perspective. Suppose I want to ask something like this, so we can get deeper into what it means:

“I notice that you just drew that as a kind of curve; whereabouts are you on the shape of that curve?”

And as I ask that question, I’ll usually want to redraw that curve for them, so they can see it again for themselves but consciously this time.

Here’s the important bit – I reverse the frame of reference so that I’m mirroring, not reproducing what clients have done.

If they’ve drawn that curve in the air from their left-to-right, I’ll redraw it, but from my right-to-left. If they’ve picked-up an imaginary object, person or idea and moved it over to their left, I’ll play that back to them, but make sure that the thing I move also finishes-up on their left. I imagine that I’m tracing whatever they did back to them, from the other side of a glass whiteboard.

I believe that this approach is so crucial, because I don’t want it to be my thing – what I do want is to empower them to get more understanding about the thing they ‘drew’ or ‘moved’.

Authentic Leadership

Why it’s important to people that you be the ‘real you’ as a leader; flaws, imperfections and all

I’ve been out and about just recently doing a variety of talks and group coaching sessions, which always gives me a good chance to ask people their views on leadership and teamwork. One of the things I keep asking about is what kind of leaders do people really want.

The answers are pretty diverse, but one theme that definitely recurs is about “authenticity”.

People tell me they want to be led by someone who is a real person and who doesn’t pretend to be perfect. They say that they don’t want to be led by someone who sneakily tries to cover up the gaps in the strategy or ignores the inadequacies in “the way that things are done around here”. They say that being perfect is just unbelievable anyway. That’s it’s hard to respect and connect with someone who won’t admit to their flaws. And trying to live-up to someone who is desperately trying to be perfect is simply exhausting. Instead, people say they want a leader who is honest about these things, even if it might reflect badly on themselves.

My own experience, both with my coaching clients and as a leader myself, has been that it’s quite powerful to be open and vulnerable about where you might be less than perfect.

As a young first-time leader, I remember thinking that it might cause people to lose confidence in me, and in themselves, if I admitted all the things I had no idea about. I still think that there’s a slight risk in being open like that; that some people might lose confidence. But I also know it’s possible to be honest about your flaws, and those of the organisation, in a way that commits to addressing the important ones and doesn’t excuse things. If you want to, you can use the flaws, cracks and imperfections to connect with people in a powerfully human way.

I’m writing this in the week after the death of the Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen, so it seems timely to include a message from his song “Anthem”:

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.