Enhance.training

How to focus your team on the KPIs you measure is as hard as choosing the right KPIs in the first place. Greater focus from the team means more time and effort directed at what drives the KPIs, which will increase team performance. I share 5 key tactics to get your team laser focused on the key performance indicators you measure. --- KPIs or key performance indicators are how you measure and track progress against the goals you have set. KPIs are a very useful too in performance management and business management and widely used as a result. Setting KPIs that change behaviour of your team and align effort and action on the tasks, activities and projects that will best help the team reach the goals set is a critical first step. Most businesses have information overload. After goal setting, working out which kpis and metrics to track to drive results is not easy. Once you have chosen your key performance indicators, educating your team to why you have chosen these specific KPIs is the next step. If they don’t understand how the KPIs link to the goals and the why behind them, they will not be nearly as engaged and focused on undertaking activity in the right areas to maximise progress. Next explaining to the team exactly what they need to do to improve a KPI measure is a must. Don’t expect them to know this or understand everything about what is needed. Explain and educate them. When the team know exactly what to do and how to do it, they are much more likely to deliver what you need. In our extremely busy and distracting workplaces, it is not enough to talk about KPIs and goals a few times and expect the team to stay focused on delivering against them. You need to constantly remind them. I share 7 ways to do this very effectively. Finally, to add even more focus on the tasks, activities and projects that will best progress the team to reaching goals, link all the benefit you can into kpi progress and reaching goals. There is a lot of benefit that don’t need budget and of course many that do. Clink a range of both to improving kpis and achieving goals. If you have any questions on “How to Focus Your Team on the KPIs You Measure to Drive Better Performance”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you. Jess Coles Enhance.training

What stops you making decisions at work? Work decisions can have big consequences, big impacts or are very public, making deciding on what to do harder. I share 7 common reasons for not making a decision at work, and 3 practical ways to overcome decision paralysis at work. Improving your decision making skills today. --- There are loads of reasons that stop you making decisions at work. Fear of failure is a major reason for struggling to make a decision at work. As we progress our careers, the impact of our decisions become more and more public. Embarrassment, consequences, reputations, job security … stops you making decisions. When you have confidence decisions are made a lot more easily. When you are struggling to make a decision at work break down the decision into smaller parts and make lots of smaller decisions. Lack of information is a reason many end up struggling to make a decision. Rarely do decisions makers have all the information than want. Another challenge is focusing on making the right decision. In business there is rarely a binary decision or a right or wrong decision. For how to make decisions focus more on the best outcome rather than right or wrong. Worrying about what others think stop you making decisions. You cannot please everyone and at work, putting the business and team before individuals when struggling to make decisions is sensible. For how to make decisions at work reference the company direction and strategy. The more aligned your decisions to wider goals, the easier they are to make. Lack of direction makes it a lot hard for employees to make decisions. For how to make tough decisions, think about which options will make the company and team better off compared to the other options. This mindset is very useful how to make decisions at work. Those that make decisions quickly and decisively are very good at reframing and changing their perspective. This helps them overcome their fears and mentally move themselves forward to make a decision. You can use exactly the same techniques to make decisions quickly and decisively If you have any questions on “What Stops You Making Decisions At Work & What To Do About It”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you. Jess Coles Enhance.training

Being in middle management is a tough job. Middle managers are also vital to the success of your business, translating the business goals and strategy into day to day activity and performance to reach those goals. Businesses with their middle managers in the top quartile of performance on average delivered 3 to 21 times more shareholder value than middle managers in the other quartiles. A massive reason to invest to make your middle managers more successful. I share 4 vital ways to make your middle managers successful, each with practical tips of how to implement and get the best from your middle managers. How to make middle managers more successful starts with be really clear about what you want from them. Explain very carefully the goals and invest time to ensure your middle managers understand the company strategy and how the company will achieve success. Make middle managers more effective by working with them to develop the projects and activities needed to implement the strategy of the business. They will appreciate your time and you will know more about what is happening in the business. Clarity of direction is very valuable – a perfect way to invest in the success of your middle managers. Second, undertake management skills training with your middle managers. They will develop management skills a lot quicker, which means delivering more value quicker. Great news for the business and you. Develop their leadership skills through coaching and mentoring. Management is one of the few professions with little or no training given, yet managers are expected to perform and deliver great results. This is crazy. Getting management skills in business does not happen quickly by osmosis. Next provide responsibility and flexibility to your middle managers. If you drown you managers in rules, processes, administration and bureaucracy, how can they do a good job. Every person and situation they face will be slightly different. The real value of middle managers is their skills and knowledge and ability to effectively deal with a massive range of people issues – give them the right tools for success. Give them responsibility and flexibility. Finally, work at measuring success and accountability. Visibility increases accountability on its own. No-one wants to let colleagues and team members down or be bottom of the pile. Creating visibility and measuring success and accountability will give you the confidence to free up middle managers from rules and regulations. Cutting down the bureaucracy is a great way for how to help middle managers set teams up for success. Successful teams = a successful business. Just what everyone wants! If you have any questions on “4 Vital Ways To Make Your Middle Managers Successful”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you. Jess Coles Enhance.training

