Making Business Matter (MBM)

Sticky Learning Lunches #13: Create Your Own Personal Development Plan

Understand the 5 simple steps to create your personal development plan in Part 2 of this PDP series.

You Can Read the Full Transcript Below:

Nathan Simmonds:

Amazing, right? We are just giving it a couple more minutes or minutes for the people to carry on arriving. People are still entering the room, which is good. Hope everyone is having a great Tuesday. Given the UK the weather has taken a slight change, so it's a little bit cooler and it's rainy instead of sunny. On a scale of one 10, before we get started, on a scale of one 10, how are you feeling?

Nathan Simmonds:

One being terrible, 10 being phenomenal. Whereabouts are you right now? Mindset, mentally right now in what you're doing, where you are right now in existence on, on what's going on. Getting a good spread of numbers. Got some ups and downs, a lot of people hitting eights out there. There's a nine. Fully focused and energized and ready. Thank you very much.

Nathan Simmonds:

Yeah, about a six weather cold work. Really busy, still working in the office. I'm feeling you on that. Although I'm working from home, that shift and whether that shift in temperature really brought my, my, uh, my mindset down a little bit today. Wherever you are on that scale, I will get, I'm just receiving a comment. Comment in there. Wherever you are on that scale, what can you do right now that is gonna take you one step higher, that's gonna take you to the next number?

Nathan Simmonds:

What's the one thing you can do right now that's gonna make you do that? Is it now to re oxygenate yourself? Is it stand up and stretch? Is it to give you, give me your full attention and see where this is gonna help you go in the next 20 to 30 minutes. What's that one thing that you can do to get, increase that energy you've got right now? Brush to my hair. Nice. Focus on myself at this time. Yeah, absolutely. Finish off one thing. Absolutely not. Take the feedback too personally.

Personal growth is key to success

 

Nathan Simmonds:

Feedback's a wonderful thing. It's a gift. There is no such thing as good or bad feedback. There is only ever feedback. The um, a thing is neither good or bad. It's the thinking that makes it so I paraphrase. There would always be something in there worth taking out. There'll always be something worth grabbing onto and going, okay, what actually do I need to do with that? How can that help me move forward? So it's important we do this. Uh, brush my hair is one of them.

Nathan Simmonds:

Before I go into any online meetings, before I even get into these, you know what the one thing that I do that just helps me to get really focused, brush my teeth. I know it sounds crazy. I brush 'em in the morning. I brush 'em in the evening. But before this, I think because I'm not physically in a room and I'm con I'm, I become hyper conscious of myself and maybe I've had a cup of tea or a cup of coffee or whatever, just brushing my teeth helps me get focused, helps me get more engaged in what I'm doing and then just feel fresher helps me deliver this content we are in.

Nathan Simmonds:

So let's get set up for success. Enough of the chitchat. Make sure you've got a drink handy. Let's make sure you've got herbal drinks, you've got water, making sure you're staying hydrated, even with the drop in temperature. You've got a fresh piece of paper, you've got a fresh notepad. No distractions on there, no other pieces of work at the top. You're gonna write keepers.

Nathan Simmonds:

Keepers are those things that you want to remember, that you want to read back through so that you can reignite your thinking so you can come up with new ideas as a result of going back through those doodles and those notes and those bullet points that you take from today's session. The goal, as always, is to get more than three. So anything that I say or any questions that people ask me and I'm sharing ideas and concepts, is to write down more than three keepers so that we can keep that momentum of thought going.

Nathan Simmonds:

That's what we do here at Sticky Learning. Let's get into this. Welcome to today's session. Welcome to today's Sticky Learning Lunch. Continuing. This is part two of the PDP planning. You know, personal development planning. This is about the structure. My name is Nathan Simmons, senior leadership coach and trainer for MBM, Making Business Matter, the Home of Sticky Learning. We are the provider of leadership development and soft skills to the grocery and manufacturing industry.

Nathan Simmonds:

I do with these sessions is to give you 20 minutes of learning, 10 minutes of q and a, focused on helping you be the best possible version of you in the work that you do right now and for when you return back to the workplace. Um, face-to-face. Are we already? Yes, I'm hoping that is the answer. I'm hoping you all said a positive affirmed. Yes. Today we are continuing to look at PDP is gonna be predominantly about structure is the first thing we wanna look at.

Nathan Simmonds:

This is gonna be the first step to our structure. Hello on. Let's come back out of that. I'm gonna step out that for two seconds. The question that I've got for you all, and this is a big question and again I'm gonna say this again. HR and I have some challenges when I use this language. It's important we understand this. Do you have an exit strategy? What is your exit strategy for the project you're working on for the job that you are in for the career that you are moving in or out of?

Nathan Simmonds:

What is your strategy in order to make that happen? Now it's important. We've got some yeses coming up already. It's important that we understand that we start putting these strategies in place. What is it? Um, strategy without tactics is the long road to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat. Sun Sue, I can't remember what year he wrote that, but it was, um, potentially before Christ was born.

