Enhance.training

Promoting an employee to manager is a very big deal. A great manager enables and increases team performance. A poor manager reduces team performance and increases team costs. Choosing to promote the right person is a very big deal for you, the team and the business.

Learn 7 behavioural signs to look for when thinking about who to promote to manager plus more great employee promotion best practices.
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The skills needed to be a great employee or contributor are very different from being a great manager.  The employee to manager transition is not easy and many don’t make this transition successfully. Having a good employee promotion process to identify the most suitable management candidates will save you a lot of time, costs and frustration.

Business success and the success of the teams you look after depends on the strength of your managers. People are at the heart of every business. 

Becoming a great manager is very much a personal journey as it is a professional journey. Having good manager skills is only part of the picture. Knowing how to use those skills to get the best from teams is a much more important to increase team performance. 

As part of employee promotion evaluation, I suggest you look for 7 behavioural signs your potential manager should be displaying before they are promoted. If several of these are missing, I suggest delaying promoting or not promoting at all.

Good energy levels are also important as being a manager is a tough job and to be good needs hard work. 

I also think to be a good manager, you need good self-awareness. Without good self-awareness it is very hard to manage yourself well. Good self-management gives you an important platform to be able to manage others well.

Another essential for potential managers to look for is their ability to self-learn. The quicker and more independently they can learn, the more likely they will build the management skills they need. 

Finally, good organisational awareness is very important to be a good manager. We all work with others, other team and departments. A manager needs to coordinate and prioritise work and support other areas of the business. Good organisational awareness enables them to be a much better job as a manager.

Promotion at work is a big deal for anyone. Promoting an employee to manager, and getting it right is very much in everyone’s best interests, particularly yours!

If you have any questions on “Promoting an Employee To Manager – Who to Choose & Why”, please email me at [email protected] and I will get back to you.

Jess Coles

Enhance.training

How well do you deal with uncertainty at work? We all have to deal with uncertainty – businesses are always changing and adapting, so we do too. Yet humans hate uncertainty. Our brains translate it into a treat and our natural reactions are often unhelpful.

I share 8 different ways to deal with uncertainty at work – 4 for you personally and 4 to help your team through uncertainty.

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Team Management Course

Managing teams well is hard work, even when you know exactly what to do. When you have been left to figure things out by yourself, getting good at your job is ten times harder and slower. 

Learning great management approaches, knowledge and skills make a huge difference to your effectiveness, your enjoyment and your career progress. Invest in becoming a great manager through our Management Skills Accelerator courses – learn more here: https://enhance.training/msa-usp006

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It is not easy to manage uncertainty at work, particularly when the pace of change is much faster than we are used to. Change means learning new things and adapting – all of which takes effort and work. Good reasons why many don’t like dealing with uncertainty at work.

How to deal with uncertainty starts with accepting that change is needed and expected at work. It is part of modern life. Accepting a level of change is a good way of coping with uncertainty.

How to deal with uncertainty at work also include not worrying about what you can’t control or influence. Worry will not change the outcomes. Not worrying will massively improve your mental state. 

Another of the good tips for dealing with uncertainty is to focus on the present. Focus on what you can do today, what the next task or activity needs to be. Don’t think too far ahead. Keep yourself busy – another good tip for how to cope with uncertainty.

Another best way to deal with uncertainty is to create contingencies and action plans. Planning is 100% in your control. Work out what you are going to do if a certain situation happens rather than worrying about if the situation will happen. 

I also share 4 very valuable approaches for how to deal with change and uncertainty when you are leading a team. Imagine a group of individuals worry about uncertainty and the rumour mill working around the clock … how would you keep your team focused and delivering even in period of significant change. I have 4 great approaches for you, tried and tested in workplaces experiencing huge amounts of change.

If you have any questions on “8 Ways to Deal With Uncertainty At Work”, please email me at [email protected] and I will get back to you. 

Jess Coles
Enhance.training

I know how to ask for and get a raise, yet I hate asking for a raise. Asking for a pay rise is an emotional big deal for most of us.

Make sure you are using the best approach to absolutely get the pay rise you deserve – increase your salary today!
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Additional Resources you will find useful:

Get more FREE example scripts for how to ask your boss for a raise here: https://enhance.training/lm-lp/salary-raise-example-conversations-ulp028/ 
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How to ask for a pay rise starts with know two fundamental requirements to get a pay rise. 1 you are adding more value than last year. 2 you are a good employee and team player who your boss wants to keep.

