In the current climate we come across managers and leaders who are working harder to meet the demands of challenging market conditions, demanding targets and managing the balance between their professional and personal lives.

 Mental Toughness refers to an individual’s resilience and inner drive to succeed, particularly in stressful or challenging circumstances.  It is a valuable concept that helps us to understand:

•  Why people respond differently to stressors and challenges
• Which aspects of work affects people in different ways
• How people can develop mental toughness to improve resilience and performance

 Research suggests that Mental Toughness consists of 4 key components:

• The extent to which we feel in control of our lives and our emotions
• How we respond to challenge and to unplanned change
• The extent to which we commit to demanding targets goal
• Our confidence in our abilities and in our dealings with others

It is generally known and accepted that peak performers demonstrate high levels of mental toughness or resilience and the good news is that this can be developed.

Coaching for Mental Toughness involves completing a short questionnaire (MTQ48) that provides a report on an individual’s level of mental toughness in these four areas.  Once identified this is a useful basis to explore how these concepts are played out in practical behaviours at work and what helps and hinders successful performance.   Through coaching individuals are invited to discuss their results and gain feedback and to work on bespoke processes to develop new ways of dealing with the stressors and pressures that inhibit their performance.  This not only improves well-being in the workplace it also creates a better working environment and that can only be a good thing.

 Primeast have a range of coaching programs to suit managers, leaders and chief executives. Coaching for Mental Toughness is one of our most popular programs, if you would like to find out more and take the MTQ, please contact us via www.primeast.com.

The logistics of meeting their needs with 99.9% reliability is a fine art based on careful logistics and maintaining good relationships with an amazing network of over a hundred trainers, coaches, facilitators and consultants around the world.

According to managing director, Russell Evans,

 “Most of Primeast’s network relationships have remained simple – between us and the individual.  But every now and then operational circumstances prompt smarter ways of working.  For example, when one of our clients decided to establish business service centres in Eastern Eurpope, we forged alliances with two organisations based in Prague and Budapest who are now formally Primeast offices.”

“Similarly, Primeast has recently enjoyed significant work in the growing economies of Africa, including Nigeria, Ghana, Chad, Malawi, Botswana, Cameroon, Egypt, Angola, Zambia and Zimbabwe.  In the process we made a contact in Malawi who became an enthusiast member of the Primeast team and who now runs our Southern Africa operation.”

“For us, growing international offices is a function of operational need and the right relationships.  We ask three questions:

1. Is there good synergy between our values?
2. Is there a commercial benefit to both parties?
3. Does everyone want to work together to make this work for the long-haul?

If the answer to these questions is positive, we make things happen. 

Not all our international offices are built on a pure franchising model.  Our agreements with them are all slightly different, reflecting market conditions, geography and other commercial needs.  They all took time and careful dialogue to put in place.  But the main thing is they are all regarded as equal members of the Primeast family of businesses.”

Russell Evans,

Managing Director, Primeast.

Stay positive but recognise the reality of your situation
Obama’s campaign is the clearest possible demonstration of the power of positive thought – don’t allow negative thinking to overcome your business, but focus on successes and the opportunities ahead.

Take a new approach
Don’t be afraid to be creative – from the ashes of the dot-com crash rose Google, FaceBook and MySpace – so use the downturn as an opportunity to actively search for better ways to deliver your services and consider new areas to develop.

Have clear objectives
Particularly for the next 12 months, pin down what you want to achieve and stick to the strategy whilst being prepared to adapt and be flexible with small ones – like Obama’s campaign, don’t let competitor pressures pull you off course.

Focus on people’s strengths
This is the crux of ‘talent liberation ’ – recognise the talents within your team and align their roles and responsibilities to maximise that talent.

Lead!
Now is no time to hide in the boardroom – CEOs and managers need to be engaging more than ever with staff, clients and stakeholders and communicating their vision for the business.