Nathan Simmonds:

So it's important that we understand that we have a strategy and we are employing the tactics to make those two elements work together. And having an exit strategy means that you can maintain that momentum and that curve on the way out of going on, on the way to going where you need to be.

Nathan Simmonds:

So we just had the comment come in Nova, I now, I'm now aware that I need to invest time into it. Absolutely. 'cause otherwise we don't know what's going on. The structure is the strategy that's gonna make that happen. So the first thing we wanna look at is how are we gonna make the strategy, sorry, how do I make the structure? The first step of this is to have an OAG, which is what we're gonna talk about today. Overarching

Nathan Simmonds:

Goal whenever I work with someone, uh, as a coach or as a trainer, is we always want to create an overarching goal. The overarching goal is the goal that you can see the furthest point out. It is the, um, the biggest, um, accomplishment, um, point you wanna be working to. So this could be three years from now. It could be five years from now. It could be 10, 20, 30, 40 depending on, on how you've cultivated your goal setting thinking and your approach to these things.

Nathan Simmonds:

It will be the goal that has, you know, it is the furthest out. And what this will do is when I'm coaching people, this will be the point that we are working to, this here will be the umbrella for everything we we're working on it inside those conversations, inside those sessions, the other actions that we start to work on and and um, review and develop will all sit underneath this umbrella helping us to move to that point there.

Nathan Simmonds:

That fateful question that we get asked when we're in an interview though, where do you see yourself in five years time? And we have the cliche answers and they've probably come up. Um, where do I see myself in five years time doing your job? 'cause it makes me sound, um, positive for an enthusiastic and, and all those things.

Nathan Simmonds:

The problem is with that question, well the problem is with answering that question is we don't get asked it enough and we don't ask ourselves that question enough and actually to, and to sit in it and find that answer and to work out where we want to go and what we want to do. And as a result of that, when we do get asked it, we get stumped. And the answer we often get is, I dunno. And we have to go away and ruminate on it and, and come up with ideas and it becomes difficult.

Nathan Simmonds:

So the first part of the structure is, is you want an overarching goal. Pole time. I think let's have a look at this big question for you all today. In line with the exit strategy. When did you start planning for your next job? We're gonna open the poll up quickly for this because I wanna get some ideas of, of when you started to do this. Have a look. So the polls open. When did you start planning for your next job?

Nathan Simmonds:

12 months plus we've got a lot of people saying 12 months plus one month. So when we start looking at and as these ask coming, when we start looking at the overarching goal, it makes it much easier to start planning what the next job's gonna be. What the next step is. What promotion do I need to be working on or department do I need to be angling to in order to make this a reality? When we can see that we can start to work out the steps. 'cause you can map forward an engineer backwards. Ah, just being reminded I'm not on full screen apologies. Thank you for the reminder, Andy appreciated.

Nathan Simmonds:

So when we have the overarching goal, we can understand what the steps are that are gonna make us get there. And then we can start planning out, well actually what's the next job that I need to be in? What's the next promotion or what I need to to work on that's gonna make that happen? Which departments do I need to get more experience on that's g

Sticky Learning Lunches #12: Create Your Own Personal Development Plan

Understand the 5 simple steps to create your personal development plan in this next episode of the Sticky Learning Lunch.

You Can Read the Full Transcript Below:

Nathan Simmonds:

Good afternoon everyone. Welcome to today's Sticky Learning Lunch. We're just waiting for the last few people to arrive. Some good, good numbers of early arrivers this morning, this afternoon, sorry. So we're just gonna give it 30 more seconds while we're letting the last of those people come in. And then we're gonna get cracking fired up and fired into what we're gonna be covering today with PDPs, personal development planning and helping to erase some of those common myths or those mindsets we have around it so that actually we're making the most out of it.

Nathan Simmonds:

Actually. We are using them for what they're actually, and they're, they're, they're there for and actually doing something about it and making sure that we are putting all our intention, our attention into these things so that we're taking the action we we're and we're causing the movement and we're deliberately going where we wanna go to. So we're just gonna give it 30 more seconds. So setting everyone up for success.

Nathan Simmonds:

Mobile phones. Let's make sure everyone's got their mobile phones up, wave 'em nice and high and then put them on flight mode. Let's remove the distractions for the next 30 minutes. If you've got your email open closer, if you've got your, he says, I've even done mine. So if you've got any other social media open, close it down.

Welcome to part 1 of Personal Development Plan Where to Start

 

Nathan Simmonds:

Let's make sure that we are removing the distractions and making sure that we are fully engaged in what we're doing and helping with the learning here. Bear with me. So let's do this. It's come off the full screens, get you on here, get you with me. So we're covering today. Today we are gonna be covering the first part of this week's micro learnings from, uh, from MBM Making Business Matter on personal development planning.

