Enhance.training

Learning how to play office politics to your advantage is a crucial part of any management job. Workplace politics happen because of conflicts, differences and scarcity. Navigating office politics is a key part of building personal influence within the organisation in which you work. 

Learn 6 Crucial Ways to Successfully Navigate Workplace Politics.

How to manage office politics starts with ensuring you are aware of the politics at work. Ask questions to those in your network to find out what is happening around the business and who is pushing what.

Company politics, in my opinion, covers the skills and actions you take to build influence within the business. 

When thinking about how to handle office politics don’t chose to ignore it. You will be handicapping your career progress and ability to do your job as a manager effectively.

Influence is power. How to handle office politics is also about using the influence or power you gain to do the best you can for the company and group as a whole. Influence is given to you by others. If you are self-serving, unpleasant, unhelpful etc, you will lose influence and be shut out of meetings and decisions. 

Working in the best interests of others significantly increases your influence and is a great approach for how to win at office politics. This doesn’t mean you are a charity. Do favours for others and they will feel obliged to return those favours. 

A key tool in dealing with office politics is mapping out who you need to get to know and build relationships with. The larger more complex the organisation, the more important this step is. 

Another important part of how to handle politics at work is to build bridges and allies. Both happen when you build trust and relationships with others. 

Finally, when planning how to handle workplace politics, work on building a positive reputation. A good reputation will mean navigating the politics, building trust and relationships will be a lot easier. Proactively work on building your reputation.

Throughout all sections I share how to deal with office politics tips,

If you have any questions on “Office politics – 6 Crucial Ways to Successfully Navigate Workplace Politics” please email me at [email protected] and I will get back to you. 

Jess

Enhance.training

Learn 7 ways to use 1:1 meetings to develop employees and improve performance of the team. One-on-one meetings with employees are the most value able of my week and it is incredible what you can achieve through them. 

One on one meetings are super useful in setting goals and expectations and more importantly revising progresses towards goals and maintaining expectations. One-to-one should be held in private.

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One-on-One Meeting Booklet (13 pages)
Learn exactly how to run brilliant one-on-one meetings for better relationships, increased development and improved indiviudal performance - all of which helps you improve team performance. Learn more here: https://enhance.training/lm-lp/one-on-one-meeting-agenda-ulp030/

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Setting really clear goals in one on one meetings should be a priority for every manager. Too many don’t put enough time into creating clear goals, leading to confusion and lack of direction. Improve performance by being clear.

Next, use 1-2-1 meetings to prioritise what your team members work on. Explain how they can create more value for the team and focus more of their work on these higher value activities and say no to the lower value ones. This makes a big difference to team performance. 

In one-on-one meetings, I love asking questions of my direct reports and listening to find out key blockers and problems team members are facing. You can develop employees by getting them thinking and providing solutions. The more your team are thinking, the more you build a higher performing team.

When developing employees, provide praise to positively reinforce the good stuff and corrective feedback so they know what to improve and how to do this. Whenever you are giving feedback, always give feedback in service of developing staff.

Really effective one on one meetings should include time to coaching and developing employees.  When thinking about how to develop employees, think about all the skill you have because you are a manager and share these. 

How to coach and develop employees should include problem solving. In 1:1 meetings, this is fun to do and really helps build their problem solving skills, which in turn helps reduce the pressure and burden on you. 

Finally, when developing your employees focus on improving their decision making during your one on one meetings. These are vital skills to build to progress their career into the management ranks. 

One-to-one meetings are a great tool to build high performing teams. 

If you have any questions on “7 Ways to Use 1:1 Meetings to Develop Employees & Improve Performance”, please lemail me at [email protected] and I will get back to you. 

Jess

Enhance.training

Self-awareness for managers is an essential skill to lead and manage others better. Most people think they are self-aware, yet research has shown only 10-15% of people are truly self-aware.

Take 5 actions to improve your self-awareness and make it easier to manage teams.
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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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Developing self-awareness as a manager is essential to success. If you can’t manage yourself, how can you manage others successfully?