Learning how to talk effectively to higher ups is a big deal for your confidence and career prospects. Once you understand the elements of communicating effectively with executives and senior management, you will find it easier and easier to effectively communicate with higher ups. I share 6 tactics to talk effectively to higher ups giving you practical actions to help you improve quickly. --- Communicating effectively with higher ups starts with focusing on impacts and benefits. This is what they care about, not the process to achieve these benefits which is your responsibility. When communicating effectively with executives, add numbers and be specific with what you say. Talk clearly and concisely to upper management because they don’t have time to long winded poorly structured messaging. When talking to higher ups be clear what you want from them and make this easy to understand. Get straight to the point when talking effectively to higher ups. Then you can provide the context and detail as needed. I share exercises on how to make clear and concise points like a boss. How to talk to higher ups includes focusing on the top concerns. Frame what you are talking about in terms of benefits to them, not you, when communicating effectively with others. They care about their world so talk to them in terms of how they, their team or the business will be impacted. A big part of how to communicate with higher management is to work out the flaws before they do. Work out what questions they might ask and have good answers for these. Make time to look at what you are communicating from different perspectives and find the weaker areas or flaws. This gives you time to work out how to avoid them or mitigate them. Taking this step increasing your credibility and standing very quicky with executives and higher ups Believe in what you are saying. How confidently you talk to managers and leaders will determine the level of challenge and questioning you get. The best way to build confidence is to do your homework, work through likely questions and build good data and insights to back up your position or request. Finally, be open and honest. Experienced managers have an amazing knack of asking the right questions to expose problems and shortcomings. Be honest in how you answer question. Any dishonestly or trying to hide issues will cause a lot more damage than being open about problems to be resolved. The more time you spend practicing how to articulate your thoughts clearly, the quicker and easier you will find talking effectively to higher ups. Effective communication is a brilliant way to get noticed and gain the respect and trust of higher ups. If you have any questions on “6 Tactics To Talk Effectively To Higher Ups” please email me at support@enhance.trainingand I will get back to you. Jess Coles Enhance.training

Being open minded at work, in my view is a critical career success factor, for any professional or managerial role. Being open minded means you learn faster, are more empathetic, build better relationships faster … in short, open minded people usually do better jobs and are easier to work with. I share 4 ways to be open minded at work and maintain an open mindset. --- How to be more open minded starts with your mindset and attitude. Our brains love patterns which creates a tendency to be closed minded. Feeling that you are right is the enemy of learning because you don’t look any further. The solution or approach you use doesn’t improve. I share three different techniques to break this pattern – all critical ways to be open minded and keep becoming more open minded. Be more open minded to speed up how quickly and how well you learn. Great managers work hard to maintain their open mindedness. They know that their teams have a lot to offer so being open minded allows them to maximise how they use the strengths of their team, which in turn leads to significantly better team performance. Use the exercises I share to develop a great attitude and see the best in your team members. How to be open minded includes learning how to stop, consider, evaluate, and then make up your mind, even when you have an immediate solution. Being open minded is a necessary first step to enable you to constantly get better at what you do. If you are not open to what others offer or to better ways of doing things, how will you improve? Be open minded by creating the habit of asking and listening. No-one knows everything. Nearly all of us rely on those around us to help us to do our jobs. We receive information, work and ideas from them as much as give these to others. We are a society of specialists working together so the group does better than having lots of generalists. Relationships, communication and relying on others are all critical. Learn more, do a better job and get on with more people by asking a lot of questions and listening to what you are being told. This is a brilliant way of demonstrating your open mindset to your team and colleagues every day! If you have any questions on “4 Ways To Be Open Minded At Work – A Critical Career Success Factor”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you. Jess Coles Enhance.training