Nathan Simmonds:

My name is Nathan Simmons, senior leadership coach and trainer for MBM, the Home of Sticky Learning. We are the leadership development and soft skills provider to the grocery and manufacturing industry. Idea of these launches is to give you some daily content. Uh, don't seem to be able to hear you. Oh, is it? Can everyone else hear me before I keep going? Was it just Matt? Yes. I've got some yeses up there.

Nathan Simmonds:

Okay. Yeah, Matt might need to close it down. Come back in. Um, tweak and adjust your headphones. Go that route. Route this route. So we are, uh, leadership and soft skills provided to the grocery and manufacturing industry. The idea of these sessions is to give you daily content, micro learnings. It's gonna keep pushing your thinking one step further right now in this current moment. And also for when you return to whatever that normal is in a week's time, two weeks time, however that looks for you.

Nathan Simmonds:

These sessions are held here to help you be the best version of yourself. We have five days of PDP planning. What are we gonna be covering? Quite a lot. In fact, I had a huge list. The importance of this, the structure of this, the mistakes that people make around this. I get really fired up about this sort of thing because it's really important and not enough people are doing it on a daily basis.

Nathan Simmonds:

Said it before and I'll say it again. People spend more time planning a two week trip to Mexico than they do with their entire lives. And then they wonder why either they're miserable in what they're doing or they're not getting the traction on where they want to be or where they would like to be. So let's let that sink in just for 30, not even 30 seconds, three seconds 'cause of the time we've got and making sure that we're getting that mindset.

Nathan Simmonds:

And do you know what this is personal development. This is my plan, this is my goal, this is my aspiration, not somebody else's. So through the course of this week, we'll look at some of the structures, we'll look at some of the models, we'll look at mostly the mindset that's gonna keep you on track for doing it. So today,

Nathan Simmonds:

The first part we're gonna be looking at now, and my wife reminded me of this just as I was preparing for this session today. It's not a form. This is the biggest mistake that people make when we're looking at our personal development. We get given a form by hr. We get given a form by our leader and they say, fill this in.

Nathan Simmonds:

And then what starts to happen is it becomes a bit of a process and we feel like we are being managed to make sure that the process is completed because we don't understand what's in it for us. We don't understand what's in it for me, which is one of the key problems with influencing skills. We get given the process and we're told to get on with it. And very rapidly it becomes a box ticking exercise. It is not a form.

Nathan Simmonds:

Personal development is a way of thinking, it's a way of life and it's something for you to get invested into for yourself because the only investment that is ever guaranteed is the one that you make in yourself. And it comes at with huge interest returns when we get it right, personal development is a structure of thinking, where we go, where do I want to be? Where can I see myself in the future? And imagining yourself in that place.

Nathan Simmonds:

So you can map forwards and engineer backwards and put the steps in place to make sure that you can put one foot in front of the other in order to create that thing that you saw in your head. Whatever the mind of man can conceive, he can achieve. Napoleon, uh, where is he? He's somewhere on my bookshelf and I can't see Napoleon Hill. Whatever the mind of man can conceive he can achieve. So when you can see it, you can create it, but people can only see as far as they can think.

Nathan Simmonds:

So the personal development planning process is the, the route to start creating that map. To start using. The coaching questions that I went through some of those with you last week or even from our coaching cards, which you can get on the link after this, after this, um, training today is asking yourself some of those questions of where do I want to be? Now you don't need a form to fill that in.

Nathan Simmonds:

Yes, it's appropriate that you do write your goals down. Yes, it's appropriate that you start to map some of those things out. Whether you are using mind mapping tools, whether you are using a to-do list, whatever it is, where can I see myself in the future? How does that feel when I get there? That's not a form, that's a thinking about who you are and where you want to be and what you can create for the world around you. The second thing is not someone else.

Nathan Simmonds:

It is not, lemme clarify, lemme go back. It is a personal development plan. It's not insert company name, development plan. Very, very different. And people seem to get stuck on this. Again, feeding out of this is not a form, it's not somebody else's. It is yours. It is your responsibility to fill this form in or to fill the, sorry, to fill the paperwork in and get the thinking moving so that you can direct where you want to get to in this life. It's not somebody else's to do that for you.

Nathan Simmonds:

This is yours. And it's really important that you are crafting time in your calendar, in your diary, quiet time, investing a percentage of your week, whether it's 5%, 10% or whatever on a daily basis to think about what it is I'm doing today and how is that moving me closer to where I want to be. And the thing that I can see in my head, this is absolutely 100% your responsibility 'cause it is a personal development plan. Number three, it's not for someone else to tell you what to do.

Nathan Simmonds:

School has its place, school has its challenges. And I'm not bashing just reporting. School is a post-industrial revolution mechanism based on a factory environment to create factory workers. It creates a replicable and, um, predictable understanding of what the economy will look like a year, five years, 10 years from now. That's what it was created for. Primarily though it teaches you three things.