Russell Evans

Managing Director, Primeast

Last year I was privileged to take part in a recording of Songs of Praise for the BBC. The programme was being filmed here in Harrogate and I jumped at the chance of being involved. The whole experience was fantastic! We spent a Sunday afternoon rehearsing, recorded the sound on the Tuesday evening and filmed the “church bit” on the Friday evening. The programme was broadcast about a month later and I had my 15 minutes of fame!  But what has all this got to do with leadership?

 In my mind quite a lot. You see on that first Sunday when we met to rehearse, some 120 people who had never sung together before, arrived at an unfamiliar church, to meet a conductor we had never worked with, to sing 5 hymns, 3 of which we had never heard before and yet, by 10.10pm on Tuesday evening, we had recorded what turned out to be a most wonderful sound! In my book that takes great leadership!

 We were lead in our singing by a very talented man, Gordon Stuart, who regularly conducts for the BBC. Gordon used his own blend of expertise (he is the only man I know who can spot a flat tenor among 120 voices!), passion and humour to guide us through to a very successful conclusion. He demonstrated patience when we just couldn’t get it right, attention to detail and humour which kept us all smiling despite an exhausting 3 sessions. In fact many of us involved in the experience found him truly inspirational.

 I think we can draw many parallels between this experience and leadership in business. Good leaders are often experts in their field and they use that expertise to teach, mentor and develop others. Good leaders are passionate about what they do and are determined to get it right, often encouraging their team to repeat over and again a simple task to ensure the best possible outcome is achieved.  And, of course, all good leaders must have a sense of humour! 

Using these qualities and skills in day to day life is hard enough when things are ok but what about when times are hard? We are in the middle of what the media would have us believe is a credit crisis. Every day we hear stories of firms closing, production being stopped for long periods of time and increasing redundancies. So which of these traditional qualities should our leaders concentrate on? Surely resilience has to be top of the list; the ability to take tough decisions, which will not be popular but which are the right things to do, is key at these times. In the past, chose their people based on a political agenda, however surely capability and attitude will serve the business better. These may not be popular decisions, but leading is not about winning friends but about influencing others. We are all stewards of the businesses of the future and must act responsibly to steer the ship back to safety. 

Perhaps knowledge and subject expertise should be up there too?

But more importantly knowledge of self will stand the challenged leader in good stead to tackle the turbulent times we are surely facing. The leader who has a firm grasp on who he is and where he comes from, what his values and beliefs are  and how they fit with his role, will be able to confidently lead his company in the way it needs to go to ride the storm.

 And finally an ability to retain a sense of humour will probably be the one thing which keeps us all sane in these times of increasing pressure.

Our case study this month shows how one company has dealt with crises in the past, how they have adapted and changed to capitalise on the market opportunities and how they have emerged stronger and leaner as a result of the actions their leaders took. Please register on http://www.primeast.com to receive your copy.

Sarah Sharp, Head of Leadership, Primeast

It reminds me of a conversation I had recently with the MD at one of the big headhunting companies in London. I was interviewing her to discover her philosophy on talent management. She was firm in her view that leaders, like everyone else, come with a range of talents that are unique to them and which only deliver the best results when they are placed in the right circumstances. For this reason, she suggested that the leader an organisation had before the recession might not be the one to see it through tough times.

Similarly, when things pick up, the leader that kept the ship on course through the storm might not be the one best equipped to make the most of new opportunities. Building on this, what is required in the board room more than anything else is that rare combination of corporate awareness, self awareness, unwavering honesty and a willingness to change. And this is only the starting point.

From this foundation, a board of directors can honestly appraise the situation, determine what action is required, work out who is best placed to lead it and communicate the strategy to the business. Of course it would be dangerous to assume that a recession affects all organisations the same way. Some will discover that their time and place in the world has passed and that it is time to close.

Others will have to take out the pruning shears to get into the right condition to survive the winter in readiness for the spring. And others will capitalise on the situation and grow market share just because they now can.