Grow your team by coaching employees. There are so many benefits to investing your time to help your team members improve what they do and build new skills. Coaching your team is a great way to help build those trickier skills like people management and decision making. I share employee coaching techniques for 5 high value skills to your employees that will make your job as a manager a lot easier. --- Coaching team members is not about telling employees what to do. Coach employees to get them thinking, to build their confidence, to come up with their own solutions. Coaching employees is a combination of listening, asking questions, challenging, and encouraging. How to coach team members starts with the goal of making them the experts. Coaching team members good problem skills is amazingly useful to managers, as it takes some of the burden off their shoulders and helps the team work faster and get more done. Coaching team members to think through problems, consider options and create solutions with confidence. Coaching employees for success must include helping them get comfortable with making increasingly difficult decisions. When coaching employees in the workplace start coaching them through the easy often made decisions and progress them towards difficult decisions where there is no easy choice. When coaching your team members to improve team performance, gaining good project management skills is super valuable. Improvements and change are usually delivered through projects. Knowing how to organise, plan and manage projects, significantly increases individual effectiveness plus increase what a team can achieve. I know that coaching team members to improve teamwork and their people management skills is a very effective approach. Telling them what to do is a very good starting point. To build skills you need to practice. Through coaching, the individual is much more likely to learn Make time for employee coaching and mentoring. Doing so increases the motivation, skills and performance of your team as well as gaining a huge amount of respect and appreciation from them. Coaching your team to higher performance, I have found to be extremely effective in multiple teams in a wide range of companies. Make the time to coach your team. If you have any questions on “Grow Your Team By Coaching Employees – Build 5 Amazing Skills For Great Team Performance”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you. Jess Coles Enhance.training

Get more recognition at work by learning how to communicate the benefits your work gives to your boss and colleagues. When you make the value you create clear and memorable, you really stand out at work and get a lot more recognition. I share 6 ways to get more recognition at work and clearly stand out from the crowd. How to stand out at work starts with doing the important things really well. You will have more work than you can do (unless you are very lucky). When you put more effort and time into the important tasks, activities and projects and less time into urgent but less important ones, you have a much better chance of standing out at work and getting a lot more recognition. It is horrible not getting recognition at work, particularly if you are working hard. Hard work is not enough. Rather work hard on the really important areas and communicate your achievements to your bosses. Second, for how to get recognition at work, it is really important to measure the impact of your work for the team and your boss. If you don’t know how much of an impact you are having, why should anyone else. Use financial numbers to quantify your impact to get more recognition in the workplace. The third way to get more recognition at work is to link your results to team, function and business goals. Everyone should be focused on achieving these goals (and they are likely to be the more valuable work). Demonstrate how well you are supporting your boss and the team by clearly linking your results and output to moving the team closer to achieving goals. Fourth, to stand out at work, you must market your work to your busy boss. This is super important. Don’t expect your busy and under pressure manager to be tracking exactly what you do and appreciate the value you are contributing to them and the team. Spell this out for your manager. Make it easy for them to understand your contribution. Fifth, to get recognition at work, build relationships across the organisation and help others out. Making the time to do this massively helps your ability to do a great job, plus you know more people and are significantly more appreciated and respected. Reciprocity is a powerful group law. We share tips on how to practically build more relationships at work with those you don’t know. Sixth, for how to stand out at workplace, communicate how you are a team player. Every business wants and needs lots of team players to be successful. Team players help others be more successful as well as being more successful themselves. You get a lot more recognition at work from clearly being at team player. No recognition at work happens to those that only look out for themselves. If you have any questions on “6 ways to get more recognition at work - clearly stand out at work”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you. Jess Coles Enhance.training