When you are definitely doing both, when you ask for a raise, you should get it. 

The best way to ask for a raise is to do 3 vital bits of preparation first. You are much more likely to get a salary increase when you have done you job market research, can show your value and demonstrate your performance relative to your peers. Negotiating a salary raise with good research is a lot more successful and you are much more likely to get a bigger raise.

How to ask and get a pay rise must include looking at job adverts for your job and also speaking to recruitment consultants. You get great information AND you also hint to your boss that you could leave for another job. Without realistic market information you are very much on the back foot for how to negotiate a raise.

Another great tactic for how to ask for a raise and get it is to translate your top achievements over the last year into financial figures and compare these to your salary. The more value you can demonstrate you add to the business, the more likely asking for a raise at work will be successful. 

I have also include an asking for a raise example which walks you through what to say to your boss for how to get a salary increase.

Lastly, I include what you should expect after you have had the pay raise conversation.

If you have any questions on “How to ask for and get a raise - increase your salary today”, please email me at [email protected] and I will get back to you.

Jess Coles
Enhance.training

What should a manager do? What is the purpose of a manager? There are two fundamental outcomes a manager needs to deliver for the company that pays their salary. Deliver both well and you will have a great career in management. Don’t deliver either and you won’t last long.

Learn what a manager needs to deliver, and I share some of the best ways to achieve each that I have learnt in my 20+ year management career in many top companies.
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Team Management Course

Managing teams well is hard work, even when you know exactly what to do. When you have been left to figure things out by yourself, getting good at your job is ten times harder and slower. 

Learning great management approaches, knowledge and skills make a huge difference to your effectiveness, your enjoyment and your career progress. Invest in becoming a great manager through our Management Skills Accelerator courses – learn more here: https://enhance.training/msa-usp006

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Most know that both good and bad managers make decisions, organise work, manage communications and look after teams - their approach and intentions very different.  

The crucial role of a manager is to increase team performance. This is one of the fundamental reasons a manager is employed. 

The easiest, quickest and most reliable way to have a very positive impact on your team members, and increase team performance,  is to help them, to support them and to serve the interests of the team.

I share 5 of the best ways for how to increase team performance that I know. Each of these crucial manager skills will increase team performance quickly and keep it high over the long term. This also covers the very core manager functions roles and skills you must focus on every single day to be successful. 

The second vital part of what do managers do is to help increase the performance and success of a business in which they work. Business success is a key set of manager roles and responsibilities. If there is no business, no-one has a job. 

I share 4 key tips on how to put yourself in the best position to be able to increase the success of any business regardless of your exact management role.

If you are asking yourself “As a manager what should I do?”, this video gives you a great starting blueprint for success in a management career. 

If you have any questions on “Understanding The Purpose Of A Manager – What Should A Manager Do” or how to be a manager, please email me at [email protected] and I will get back to you.

Jess Coles
Enhance.training

How to get more respect as a manager or leader from the team you lead is an awful lot easier when you follow 3 hugely important principles. You can put these into practice immediately, whether you are a new manager or have many years’ experience.

Learn a ton of practical tips to get the respect of your team quickly
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Team Management Course

Managing teams well is hard work, even when you know exactly what to do. When you have been left to figure things out by yourself, getting good at your job is ten times harder and slower. 

Learning great management approaches, knowledge and skills make a huge difference to your effectiveness, your enjoyment and your career progress. Invest in becoming a great manager through our Management Skills Accelerator courses – learn more here: https://enhance.training/msa-usp006

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How to get your team to respect you starts with how you as a manager make their lives at work better. If you can’t or won’t try to make their lives better - more enjoyable, more productive, more successful – then you won’t get their respect. 

It is a core human requirement – we want leaders that help the group and us.  How to gain respect from your employees is about how well you deliver against this human need and how you go about it.

Learn 6 very good ways to publicly demonstrate to your team as a whole and to each team member your ability to help them. All are great for how to gain respect as a manager. These are also great tips for how to be a good new manager.

1.      Set Really Clear Goals & Expectations

2.      Proactively Solve Problems for your Team

3.      Protect Your Team

4.      Live your Rules

5.      Communicate Progress & Provide Support

6.      Help Team Members Learn Faster

The second principle for how to gain more respect at work as a manager or leader is to think partnership rather than boss-employee. After all, you need you team members as much as they need you. Learn 6 useful ways to foster a partnership approach that gives you and your team real tangible benefits.