The important thing is to review, refocus and realign. For this purpose, the simple but robust PrimeFocus

Primeast model

 framework which we have been using with clients for about a decade provides a useful stocktake. There’s a text book to explain the framework in detail but in a nutshell, PrimeFocus suggests that in a recession (or any other time) we must:

1. Check that our corporate purpose is relevant.

2. Check that our vision is realistic and compelling given the facts of the situation.

3. Make sure we have full engagement with our people. All theories of change support the fact that this is of prime importance during a period of change (what else can a recession be?). And yet if we are hard pressed, the truth is that employee engagement is often what gets forgotten when the going gets tough.

4. Make sure our systems and processes are fit for our current direction, not a hang over from a different journey.

 5. Make sure our character as defined by our values and behaviours is right for now. If times are tough, we may even need to revisit our values to reflect the needs of the moment and also plan how to take the organisation into a new character as progress is made. How many organisations are honestly wise enough to think about values in a recession?

6. Test that our results, especially our key performance indicators, are measuring progress to a realistic vision, not a hangover from better times. Keeping the bar at an unrealistic level will only serve to demotivate, disengage and dismay.

7. Check that we haven’t forgotten that people still need a personal sense of success that will be different for everyone. And their sense of success in a recession may be different than before. I know in our team we made it very clear that if we entered 2010 without losing any of our amazing people and even better if we could continue to grow (albeit slower than previous years), that would be an amazing result.

8. Finally and most importantly we must make sure that we never ever forget that it is the unique talent of our people that will deliver our vision. There is a danger in hard times to develop an “all hands to the pumps – let’s peddle harder” mentality that distracts people from their best efforts which are naturally associated with their strengths.

So in a nutshell in leadership, it’s about horses for courses and a systematic approach to making sure the organisation is in the best shape it can be, operating with a sense of purpose and vision, engaged people, a structured approach with the character to succeed, built on the talents of everyone from boardroom to front line.

Clive Wilson, Chairman

 Primeast Ltd

Getting real value out of your consultants has never been more important – every penny spent on ‘outsiders’  has to be justified.  The need for consultant interventions to have a real, long term impact on your organisation is critical.

Rules of engagement

Over the years we’ve noticed that our clients broadly fall into three groups in the way they choose to engage and work with us, those who:

• provide a tight brief, with well considered outcomes but for some reason choose only to engage with and employ us in a transactional way
• know they have a need but have not thought out what they want and are generally unclear about how they can capitalise on the work we do with them, they can often be very reluctant to engage beyond the transactional
• may have some of the traits of the first 2 groups but also display a willingness to engage and really work out how the work we do together can be made sustainable within the organisation without our ongoing support.

A few years ago we were employed by a food manufacturer who was replacing all the machinery in one of its factories.  In preparation for and during a short closedown for the machinery installation, we worked alongside the plant manager and his teams, to re-align and re-orientate how they would work in order to get the most out of their substantial financial investment in the new equipment.

Enlightened leadership

Throughout the project, he worked with us in a way that allowed their outcome to be transformational for their business, rather than purely transactional.

From the outset he had a clear desire to map out responsibilities for both them and us; and to clarify exactly who needed to do what to make the project a success.  This two-way dialogue was honest and sometimes challenging but always fruitful.

We both recognised that we should not expected things to work 100% straight away, as humans adapt to change at different speeds!  This meant that if we needed to modify plans or repeat a step, it fazed neither them nor us.

Collaboration

However, the biggest win for them came from how we collaborated to make sure the whole of our intervention became sustainable within their business.  As part of our initial mapping together, we had agreed that individuals and teams at all levels within the factory had to be clear on what they needed to do differently once Primeast had left the building.

Perfect

In essence this was the perfect ‘client/consultant relationship’ because they were fully engaged and open throughout.  They recognised that a transactional buyer/supplier relationship with us would not give them real, lasting value for their business.

They welcomed our challenging of them and recognised that ultimately, to make the whole thing sustainable they needed to really engage with us throughout their change and development process so that when we stepped away, they could simply continue their journey through change confidently and independently.

“Price is what you pay. Value is what you get”
(Warren Buffett)

As consultants who help organisations make deep and meaningful changes both structurally and culturally, we pride ourselves on the value we provide – value that endures.  For more on how we may be able to help your organisation, please contact us at Primeast

Nowadays I understand that jigsaw much better – the missing (or at least oft neglected) piece was the people side of change.