High performing teams are built not recruited. High performing teams produce amazing results because of how they operate; how team members work together; how they communicate and collaborate and how they support and help each other. Learn what makes high performing teams at work, what amazing teams do differently and 4 things the manager needs to do differently in building a high performing team. --- Management Skills Accelerator Course Becoming a successful manager is difficult enough. When you add little or no training to this tough challenge, you journey gets a lot tougher and takes longer to achieve. Learn the approach, the behaviours and the skills needed to build high performing teams by visiting enhance.training at https://enhance.training/msa-usp006 --- There is a lot the manager can do to build high performing teams at work which produce great team performance. What is scary is managers are told the characteristics of high performing teams, yet so few managers are taught HOW to create high performing teams. Gaining the skills and knowledge to build high-performing teams is not easy – it takes time and work. Gaining these skills is nearly impossible if you don’t know what is needed in creating high performance teams. Becoming a great manager is a personal journey as much as a professional journey. Being able to manage yourself is pretty important when you are put in charge of managing others. In this video we go through what makes high performing teams – 8 behaviours and characteristics that you would expect to see displayed in high performance teams. This gives you a starting point for what habits of high performing teams you need to instil your own team. An essential part of that process is for you, the manager, to display the behaviours and characteristics day in day out. Leading from the front is incredibly important. We then go on to explore what high performing teams do differently. I cover 6 things amazing teams do differently from okay teams. Again as a manager, you need to work to instil these behaviours – critical to what makes high performing teams. For example, one of the things high performing teams do is communicate and collaborate a lot. There should be the hum of voices, team members at each other’s desks a lot. You can’t communicate and collaborate without some noise. Then we go on to cover 4 critical approaches the manager needs to take in creating high performance teams. These are fundamental principles rather than day to day tactics. If you have any questions on “What to do differently to build high performing teams at work” please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you. Jess Coles Enhance.training

What to get your team working on is super important as a manager. Possibly the most important thing. Choosing valuable team goals is the difference between delivering okay or great team performance. Learn 4 actions for choosing the right team goals to increase your team’s performance. Choosing the right team goals at work is super important as goals provide direction, focus, purpose, and a fair way to measure performance. To choose valuable team goals don’t make them financial as few people relate to financial only goals. Start with the company goals when setting valuable team goals. Alignment to the wider business goals is very important in selecting the most profitable team activities to work on. Goal alignment ensures everyone’s efforts support and compound the impact of everyone else’s effort, creating a stronger overall result. Many managers forget the important of alignment when setting valuable team goals. Next, in setting the right goals, focus on what you have control and influence over. The more the better. When you have control and influence over the activities needed to reach goals, you and your team will be happier, more motivated and more successful. There is nothing worse than having goals depend heavily on others with different goals to make yours happen. This is poor goal setting. Focus on what you have control over when setting team goals. Now the harder part – digging to find what is the most valuable work to select valuable team goals. This takes curiosity, open-mindedness and asking a lot of questions. This is joining the dots that others have missed. The good news – every company has serious value creating opportunities. They come about because the business environment is always changing and a very human habit is falling into patterns of thinking and behaviour. This creates gaps, sometimes very big gaps, and amazing value creating opportunities are in these gaps. Finally, create different levels of goals. These are good team management skills. Goals should focus on a team level and individual level. Then focus on team and individual priorities (which are not the same as goals). Goals and priorities should be communicated in non-financial terms. Focus on tasks, initiatives, activities and projects and make them easily relatable to each person and the team. What to get your team working on by choosing valuable goals is one of the most important jobs you can do as a manager. Choosing valuable team goals is a key part of getting the team to focus on work that is more valuable to the team and company. If you have any questions on “What To Get Your Team Working On - Choosing Valuable Team Goals”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you. Jess Coles Enhance.training