The mental transition from directly controlling your success as a worker to indirectly influencing your success as a manager or leader is a difficult shift for many. For any manager, making this shift is crucial for how to get respect at work.

How to gain respect at workplace as a manager – improve the performance of your team. Improving team performance is the core reason to employ a manager.

The last principle for how to make people respect you at work is to use the power of your position to help others and the company, not yourself. This is huge! It is very easy to be tempted to use power to make your own life easier at the expense of others. Do this and you quickly damage the respect others have for you.

If you have any questions on “How To Get More Respect As A Manager – 3 Vital Principles”, please email me at [email protected] and I will get back to you.

Jess Coles

Enhance.training

Every manager wants to keep their high performing staff longer. High performing employees deliver a lot more value for relatively little more in pay. Keep enough high performers in your team, manage them well and you are nearly guaranteed at least good team performance. 

I share 5 actions to keep high performing staff longer 

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How to keep high performers starts with your approach and attitude towards them. Treating your high performing staff as partners will

1.      Make them feel more valued and appreciated

2.      You will utilise more of their talents 

3.      The right mindset will create more development opportunities for them

4.      They will get more autonomy and responsibility from a partnership approach

 Plus you and they get a ton more benefits. You want to get the most you can from your best staff so cultivate a great partnership mindset from the start. 

Next, proactively create good development opportunities for your high performers at work. This is easy to say yet quite a bit harder to do in practice. I share the 5 best ways I have come across for getting the most high-value development to your high performers in the workplace.

Third, provides lots of honest and structure feedback to your high performance individuals. High performers want to know what they are not doing well probably more than what they are doing well. Learn tips on giving corrective feedback without offending and how much positive feedback is needed to keep high performing employees happy. 

Another massive motivator for high performing staff is minimising distractions and pain points which reduce their output and annoy them. This is an essential priority to create high performing teams. Learn about how to mitigate 4 common problems that always come up in nearly every company that such time and motivation from team members and particularly the high performing staff. 

Lastly, pay your high performing staff well. There are common barriers to paying enough salary in practice to make moving more difficult for high performers. Learn how to overcome these issues without causing problems in the rest of the team. 

The actions to keep high performing staff for longer must not annoy or upset the rest of the team. Getting the right balance is really important. Learn how to do this. 

If you have any questions on “5 Actions To Keep High Performing Staff Longer”, please email me at [email protected] and I will get back to you. 

Jess Coles

enhance.training

Being more persuasive at work gives you a ton of personal benefits plus can make you a lot better at your job.  Anyone can become more persuasive at work using 4 specific actions without needing to be a smooth talking extrovert or a born salesman. 

Learn exactly how to convince others at work to do what you need.
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How to be more persuasive starts with understanding the person or team you are trying to persuade. What are the wants, desires, pains, obstacles etc. If you can’t put yourself in the other person’s shoes, persuading them to do what you need is very much an uphill battle. 

Ask questions and listen to put yourself in a good position with how to persuade people. The more you understand the other person the better you can work out how to convince people to do what you want.

Showing empathy and demonstrating have taken the time to understand the other person is the next step for how to be persuasive at work. Showing you are receptive to them and are interested in their position will make them a lot more receptive to you and your position. A key part of being persuasive skills at work.

Then you can work to create a solution that helps the other person get at least a part of what they want while they are helping you or aligning with what you want. Always look for a win-win solution when persuading others. We all do what is in our own best interests first. 

Finally, I cover how to build the trust shortcut which will slash the time and effort you need to put in to convince other. Trust makes how to convince employees a whole lot easier and quicker. In my opinion a very worthwhile investment. 

If you have any questions on “4 Actions For Being More Persuasive At Work – How to Convince Colleagues” please email me at [email protected] and I will get back to you. 

Jess Coles

Enhance.training

Why improving self awareness will make you a better leader – leading others is all about relationships. When you have a great and honest relationship with yourself, you are much better placed to have similar relationships with others. 

Better relationships increase trust, teamwork, motivation, enjoyment … in a work context the list is long. Increase all these elements and you get significantly increased team performance, and in turn company performance. 