Firstly, lets cover “What is self-awareness?” It is your ability to perceive and understand what makes you an individual.

Increasing self-awareness at work will give you a huge range of benefits. Research has show those with good self awareness build better relationships, communicate more effectively, are more confident and creative and make better decisions. 

Growing self-awareness takes a little bit of work, yet the rewards personally and professionally are brilliant. Learn 5 steps to increase your self-awareness.

From my experience, increasing self-awareness to manage others better is an invaluable process and it makes you more comfortable with who you are and helps you manage more authentically, honestly, and effectively.

Increase your self-awareness and you will become better at managing how you display your emotions which is essential to build trust, confidence and credibility as a manager.

How to improve your self-awareness is an important question. The 5 actions for becoming more self-aware including:
1.How to get and use honest useful feedback
2.Ask What instead of Why
3.Understand and use your values
4.Be confident using strengths and managing weaknesses
5.Learn what drives strong emotions in you

Developing self-awareness as quickly and as easily as possible is super useful for all managers and all stages of their career. After 25 years of managing teams, I am still working on improving both the two types of self awareness.

If you have any questions on “Self Awareness for Managers – 5 Actions to Improve Your Self-Awareness”, please email me at [email protected] and I will get back to you.

Jess
Enhance.training

Articulate yourself better! I share 8 powerful ways to be more articulate. When you can articulate your thoughts clearly and confidently to others, you gain a lot of confidence, feel more valued and be more effective at work.

What does it mean to be more articulate? Being articulate means being clearer in what you say – the words, sentences etc used and also being better at how you communicate – using your voice, body language, emphasis etc.

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Gain Career Changing Management Expertise

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Courses for Managers to Increase Team Performance & Results

The quickest, easiest and cheapest way to improve team results is to improve the management of the team. Learn the management skills and approach that created multiple high performing teams, won “Best Team” prizes and added millions in value. https://enhance.training/msa-usp006/

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There are so many benefits from being able to articulate yourself well. Firstly you can save yourself and others a lot of time when you can articulate your thoughts well. 

When you clearly articulate your thoughts, you are likely to enjoy more success professionally as you increase teamwork, your impact and influence within the business.

The benefits of being more articulate also include stronger relationships with colleagues and friends as you present yourself more authentically. 

Being able to speak more clearly, helps you build a better and bigger network to support you personally and your career growth.

Finally, when you can better articulate your thoughts, you will be better at public speaking which many see as a pre-requisite for promotion into management and leadership positions.

How to become more articulate is the next logical question. I share 8 powerful ways for how to be more articulate. This includes how to become more articulate when speaking to small groups as well as giving presentations to large audiences.

Each of the ways to become more articulate includes practical suggestions and tips of what to put into practice and how to build your articulation skills through practicing. 

If you have any questions on “Articulate Yourself Better – 8 Powerful Ways To Be More Articulate”, please email me at [email protected] and I will get back to you.

 Jess

Enhance.training

Why consistency is key to success in improving team performance is because consistency creates confidence, trust, belief, safety and ensures team members understand exactly what is expected.

I share 5 steps to master consistency in people management.

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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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Success is all about consistency. The same is true when managing teams. The majority of team members need structure, clears goals and consistent expectations to enable them to consistently perform well and to enjoy their job. 

Why consistency is key at work – consistent actions create clear expectations, certainty, and trust. The power of consistency helps team members get better at their roles and delivers higher team performance as everyone know what to expect and how to deliver against those expectations. 

When the manager’s actions behaviours and decisions are aligned with the key goals of the team, the manager reinforces expectations and the importance of the team direction. This is how consistency builds confidence in a team.

Master the art of consistency in people management with 5 steps I try to use when increasing team performance and building higher performing teams.

The first step is using your values as reference points to harness the power of consistency in leadership. Doing so keeps your decisions, actions and behaviours in line with the goals you have agreed with the team. 