Delivering bad news to staff is definitely one of the hardest jobs of being a manager. There is nothing nice about delivering bad news to employees and team members I explain exactly what to do when giving bad news to employees - during and after sharing bad news. Delivering bad news to your team at work is going to provoke an emotional response from multiple people. Before delivering bad news get your own emotions under control and rehearse how you are going to handle emotional outbursts. How to deliver bad news starts with what not to do. Don’t go through pleasantries, take time for small talk, or take ages building yourself up to deliver bad news. Research from the medical profession shows that the number one factor to how your message will be received is the news-giver’s attitude. Focus on making giving bad news to employees all about them not about you. Exactly how to deliver bad news to employees I explain in the video in three simple steps. A critical part of communication skills is how you manage your tone of voice and body language. To have effective communication skills, you must be aware of these and be able to control them appropriately. Before you give bad news understand why you are giving the bad news. Then you are able to answer questions effectively, openly, and honestly. All key when having difficult conversations. Another big part of how to deliver bad news at work is to manage the emotions of the receipts of the bad news. Allow them to vent and show their emotions. Be empathetic by showing your emotions but stay neutral. Don’t allow those you are giving bad news to start debating decisions they can’t change or influence. Another vital part of giving bad news to staff is what happens after the bad news. Bad news usually creates uncertainty. How are you going to create as much certainty in the situation going forward. What is your vision for future and how are you going to share this. If you have any questions on “Delivering Bad News To Staff - Make Difficult Conversations Easier”, please eamil me at enhance.training and I will get back to you. Jess Coles Enhance.training

Good teamwork at work is hugely valuable for both manager and company. Teams significantly outperform groups of individuals, in my experience. Signs of great teamwork point to a good manager leading the team. I share 6 signs of good teamwork at work and how to improve teamwork in your team. Teamwork in the workplace is hugely beneficial for the manager who’s personal performance is assessed on the performance of their team. Great teamwork at work is great for the manager because: All of these drive higher team performance. The power of teamwork starts with every team member understanding and believing in the team goals. Goals give the team shared purpose and direction, which is one of the characteristics of great teamwork. Another of the signs of great teamwork at work is an environment of trust. With trust you don’t have a team, just a collection of individuals. Collaboration and knowing that colleagues will do what they commit to is a sign of great teamwork at work. The third of the signs you have a great team is that team members will put the team first. All team members know that when the team does well, they individually do well. Good teamwork at work is doing the right thing for the team even if it costs you personally in the short term. The fourth of the signs of great teamwork at work is each team member will do their part. They will work through lunch, stay late, ask for help … anything they need to do to deliver what they have committed to. They won’t let their teammates down. The fifth of the characteristics of teamwork is that open, honest and lively communication is the norm. Good teamwork at the workplace is noisy. Good teams are constantly asking for ideas and solutions and giving their own. They are asking for help, debating the best next step - all of which you can’t do in silence. Lastly, the power of teamwork always shows in how results focused the team is. Team performance is measured on outcomes produced not activity undertaken. Team work makes reaching goals and outcomes a lot easier, quicker and more fun. Throughout, I share tips and tactics I have used for decades to improve team performance and what I view as critical teamwork skills. If you have any questions about “Unlock the power of Teamwork! 6 Signs of Good Teamwork At Work”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you. Jess Coles Enhance.training

Building responsibility in teams increases team performance and makes working in the team much more enjoyable. A win for everyone. The manager has the biggest influence to encourage employees to take responsibility and knowing what to do makes a massive difference to your effectiveness as a manager. I share 5 actions for building a culture of responsibility in teams to increase performance. How to encourage employees to take responsibility starts with how to give them permission. Taking responsibility can be scary as an employee, particularly if there are likely consequences if something goes wrong. Setting out what employees can do and can’t provides security and confidence, which encourages employee responsibility. Focus on your actions, decisions, and behaviours as much as what you tell your team. Next, to make employees more responsible visibly and actively ask for and value team member input. Responsible employees will jump at the change to be more involved in the direction of their own work. Everyone will be more motivated when the goals and plan are partly their own rather than just the managers. To build responsibility in teams stop telling and start coaching. When you tell a person what to do, the responsibility stays with you. When they tell you what they are going to do, the responsibility is theirs. Give team members responsibility by asking questions (coaching) rather than telling. When you get team members taking responsibility, you also have to protect them from external forces and criticism and ensure you don’t punish errors. Use learning errors to teach and improve, while not accepting errors caused by laziness or lack of attention etc. Getting the team environment right to build responsibility in teams is a key leadership skill and super important to increase team performance. I share 10 factors to build responsibility and accountability. If you have any questions on “5 Actions for Building Responsibility in Teams to Increase Performance”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you. Jess Coles Enhance.training