There is a lot at stake. We start with what is self awareness? I pose a ton of questions for how to improve your self awareness and get you thinking about what steps you can take today.
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Why self awareness is important at work?  Becoming a good manager and leader is a personal journey as much as a professional journey. How well we know ourselves and can manage ourselves, in my view, is directly related to how well we can manage other. Being more self aware is an essential step to self improvement and personal development. Become a better leader at work by first leading yourself better.

There has been a lot in the business press in recent years about self awareness and emotional intelligence for very good reason. A lack of self awareness is a huge blocker or barrier to good management of others. Increasing the performance of any team through better management (rather than changing the team members) is an incredibly valuable skillset and delivers hundreds of thousands plus of extra value to companies.

I pose a ton of questions for you to consider answering to yourself about what is self awareness and why is it important in a leadership context.

I then explain why it is so incredibly valuable for you to put in the effort and time to become more self ware, to learn more about who you are, what you want and what makes you tick. 

Be a better leader at work. Work on know more about yourself.

If you have any questions on “What Is Self-Awareness And Why Improving It Will Make You A Better Leader”, please email me at [email protected] and I will get back to you. 

Jess Coles
Enhance.training

A great project business case creates excitement and anticipation within the business for the benefits promises. In addition to the upsides, a project business case should carefully set expectations about the effort, resources and change needed to achieve those benefits.

I share 8 reasons why you should write a business case for a project, 4 damaging mistakes to avoid plus 8 key sections to include. 
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Project Business Case Checklist – write a more persuasive business case and set your project up for success. https://enhance.training/lm-lp/project-business-case-checklist-ulp027/

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Writing a project business case is a key starting point for project planning and what I would consider project management basics. I share 8 really valuable reasons to write a business case for a project. 

For example, do you really want to put your reputation on the line with a half thought through project plan. It would not be a good way to start persuading others to allocate resources and staff time ahead of other business opportunities.

Avoid 4 damaging mistakes when writing a business case in project management. Being realistic, doing your research and analysis and thinking through different scenarios and the problems that might arise in each are good project planning and management skills.

Classic mistakes are made by project managers when writing project business cases to try to get the project signed off and started. Inflating the upsides and downplaying costs are two. When you have a good project business case, you should be able to do the opposite and still have the business keen to sign off and start the project. 

A key test of project manager skills is setting realistic expectations or even expectations that the project team are happy they will exceed. This sets a project up for success from the start rather than trying to climb a mountain of expectation set with a poor business case.

How to write a great project business case must start with a good summary that covers all the key points - the goals, the benefits for the business, the ROI, the timeline, key project risks and mitigations and the key resources needed. 

Learn all about the remaining 7 sections to writing a great project business plan which will allow you to be more persuasive, start your project earlier and set much more realistic expectations across the business. 

If you have any questions about “How To Write A Great Project Business Case - 8 Key Sections To Include”, please email me at [email protected] and I will get back to you. 

Jess Coles

Enhance.training

Coaching is so effective for managers for many reasons and coaching team members is also a very effective skills for team managers to develop. 

I share 5 factors that make coaching so effective for managers, plus coaching development tips to maximise the development of your most important team members. 
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For coaching for you or your team, please get in touch via email [email protected] or call +44 203 500 6300 to discuss if coaching with me would be a good fit for you and what you are looking to achieve.
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What makes coaching so effective for managers and high performers is focus on developing the person’s character as well as management and leadership skills. How a leader or managers thinks and approaches management is much more important than having the right skills. Just think about your best and worst managers – I bet the difference had little to do with their actual skills and everything to do with how they approached managing.

Leaders and managers make the biggest impact on the business. They make the decisions with the biggest impact and influence the performance and well being of the most people. When leaders and managers do a good job, them most of their team members also do a good job. If you don’t provide  leadership development training, then how much are you limiting business success?

Another great reason to use leadership coaching is you are helping the managers develop their own coaching skills - it is coaching training for managers. Building coaching skills expands their management toolkit. They can then use these skills to better develop and motivate their teams. I personally think of a great manager as a coach. 

Coaching skills for leaders are so effective to develop talented people because using coaching skills helps them develop their:

1.      Problem solving skills

2.      Decision making skills

3.      People management skills

These are all high value skills that significantly increase business performance when used well across the business.

Develop coaching skills across your business, in my view, is a must do to get more from your staff. 

If you have any questions on “5 factors that makes coaching so effective for managers + coaching tips”, please email me at [email protected] and I will get back to you.

Jess Coles

Enhance.training