Second, communicate a clear vision and repeatedly communicate it. The messaging consistency is key. 

Third, for how to be consistent, always check alignment between your actions and decisions and the direction of the team and its goals. 

Fourth, the power of being consistent with your behaviour as a manager is huge and helps team performance significantly. 

Finally, to improve your people management skills, keep practicing, adjusting what you do and repeating. Practice will consistently improve your skills. That is why consistency is key in building strong management skills just like any skill.

If you have any questions on “People Management - Why Consistency is Key to Success & 5 Steps to Achieve Consistency”, please leave them in the comments section below and I will get back to you. 

 Jess

Enhance.training

Gaining employee trust - working out how to build trust with a team – is a key step to building and  improving team performance. Without trust, delivering on all the other responsibilities of a manager become so much harder. I share 7 actions for how to build trust with your team.

Winning team trust is most easily done while being genuine, while doing your best to help and support team members reach team goals. Start by understanding there are two types of trust most people look for. The steps to gain the trust of your team should keep both in mind.

Winning employee trust should start with listening. Ask for the team’s input, ideas and solutions. When you get them, choose the appropriate ones and act – put them into practice. Taking action is a great start to gaining staff trust.

Encourage trust with your team by empowering them. Let them do their jobs. Extent trust to earn trust back.

Winning the teams trust at work by being open and transparent. This holds you accountable in the same way as they are being held accountable. Plus it gives the employees more opportunity to be autonomous and contribute to solutions.

Gain the trust of a team by demonstrating consistency of action. This create psychological safety with employees – they know what to expect from you in a range of situations. 

Lead by example when building trust in a team. Live the same rules that you are asking your team to live by. Show the team how to behave and what you expect of them.

There is no better way to winning the teams trust – that I know – than working hard in service of the team. Help, support, coach, remove problems  - anything that will fairly help the team reach its goals and support team members.

Build trust with employees is easy when you have a trustworthy mindset and management approach. Look after your team, protect your team and develop your team. Work to make it as easy as possible for them to do a great job.

If you have any questions on “Gaining Employee Trust – how to build trust with a team”, please email me at [email protected]  and I will get back to you. 

Jess

Enhance.training

Leaders should care about bullying on their teams and within their companies because the negative impact on performance and costs is big. I share 5 reasons managers should care about bullying and 7 suggestions for how to stop bullying in the workplace.

The impact of bullying on teams is big. 33% report they have seen colleagues being bullied. If managers don’t appear to take action, then team trust heads downwards quickly.

If managers are bullying staff and the leaders in the business ignore it or don’t take action, the cost of bullying to companies jumps – in lower performance, higher staff turnover, inability to recruit good staff with sensible wages, increased litigation and a drain on management time. 

The immediate cost of bullying in the workplace is damaged trust. In my view, if you don’t have trust, you don’t have a team. A team outperforms a group of individuals day in day out. Without trust, ideas, solutions, motivation and performance all get weaker - throughout the team.

How bullying impacts team performance starts with the individual being bullied. They spend lots of time and energy dealing with the bullying which means their personal performance falls. Their colleagues observing the bullying and management not taking action start worrying about when its their turn. Those phone calls from recruiters become more appealing. The better team members leave and performance really starts dropping. 

With team performance dropping, think about how bullying impacts the manager bonus.

The impact of bullying in the workplace when trying to recruit results in fewer top candidates being recruited and having to pay everyone more to join. Glassdoor and similar review websites make is easy to find out about the culture before joining. 

Why managers should care about bullying includes increased legal risk of lawsuits that cost a lot and take up huge amounts of management time. 

I go through 7 suggestions for preventing and managing bullying in the workplace.  Workplace bullying stops high performing teams being created so anything managers and leaders can do to stop workplace bullying is hugely important. 

If you have any questions on “5 Reasons Leaders Should Care About Bullying & 7 Ways to Stop Bullying”, please email me at [email protected] and I will get back to you. 