Nathan Simmonds:

Turn up on time. Do our do as you're told and live up to someone else's expectation. What do we mean by this? The trap that we get caught in when we are doing this means that when we're working and we've got our personal development plan, we spend our time waiting for someone else to tell us what to put into it. What job do you think I should be doing? What do you think my next action might be? Rather than taking our ownership for that.

Nathan Simmonds:

And what we do is we spend our time waiting for someone else to tell us what to do. The only thing that we get from waiting is older. That's it. So when we look at this and it's not a form which we get stuck and it's a process. Um, it's not someone else's. It's our responsibility and it's not for someone else to actually tell us what to do. When we shift these mindsets, we can start taking new actions and new intentions to create the next steps.

Nathan Simmonds:

These are the first parts that get me really riled up about the personal development plan. I had to go in with these early doors. Hope this is useful so far. Bear with me. We're gonna give some structures and give some ideas here. But this part was really getting the, the emotions riled for me. I wanted to give that, give that to you guys right now to understand the importance of of personal development planning question.

Nathan Simmonds:

We're gonna set up a poll. We've got a poll set up. We're gonna launch in a second. How long was it or is it since you looked at your own personal development plans via that out for you Now pol

Sticky Learning Lunches #11: Use Our G.R.O.W Model to Coach Your People with 'Way Forward'

Learn How to Coach Your People with the 4 Steps of the G.R.O.W. Model - Part #4: Way Forward. Coach your people with Way Forward- Step 4. Use your time working from home to become the very best version of yourself. This is a Virtual Classroom of 20-minutes, followed by a 10-minute Q&A.

You Can Read the Full Transcript Below:

Nathan Simmonds:

Good afternoon everybody. Again, just a minute early. We're just waiting for the last participants, the last delegates to arrive into the session. Just gonna give everyone a moment to arrive. So make sure again, as always, setting you up for success before we even get started. So make sure we got drinks ready. You've got water, herbal teas, whatever. You've got hydration available. You've got a fresh page in your book, ready to be filled with kind of ideas, concepts that we're sharing today.

Nathan Simmonds:

And as you're setting that page up, title of that page is gonna be keepers. So the aim is to get as many things down from this session that you want to remember, that you want to go back to, so that when you read your notes, that thought comes up and a new thought is formed because of it. So it continues to keep that learning moving. Keeps the learning sticky, which is what we do here at MBL. 30 more seconds.

Nathan Simmonds:

And thirdly, mobile phones gonna put mine on flight mode. 'cause that would be really embarrassing as your trainer today to have my phone going off midway through this. Let's make sure you've zeroed out your distractions. Shut down your mobile phone, get it on flight mode. Close your email so you are not attempting to work while you are listening to it, because maybe you think you can multitask.

Don't forget the grow coaching model

 

Nathan Simmonds:

And it is scientifically proven that you cannot, it's basically your brain flicking between one thing very quickly and you cannot do that. So let's remove the distractions down. Let's get the full focus on you right now, making the investment of your time into your learning in this space.

Nathan Simmonds:

A few more seconds coming in, a few more people, and then we are gonna get cracking. First question from me for all of you there, how is everyone today? How are you feeling? Where are we now? Fourth week or fifth week of, of isolation, of physical distancing for people? How are we feeling in the process at the moment? Do you know what? And I also wanna say Friday, tomorrow.

Nathan Simmonds:

I also wanna say I really appreciate, I'm looking at the list of attendees and people that shown up. I really appreciate the, the regular people, the regular attendees coming in today. And your attention and your engagement is, thank you very much. And I really appreciate the new people coming into this to come and experience this for the first time as well. Phenomenal, super happy with this.

Nathan Simmonds:

Okay, but sometimes feel a bit lost. I am with you because today I was convinced it was Friday. Definitely isn't really confused. Every now and again. My brain seems to go somewhere else. And do you know what? I think this is totally normal for the situation that we're in. Not only are we in a, a situation which we've never been in before, we're also in this situation and it's a crisis.

Nathan Simmonds:

So every and occasionally your brain wants to rewire and do something because it's not sure if you are in survival mode, you are in, um, you know, in a positive place. Sometimes your brain is still trying to catch up. Maybe you've done one too many Zoom calls, one too many conference calls and it's causing the brain to, to just need a rest. You know, it could be, there's confusion with that. There's some other reasons it's happening, right?

Nathan Simmonds:

We are all here. Let's go for this. Pens, papers. Ready drinks, zero distractions. Welcome everybody to today's Sticky learning Lunches with me. Nathan Simmons, senior leadership coach and trainer for MBM making Business Matter, the home of Sticky Learning. We are the provider of leadership development soft skills to the grocery and manufacturing industry.

Nathan Simmonds:

Idea of these sessions is to give you 20 minutes of micro-learning as much as possible through these interesting times that we're in to help you be the best version of yourself right now. And also preparing you for when you do return to work, whatever that may look like. And whenever that may be. Today we're covering part four of the grow coaching model and we are in the W's.