Learning safe ways to challenge at work can be career defining. Challenging at work is a crucial element of building better ideas and solutions. Being comfortable and skilled enough to challenge your boss without upsetting is one of the secrets to stand out at work. Learn 5 safe ways to challenge at work and giving feedback to your boss. How to give feedback to your boss can also be one of those difficult conversations at work. So few managers get useful and constructive feedback from team members. When you are good at giving feedback to your manager – it’s a great for how to stand out at work. Firstly, try to challenge others at work in service of reaching business goals rather than for personal reasons. Most bosses support those trying to do good for the group and don’t support those challenging to be difficult, to annoy others, to avoid their fears etc. Secondly when challenging your boss or others avoid being right. Positioning what you are proposing as being right, the best or the right way is very confrontational. You are implying the other person is wrong. Much better is to offer alternatives, improvements, and options. This is even more important when giving feedback to your manager. Asking questions is a great way to challenge more subtly. Use questions to lead the other person to the problems, to the alternative routes, to better solutions. Using questions is great when safely challenging your manager. Always seek to provide alternatives and options rather than highlighting only a problem or adding to the problem. This is always received better and also portrays you in a stronger way. Lastly, seek to raise up rather than put down. Choose your words carefully and always aim to help, improve, build. This is key part of effective communication in the workplace. If you have any questions on “5 Safe Ways To Challenge At Work And Giving Feedback To Your Boss”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you. Jess Coles Enhance.training

Managers … put your team before yourself to gain rapid promotion. This may sound a little counter intuitive, yet your performance is judged on your team’s performance. Learn 4 compelling reasons for why putting your team first will make you a much better manager and help you get rapid promotion. Plus get practical tips on HOW to put team before yourself. Become a better manager by putting your team first. Management principles of give before you take is a compelling way to rapidly improve your management results which gets you promoted faster. There are a lot of skills to develop to become an effective manager. Skills alone are not enough. How you use those skills defines great management. Your attitude towards your team is a crucial starting point. Managers and leaders create the most value through their teams. Their teams are a vital to that manager or leader’s success. View them with the importance they deserve. Mentally view you team with admiration and respect. Once your attitude and mindset are positive and respectful towards your team, your decisions, actions, and behaviours will communicate your positive attitude very clearly to your team. I view your management attitude a key part of your personal development in a management role. Using power well is another crucial skill for manager success. One of the most important leadership principles is to use power for the good of others, for the good of the group rather than for your own personal gain. Look at any classic story in any culture for confirmation of this vital leadership principle. Next, focus on helping your team before pleasing your boss. Doing both is vitally important for getting on the fast track for promotion. Your teams results and output are going to have a biggest impact on your boss’s appraisal of your performance. Put your team first to get promotion quickly. Using 5 ways to leverage your time effectively is also essential as a manager, to do a great job and to get promoted. Get tips on how to put each of these ways to leverage your time into practice and gain a big jump in your and your team’s performance. If you have any questions on “Managers Put Your Team Before Yourself & Gain Rapid Promotion”, please email me at support@enhnace.training and I will get back to you. Jess Coles Enhance.training

What great managers do that okay ones don’t affects us all. Great managers create more than 8 times the value average managers do – that is a huge gap. Learn 5 key principles or approaches and become a better manager. --- Management Skills Accelerator Course Becoming a successful manager is difficult enough. When you add little or no training to this tough challenge, you journey gets a lot tougher and takes longer to achieve. Learn the approach, the behaviours and the skills needed to build high performing teams by visiting enhance.training at https://enhance.training/msa-usp006 --- How to be a great manager starts with how you view your job as manager. Managers create the most value through their teams. Your team is critical to enable you to do a great job. Great managers know this and work hard to make their team as good as they can be. How to be a better manager starts by putting the team before yourself. Working in service to your team is the best way to work in service to yourself as a leader. This is more important than great manager skills. What makes you a good manager is how much the team trusts you. Without trust there is no team, only a collection of individuals. Teams outperform groups of independent individuals. Working for the team is a brilliant way of building trust. For how to be a better manager and leader, focus on the environment you are creating. A lot of management skills go into creating a great trusting team environment – most important are what your decisions, actions and behaviours communicate to the team. How to be a good manager is partly about how well you can manager yourself. How to become a better manager at work – learn to be comfortable with conflict. Every organisation will have a level of conflict. Resources are limited, different teams have different objectives etc, PLUS every person is different. Conflict is guaranteed. How well you manage conflict – both constructive and destructive is essential for team success. Partnering with and valuing team members is vital for how to be a good manager and leader. Managers depend on their teams. You don’t have a job without a team. Admire each person’s strengths. Support them to develop further. Value what they bring to the team. Your beliefs about the team will be obvious through your actions and behaviours. Get your mental approach right – one of the key manager skills you need. How to be a good manager at work must include being unfailingly results orientated. Results is what your company need your team to deliver. Team results is what you are personally being assessed on. Great managers always focus their teams of delivering results. If you have any questions on “What Great Managers Do That Okay Ones Don’t – 5 Secrets To Become A Better Manager”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you. Jess Coles Enhance.training