The crux of making change stick, whether it’s on a small personal scale (New Years resolutions anyone?!) or a major organisational restructure, is getting to the heart of the matter.  As John Kotter (pre-eminent author on the topic of change management) states:

‘people change only when you touch their emotions’

When you go beyond the Gantt chart, the budgets and the workflow diagrams, what really drives change and helps it succeed is personal commitment.  That almost goes without saying nowadays, yet actually getting that engagement of ‘hearts and minds’ often remains elusive.

If you’re involved in an organisational change programme at the moment, consider how you and/or other people might perceive the change. Is it positive or negative? Imposed or chosen?

Having a view on people’s perception of the change will give you an insight into how much effort will need to go into engagement.  If the impact of change is positive and chosen, clearly the people affected will be more likely to welcome change than otherwise.  That said, it’s still important to engage them in the need for change and involve them in appropriate actions relating to the change programme itself.

When the change is less welcome, seeking the engagement of people affected by the change will take a concerted effort.  The secret is quite simple – get them involved.

One successful business process improvement programme I was involved in fell into this category.  Whilst a large part of the change was pre-determined by the Executive Team, nevertheless there were areas of scope that we ring-fenced for our work-stream leaders to define and manage.  We supported them with 1:1 coaching and help with project skills, yet respected their expertise when it came to the business and processes.

The way to help someone move through the Transition Curve is to restore their sense of control.  So, they may have no choice in the fact you are moving offices, for example; but perhaps they could choose the colour it will be decorated, or the location of their desk. Otherwise, change becomes something that is ‘done to’ them.

As Russell Evans (Primeast MD) says:

“People will often enjoy change – when they’re part of the journey!”

If you’re managing change in your organisation at the moment, there are four key areas of skill for any leader or manager of change to consider:

1. Visioning and Planning
2. Communicating the Need for Change
3. Overcoming Resistance
4. Getting and Giving Support

If you would like to complete a free profiling tool that covers these areas, please contact jo.murphy@primeast.com.

Certainly having an external view from a professional coach can help enormously, but many companies are realizing that for general performance issues they can improve their own coaching skills to really listen, to deeply understand, to ask questions that increase awareness and to help people generate their own inspiring solutions. That creates real ownership. These skills can be developed in a workshop or in a series of one-to-one interventions.

The external coach is then invaluable in the muddier waters of dealing with emotive issues that are hampering performance, with specific challenging issues (conflicted relationships, assignments that stretch beyond current capability, matters of a confidential nature) or targeted development. In these cases it is vital that the external coach is qualified with a reputable organization (eg ILM, CTI, ICF, AC), displays integrity and professionalism, and is committed to their own development through coaching supervision.

Primeast provide a range of coaching and coaching skills interventions for local and global clients.
Joanne Ernst.

This is a shocking statistic, but one validated time after time in numerous research findings. What is the cost of these failures? Can businesses afford to fail to achieve the benefits from business and project change?

This is where having the right change management strategy can help. In most change scenarios, task or process change must go hand in hand with engagement and culture change and both must be tackled with due sensitivity to each other. It is widely recognised that the chance of success increases significantly when people are engaged or ‘part of change’, can contribute at the right time with the appropriate degree of involvement.

A diagram illustrating how the two sides of effective change management work together can be found on the Primeast website.

Throughout the journey of change different tasks and activities are needed. We have identified just some of the more generic aspects but would work with you to identify the key steps and activities depending on your business and change requirements.

As a leading consultancy in organisational improvement and change, we actively encourage wider systems thinking to capture other change initiatives and encourage ‘What Next’ thinking. This frequently leads to new change projects building on the work of the initial change. This is represented in the PrimeEngagement Journey as never ending and rapidly increasing change requirements. The pace of change is accelerating – we need to work smarter in being able to drive change and be proactive.

To find out more about how the PrimeEngagement model can help you and your people to work through change, contact Primeast’s Head of Organisational Development and Change is Martin Carver