Nathan Simmonds:

For everyone here? What does the w in grow mean to you? Because for some people it's different. Now that everything has been identified, what are we going to, um, to do about it? Collaborate everything in order to achieve the identified goals. Yes, way forward. Willingness. Any other answers on our Ws, on our, on our dubs as the kids like to call it. I don't even know why I did that. I'm really sorry. I apologize Now. How will I get there? Absolutely. Good. Your W stands for two, sorry, three things. One

Nathan Simmonds:

Is your way forward. We started looking at this yesterday. So our way forward is what are the actions we're gonna include? So when we looked at our options and making sure that we have more than one, what we're doing is we're making, or we're putting in place a list of the appropriate actions that we want to take. We're putting them in chronological order, we're checking that we can see where we are going, and as I talked about yesterday and in the previous session, to make sure mitigating those excuses.

Nathan Simmonds:

So maybe the way forward is over the shark infested waters, but as the leader, as the person going in that direction, okay, how do I get there? Mitigate the obstacles and the excuses so that I can then overcome that and come up with new solutions that do keep me moving forward. See the obstacles, and then help to clear the way.

Nathan Simmonds:

When we check this, we're simply asking people, okay, so what is the one action that you need to take right now that's gonna move you towards that goal? What series of actions do you need to put in place in order to bring this to life? In the previous session I asked you, uh, what's the one smallest action you can take right now for the biggest possible impact? And again, bringing this focus on these individual options and starting to put them in an order. And as Ivan put here, is putting the puzzle together.

Nathan Simmonds:

It's doing exactly this. It's, we're seeing where we want to get to. We've put the destination in the postcode of where we want to get to. We know where we are. We can start to see the route. Maybe we want to go via this service station. Maybe we want to go via this city. Maybe we wanna stop here on the road. We can see that. Can we see that the, the, the road works or an accident on the motorways on the way we're getting there. So this enables us to bring that into focus and then start to make that plan and then start to execute on it.

Nathan Simmonds:

Number two is your will, your willingness to make this happen. Ah, someone's just pointed out that I forgot to come off there. There we go. Get me on full screen. Nathan, en large the will is understanding, okay, we've got the option to make the goal happen, but do we truly want to make it happen? Are we actually committed to bringing this to life question that I learned very early in my coaching training and I didn't really like it before.

Nathan Simmonds:

I didn't really see the, the, the benefit of it when I applied it to this stage though, it really made a difference. And this is using your, your one to 10 scales. So you may realize over the course of these training sessions, these sticky lunchtime learnings I've been asking you at the end of the session, okay, on a scale of one to 10, how would you rate this one being terrible, 10 being fantastic, and getting a sense of where you are on that continuum and where you are in this situation when we do this for ourselves or with other people.

Nathan Simmonds:

On a scale of one to 10, how committed are you to making this happen? How committed are you to taking this action in pursuit of this goal on a scale of one to 10? So there was a few people yesterday, you wrote down some actions that you wanted or some options that you wanted to put into play in order to move you towards one of your goals. And you may have that action available.

Nathan Simmonds:

You may have one in your head right now. So let's ask yourself the question and let's see these answers. On a scale of one to 10, one being not at all, 10 being fully committed, how committed are you to taking and making that action in pursuit of the goal that you have? One, not at all. 10, absolutely. I've got one 10 come up already. 10 absolutely committed, six interest. And we can dig into that in a minute.

Nathan Simmonds:

How committed are you to taking the actions that you want to take or you need to take in order to get your goal? Nine's good. So when we start to get a sense of this through this scale of one to 10 and making sure that we, we highlight and title, which way these scales run so people have this clear in their heads, we can start to see where people are in relation to this.

Nathan Simmonds:

Because 8, 9, 10 means we are pretty committed, if not fully committed to making this happen. When we start to get into the seven sixes and fives, we start to feel a little bit of friction. And we need to then question what is it about this option? What is it about this golden that is reducing the, the commitment, what's causing this, this, this tension or this resistance, excuse me, this resistance to making this happen?

Nathan Simmonds:

What goal or what action would you be fully committed to making right now if you've just set yourself an action to that goal? How committed, how, how much is that?...

Use Our G.R.O.W Model to Coach Your People with Options

Today's topic, You Need to Coach Your People Part 2. Learn How to Coach Your People with the 4 Steps of the G.R.O.W. Model - Part #2: Reality. Coach your people with Options - Step 3. Use your time working from home to become the very best version of yourself. This is a Virtual Classroom of 20-minutes, followed by a 10-minute Q&A.

You Can Read the Full Transcript Below:

Nathan Simmonds:

Good afternoon everyone. Little bit early, just a minute to go. Just waiting for the next people to come in and then we are gonna get cracking. Got some wonderful mindset shifts to set. Share today around the option section of the grow coaching model. Make sure everyone's setting up nicely drinks ready.