Making decisions reality at work or getting a decision implemented by others to achieve a desired result - is far harder than making the decision itself. Improve decision buy-in from your boss, your team, and others, to make the implementation of decisions quicker, easier, and more successful. I share the steps and tactics I use in persuading others to buy-in to the decisions made and work to make them a reality. --- How to Execute and Make Things Happen - Podcast https://enhance.training/how-to-execute-and-make-things-happen-tm0050/ --- Being persuasive with team members is essential to be an effective and good manager. There are so many decisions made by others that you have to work with your team to put into practice. Gaining buy-in at work, particularly with those implementing difficult decisions or complex decisions, is essential to make those decisions effective and get implemented. There are four useful decision making routes I suggest you use when making decisions which help with decision implementation. These are: 1. Unilateral 2. Consult and decide 3. Build consensus 4. Unanimous I explain exactly how to use each route when making decisions at work. Matching the route to the decision type is a key skill to get decisions implemented quickly and successfully. To persuade others quickly and effectively, I use a 5 step process to plan how I am going to gain decision buy-in commitment. These steps are: 1. Who are the influencers 2. Understand their position 3. Work out the impact 4. Explain the benefits 5. Gain the right support level I go through how I use each step to gain commitment and make decisions a reality at work. Finally, I use a ReCODE model for communicating decisions and recommendation to get buy-in and the action I need from bosses, team members and other stakeholders. When making decisions, always think about the quickest route to getting the result you need rather than the quickest way to make a decision. If you have any questions on “Improve Decision Buy-In - Making Decisions Reality At Work”, please leave them in the comments section and I will get back to you. Jess Coles Enhance.training

Learn how to give an effective performance review and you have a great tool to motivate and develop team members alongside giving them realistic feedback about their performance. With the right preparation, you won’t feel nervous conducting a performance review. I share 12 vital tips for how to run a performance review meeting really well so your team member get loads out of it. -- -- The employee appraisal process starts when you set goals and objectives for your team members at the start of the year. How can you run an performance evaluation if you or the employee is not clear about what is good, okay and poor. The performance appraisal should be a summary of all the feedback conversations that you have already had. There should be no surprises coming out in the employee appraisal. 3 additional preparation steps for the appraisal meeting that I think you should do well in advance are: 1. Book out plenty of time to think through what you want to bring up in the performance review 2. Write down all the achievements, wins, successes plus add in the misses and what to improve on, so you have a balanced employee evaluation 3. Ask peers, bosses, and team stakeholders for their feedback before the employee review Taking these steps gives you a lot to talk about and share with the team member. Make sure most of what talk about is focus on how they can improve what they are doing, regardless of the current performance level. How to conduct a performance review meeting starts with working out your agenda for the annual performance review meeting. I suggest using: 1. Intros and communicating the Agenda 2. Ask the employee to talk through their performance 3. Give your specific feedback on performance and invite discussion 4. Talk through the employee’s career plans 5. Discuss the employee development plan and the opportunities 6. Jointly agreed the goals and actions for manager and employee During performance reviews, go through each of these agenda items. In the video I talk through each agenda item in more detail. A key part of performance review tips for managers is to make sure that you follow up after the performance review has been finished. There is so much you can do to help your team member get better quicker. For example, I suggest you book in weekly one-on-one meeting every week or every other week to teach, mentor and coach your direct reports. You have so much knowledge and experience to pass on plus you will learn loads in these meetings. The more you know about what is going on in the team, the better job you will do, and the quicker team performance will improve. If you have any questions on “How To Give An Effective Performance Review – 12 Vital Tips To Action”, please leave them in the comments below and I will get back to you. Jess Coles Enhance.training ----- Example of Specific Feedback Rather than saying “you have done a great job - well done” say "I have been really impressed at your attention to detail as evidenced by the quality of your work. I and many others I have spoken to continue to be delighted with the skill you have displayed when managing difficult customers and how you leave them feeling listened to and taken seriously. You have been just as good at supporting your team members, taking the time to help them resolve problems. You have done a great j