 Jess

Enhance.training

Success is getting your employees thinking. For any manager, the more your employees can help you do your job, the better off you will be, the company will be, and your employees will be. 

I share why you should get your employees thinking, 3 key ways to get your team members thinking and when to assign problems not tasks at work.

Success is getting your employees thinking because when you are using your team’s problem solving capability, you are encouraging your team to improve its performance and you are making your life as a manager a lot easier. 

There are so many reasons why you should get your employees thinking. You get a more motivated team; a team that is more engaged and takes more ownership; and a team with increasing problem solving skills and confidence, all of which lead to better team performance. There are a lot of benefits for you personally as the manager too.

When giving work to the team, consider how to get your employees thinking. One of my favourite ways is to assign problems not tasks to team members. There are lots of reasons to assign problems not tasks, particularly to the higher performing team members. 

When delegating and organising others, inevitably you will have team members asking you to make decisions or solve problems on their behalf. Do you best to avoid giving them the answers before they have provided their opinions and solutions. This is a key part of team performance management or building the capabilities of the team.

Additionally, for the difficult problems that have not been encountered before, using a small group of team members often produces a much better solution than a single individual on their own. Consider this approach when problem solving.

High performing team use as much of the team capability as possible. Getting employees thinking is a key way of using the team’s collective brainpower and to generate ideas. 

If you have any questions on “Success is Getting Your Employees Thinking – Problem Solving & Team Development”, please email me at [email protected] and I will get back to you.

 Jess

Enhance.training

Managers should have opinions and express them. Too many of us view expressing an opinion at work as a potentially dangerous move. Learn why speaking up is so important, how to speak up at work and when to express your opinion at work plus 10+ tips to make speaking up easier.

Expressing an opinion at work is a key way to be noticed AND more importantly giving your opinion is a key way you can add a lot of value at work. You are an expert in your area so your opinion is very important.

By creating value through giving your opinion, your are increasing your chances of promotion, you are increasing the respect and appreciation your get, you are also creating and controlling your brand. All super valuable. 

4 tips for speaking up at work include do your homework, be diplomatic, speak confidently, and align your opinions to team and company objectives. I include more on how to put each into practice. 

When to express your opinion at work is as important as giving your opinion without offending. I go through 4 common times to share your opinion, such as in meetings.

Another key concern – 70% of employees – is about expressing your opinion at work is experiencing  repercussions. When your opinion is expressed and positioned in service of getting the best outcome for the team and business, you minimise repercussions. I share additional tips on giving your opinion and safe ways to challenge at work.

How to have an opinion or giving useful opinions using data, insights and facts to back up your opinion makes your opinion particularly valuable and thus will be listened to more often.

In my view, managers should express opinions – it is part of your job AND even more importantly, should strive to ensure team members feel safe expressing their opinions. This is 110% in your best interests because then you have a much bigger range of ideas and solutions to choose from. 

If you have any questions on “Managers Should Have Opinions – Why Speaking Up is so Important”, please email me at [email protected] and I will get back to you. 

Jess

Enhance.training

Deliver great customer services and you will be liked and appreciated. As a manager or a business owner, knowing practical steps to deliver great customer service is super important. 

 When thinking about ways to deliver better customer service, we usually think about external customers or clients. Great customer service is just as important internally. As managers, our teams work with many colleagues within the business, each of which should be considered for as part of providing great customer service.

Deliver great customer service, and our external customers are much more likely to want to use our products and services. Deliver better customer service and our colleagues will want to work with us and not let us down.

In this podcast, we are discussing 4 Practical Steps to Deliver Great Customer Service with customer services expert Pierre Bauzee from Beyond Satisfaction.

 For more help use the free resources available:

 https://enhance.training/team-and-business-management-resources/ 

 https://beyondstatisfaction.co.uk

 If you have any questions on “4 Practical Steps to Deliver Great Customer Service” please email me at [email protected]

 Jess

Enhance.training