Nathan Simmonds:

Again, just making sure any mobile phones, any devices, any social media distractions that you've got. Make sure your phones are on flight mode for the duration. Maximize the attention that you can give to this and to yourself and maximize the investment that you're gonna make in yourselves with this. Okay, super important. The only investment that is guaranteed is the one that you make in yourself.

Nathan Simmonds:

Absolutely a hundred percent. And that's not the interest Return on that investment on yourself is much bigger than that. So we're gonna give it 30 more seconds just to see who shows today. And then we are gonna get on with the options section of the grow coaching model. Really help shift some of the mindset and elements around this.

Grow with the grow coaching model

 

Nathan Simmonds:

It’s gonna be good, excited to be delivering this. Might have to adjust the angle of the laptop so we can cover everything. Let's go, let's do this. Welcome to another sticky learning lunchtime session, another micro learning 20 minute Micro learning. Today is all around the options section of the Grow Coaching model. I'm sure you all know by now those that have met me before. My name is Nathan Simmons.

Nathan Simmonds:

I'm the senior leadership coach and trainer for MBM Making Business matter, the Homer Sticky Learning and the provider of leadership development and soft skills to the grocery and manufacturing industry. Now these sessions are all about giving you the additional tools, mindset shifts so that Ryan, while you are in, um, physical distancing and in in lockdown and preparing to go to work, it will give you some of those extra tools that are gonna help you go back with and be an absolute screaming success.

Nathan Simmonds:

And take whatever it is you're doing right now and take it even further. So today we are looking at the O in Grow and as it's bla blazoned across your screen, you all know what this already means. It stands for options. What does this mean to you personally? When we're thinking about the option section of the grow coaching model? What does this actually mean to you? Open question. You can give me the answers in the question box or the chat box. What does options mean to you?

Nathan Simmonds:

Let's see what your thinking is. Where your thinking is brainstorming and generating possible solutions and pathways towards attaining goals. Brilliant choices, fantastic. It's the one thing that we always have. Even if we think we don't, we always have a choice, primarily over how we choose to respond to a situation. Great start. So we've got quite a nice compact, um, group today. So there's plenty of room to ask questions and, and get involved. It is about the options.

Nathan Simmonds:

The thing that often happens, and the first point I want to cover in this is when we are coachable, when we are used to the coaching model, when we're leading people or being a leader and we're working through this model, what we find is as we spend our time up in this section here in the goal and the reality and we are asking more questions in this space, you'll find that as you are thinking about where you've come from, where you are going to, what you are doing, you'll find that you'll start already coming up with some solutions and options.

Nathan Simmonds:

You'll find that your brain is already starting to run on a little bit. And when we're doing the coaching, it's very easy as the coach to find that. You go, oh, so what is it you'd like to achieve? Oh, that's fantastic. Where, what have you done so far? Oh, brilliant. So you've done this and you've done that and done that. Well, what's next?

Nathan Simmonds:

And we find ourselves as the human, as just being compelled to move forward and miss some of the great details up here because we want to get to the solutions, we want to get to the actions that are gonna be taken. We want to, and it's a very masculine trait to get to the point and get closure on the conversation and know that people are doing what they need to be doing.

Nathan Simmonds:

So 0.1 is hold back, spend time in your goal and reality. When we're talking about listening skills in coaching, 'cause it's one of the key things around coaching, leadership, mental health, all of these elements. How much time does a coach normally spend listening in comparison to speaking? Let me know what you think the answers are. What percentage of your time as a coach is spent listening over talking? First answer in any more for anymore. What other answers do we have coming in? Before I start sharing these, what percentage of your time is spent as a coach or a leader listening in comparison to giving the or, um, to asking questions?

Nathan Simmonds:

Good mixture of responses. Here we've got 75%, we've got 45%. Um, reality kind of someone's saying, you know, ideally it should be kinda 66%, but more often than not, it is 33% When you're doing the listening and the talking as a coach, ideally we aim for the 80 20 rule PERS law of distribution. 80% of our time is spent listening to the person that's in front of us and 20% asking questions.

Nathan Simmonds:

Now there's a similar distribution when we're working in this space, when we're focusing on our goal and reality on our options and tomorrow's way forward, we want spend probably about 80% of our time focusing on the goal and the reality because the more clarity that someone has on where they're going, that definition of destination and the more understanding through that educated reflection, the easier it is to come up with new ideas to help the individual move forward or for them to help themselves move forward.

Nathan Simmonds:

So we spend the majority of our time there getting that clarity so we know where we're going, we know where we are. The analogy when I talked about this yesterday was a around sat nav. And we understand that there's two pieces of information that you need in order to get where you are going, the postcode of the destination and the postcode of where you are.

Nathan Simmonds:

But the same analogy applies when we want to go go. So when we want to get somewhere, when do we put the postcode in? When do we put the destination where we're going? Do we do it when we're getting into the car or do we do it when we're already driving down the road? And I know technology is moving on a little bit.