The more visible to your bosses you are, and the more you make your work visible, the faster you will be promoted and the further your career will progress. To get promoted you have to be good AND be more visible to your bosses than your competition. I share six key tactics for you to increase your visibility at work making getting promotion at work easier. --- Free Resources For more tips and advice on how to raise your profile and tips on how to market yourself internally in your organisation, I have a free downloadable booklet available: https://enhance.training/lm-lp/market-internally-booklet/ --- The six tactics and a ton of tips to make you more visible at work start with finding your authentic voice. To increase your workplace visibility, you must share your ideas, views, and solutions. If you don’t have a considered and thought through view, you won’t be noticed at work. When you are good at your job, you will have ton of views, ideas, and solutions to share. Be more visible at work by communicating intelligently with your boss, peers, colleagues and stakeholders and sharing the value you are adding to the business. When you have ideas and solutions, there are so many ways to become more visible, to get noticed at work. Start small. Consistently keep your boss and stakeholders up to date with your progress against goals. The next of my secrets to increase your visibility at work is to diplomatically stop others taking credit for your work. Don’t talk negatively about colleagues that try to take your credit. I talk though exactly what to do. Another great way for how to increase your visibility at work is to regularly, and publicly, celebrate your team’s success. This has so many benefits in addition to increasing your visibility. For getting promoted at work, I suggest you work at helping your colleagues be successful. I know this sounds counter intuitive yet being a team player is so important. You must also communicate what you have done to help and the impact of that help regularly to your boss and stakeholders. This is another great way to stand out at work. To increase your visibility at work, I suggest you work on becoming your boss’s most valuable supporter. This is much easier than you think and gives you a ton of benefits including raising your profile at work for all the right reasons. How to increase your visibility at work is a challenge everyone must tackle in today’s workplace. Make sure you know exactly how to get noticed at work and get promoted faster. If you have any questions on “How To Be More Visible To Your Bosses – Get Promoted Faster & Progress Further”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you. Jess Coles Enhance.training

It is scary to disagree with someone more powerful than you at work. Learn to disagree respectfully and you are more likely to stand out, create more value and earn faster career progress. Learn 7 ways to respectfully disagree, 5 thought processes for WHEN disagreeing with your boss is the right thing, and 4 actions to improve how you communicate your disagreement. How to disagree with your boss is a skill. Voicing your disagreement should only be done after considering the impact of speaking up. If the impact of any change is small, it is probably best to stay quiet. Picking your battles is important. When disagree respectfully at work make sure there is a clear business reason why you are disagreeing. Do not disagree for purely personal reasons. Always take into account of the culture, situation and person when you respectfully disagree. All should factor into the risk versus benefit though process before disagreeing. Before disagreeing with the boss consider the risk of saying nothing. What will be the impact on results and how will staying silent impact you in the future. The first of the steps to follow when disagreeing with your boss is to agree the guidelines or process for which your boss is okay with your disagreeing. Next for how to have a respectful disagreement with those more powerful than you, is to ask permission to disagree. This gives them power and puts them into listening mode. Next when thinking about how to disagree respectfully, restate the other person’s original position, idea, or solution. This confirms your understanding and that you have considered their perspective. I always think it beneficial to explain the purpose of you disagreeing with them. You can confirm the business goals or reasons behind your disagreement. Set out your structured argument. When disagree with someone more powerful you want to present yourself as professional and competent. The more compelling your argument, the more likely you will get a change. The next of the steps to disagree with your colleagues or boss is to invite their input and feedback. This promotes collaboration and teamwork. Finally, to disagree respectfully with someone more powerful than you, state that the final decision is theirs to make. There are many ways to disagree politely without upsetting or damaging relationships. How you disagree and how you communicate your disagreement are both very important. Don’t avoid disagreeing. Do avoid disagreeing badly. If you have any questions on “How To Disagree With Someone More Powerful – 7 Steps To Respectfully Disagree” please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you. Jess Coles Enhance.training