Nathan Simmonds:

When we understand where we are going, we already know where the destination is before we get in the vehicle. We understand where we are because we've woken up and we're going there and exactly that. We do it at the start of the journey. Why? Primarily because it's safe.

Nathan Simmonds:

It's not okay to be using your mobile phone while you are driving and trying to put in a postcode or trying to work out where you're going or the best route when you are already doing 60 miles an hour. And this is the same with this section here and moving into options. If you are trying to do that and you are already running ahead, you are missing the point. And actually you could potentially be going in the wrong direction.

Nathan Simmonds:

How many people here in this group have already done this? You've started a journey, suddenly realize you're going in the wrong direction or thought you were going the best way before you put the address into the, uh, into your sat nav and suddenly realize you had to do a u-turn or added 15 minutes to your journey. Yes or no? How many people have done this? I know I have guilty.

Nathan Simmonds:

Yeah, not me, but that was someone else saying guilty. Yeah, someone says, whoever says no is a liar. We've all done it. We start to run ahead. And it's the same in our coaching. So if we learn to hold ourselves back and get this definition, then we can start moving ourselves forward. What you'll also find

Nathan Simmonds:

As you start doing this, the more depth you get here, the more understanding people have of what they've tried, what they've tested, where they've failed, what they've learned, uh, in relation to where they're going. You'll come up with more than one option and you absolutely have to King Gardner, and I think some of you already know that I'm a king gardener, but you go all the way back to the Bible and they talked about the.

Nathan Simmonds:

I forget the full story, but you know, he, he the man who was casting a seed and sometimes they fell on rocks and sometimes they fell on hard places and sometimes the seeds fell in exactly the right place in order for them to grow. And it's the same with our options and our op and our options and what we're doing. We need to come up with a myriad, a plethora, uh, a multitude of ideas so that we can draw on them.

Nathan Simmonds:

Parable of the . I thank you very much, Christopher. Appreciate you Chris. We need to come up with multiple options and actually you'll find that some of those options will stack chronologically. Some of the key questions I ask to people when we've already collated some of these. Okay, so what's the next action you can take in the next 24 hours or the first action you can take in the next 24 hours? And I'll go, oh, I can do that. Okay, great....

Grocery Guru Episode #28: Morrison's Q1 Trading Statement and Their Wholesale Performance

Join Andrew Grant and Darren A. Smith in the twenty-eighth episode about Morrisons Q1 trading statement for 2021 (14 weeks to 9 May 2021) - 'On track for strong future profit growth and low debt'. Their partnership with Amazon, predicting the new working patterns, and strong wholesale performance.

You Can Read the Full Morrisons Q1 Trading Statement Episode Transcript Below:

Darren A. Smith:

Welcome to the Grocery Guru. This is episode 28 and we are here with your grocery guru, Andrew Grant. Andrew, how are you doing?

Andrew Grant:

Morning, Darren. Yes, very well. Thank you.

Darren A. Smith:

Good. You're sporting a hoodie today.

Andrew Grant:

Yeah, it's still early in the morning.

Darren A. Smith:

Fair enough. All right, let's talk about Morrison's quarterly statement. I think is what's in our postbag today.

Andrew Grant:

Well, that was the news that sort of sparked some thoughts, I guess. Morrison's 12 week trading statement came out, I think Tuesday. Always really, really useful because, we've talked about the annual results of all of the big four. The only problem with those are they're up to a year out of date, whereas this is only 12 weeks out of date. So it's a real snapshot of what's happening out there. I think I've said it before, I'm really glad I am not facing some of the conundrums these supermarkets are facing, because what struck out to me, it's a good performance, they're now lapping the start of the pandemic.

Morrison's Q1 Trading Statement and Their Wholesale Performance

 

Darren A. Smith:

Yeah.

Andrew Grant:

So they're lapping all that bulk buying of toilet rolls and water and all the panic buying. They're like for like.

Andrew Grant:

Yeah. Their like for like's down to 1.6%. Down from a peak of 11.1. But the good news for them is on a two year basis, their like for likes are up 8.7. Now a lot of that's driven by their wholesale business, which is growing like Topsy. But what stood out for me, is they put a couple of graphs into the trading statement. Their fuel volumes are back to pre-pandemic levels.

Darren A. Smith:

Okay.

Andrew Grant:

Their three pound meal deal, their food to go offering, is ahead of pre-pandemic levels. We read all this stuff about, the new normal is working from home, town centers are going to be dead, but on the face of it, these figures... And just anecdotally, when you go on the roads at the moment, the rush hour is back.

Darren A. Smith:

Yeah.

Andrew Grant:

The M-25 is gridlock at 4:30 every day. So, is everybody back at work or the flip? And you probably noticed it, Pret a Manger opening sandwich shops in Tesco supermarkets, because their high street business has been destroyed. Who was right?

Darren A. Smith:

It's a real tough one. There might be a third scenario in this, which is we all go back to work type thing to normal for a couple of months because we're desperate to get to see people, engage, and go back to where we work to feel like normal people. Then we decided actually that thing, that home wasn't so bad and we do this for a bit until we figure out, we need to balance that maybe is somewhere here in the middle.

Andrew Grant:

Or you become a twat.

Darren A. Smith:

Go on, tell us what the twat is.

Andrew Grant:

It's nothing personal, Darren. It is a proper scientific term. It is not a swear word. A twat is somebody who works in the office Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

Darren A. Smith:

Okay.

Andrew Grant:

I think this is what the new normal will be. They say there's a million, again, another piece of news this week, they surveyed the UK's 50 largest employers. Over a million workers will be allowed to work in a hybrid home or office scenario. I think some of the banks have already said it, some of the big investment houses in London. When you look at what's happening with home purchases, Devon and Cornwall, the cop was just manic, manic, house buying. I think you're going to see the rise of the twat, the person that works in the office Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, but then enjoys a much more relaxed, country style way of life Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday.

Darren A. Smith:

It's the long weekend, and maybe the biggest positive to come out of the awful COVID pandemic, is that we were playing with flexible working before. Maybe now we're actually going to do it properly. There's the talk of the four-day week, of course. Maybe this is the bit that's in the middle that really works, where someone works mostly in the office and then they have the long weekend at home.

Andrew Grant:

Well, I think it breaks the big taboo. I'm sure you would have known it, but whether it was at Salisbury's or Tesco, if you said to your boss, "I'm just going store visiting", everybody knew you were skiving off the afternoon.

Darren A. Smith:

Yes.

Andrew Grant:

You had that awkward thing the next morning when they said, "Oh, which stores did you visit"? "Oh, yeah. That one in New Olden". "We haven't got a store in New Olden, Andrew". "Oh, right. It was somewhere else then".

Darren A. Smith:

Maybe that's what COVID has brought, the positive is that we've found this way of working, which is beyond the jolly, which it used to be. I'll have a jolly day off from a Friday. To actually, people are realizing, when I'm at home and I've got Teams, I'm doing that, I'm working hard, I'm working hard at the office, and the balance is struck.

Andrew Grant:

Certainly, anecdotally, among friends and colleagues, they don't want to work from home 24/7. They just get too fed up of their other half, all the distractions. But equally, they do not want the hassle of having to get a train into London every day and have that stress and congestion. For them, hybrid is perfect. Everybody I speak to, "Yeah. I'll quite happily go in the office two or three days a week, because it gets me out of the house. I get to meet my colleagues and a bit of, you know, social interaction. It's also good for business. But do you know what? I do value being able to spend more quality time at home where actually I feel I'm more productive when I'm working".

Darren A. Smith:

Yes. I'm just going to drop in here a help for anyone who's viewing. We've just written an article called, Turn Off Your Email Notifications, Watch out for the Badges. I'm just going to intrigue people with that and we'll drop the link at the bottom of the video. The other part is, try not to build your calendar like Titres, where you drop down those things and all of a sudden you've got 12 hours absolutely stacked back to back and you think, "Oh, that's a hell of a day". Try not to do that. But again, we'll drop some links on the video to help them.

Andrew Grant:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Darren A. Smith:

All right.

Andrew Grant:

Yeah. As ever, interesting times and some real big calls some of these retailers got to make. Although, when I say big calls, they'll make the calls, but it's the supply base that'll have to either jump to attention instantly, if suddenly food to go takes off again, or they'll be left on the sidelines if they decide now food to go isn't the future. I think for the suppliers, they need to be absolutely eagle-eyed and watch every single second of all these various stats and trends we've been talking about, because I couldn't call it. I don't think it's 50, 50 as to whether hybrid working will be here to stay or in three years time we go pandemic? What pandemic?

Darren A. Smith:

Yeah. It could be. It's a tough one to call, you're right. The obvious answer is they need to be flexible, which they're watching this thinking, "Of course we need to be flexible. We need to have a business plan for either. Of course we do". We appreciate that it takes a huge amount of effort to create something that you might never use.

Andrew Grant:

Yeah, absolutely.

Darren A. Smith:

Called out another two highlights before we finish and let you go. Online sales also continue their strong run with year on year growth of 113%, partly driven by it's partnership with Amazon.

Andrew Grant:

Yeah. Yeah. That is something that is clearly here to stay. People have switched into the convenience of having their bulk groceries home delivered. I think I said in an earlier one of these, it is quite staggering that the supermarkets managed to train the UK population to do their own picking and sorting effectively in a warehouse.

Darren A. Smith:

We're actually very good pickers. Very good pickers.

Andrew Grant:

If you'd have pitched that as a business plan today, we'd like our customers to go and pick and sort their own products and move them from shelf to trolley, trolley to belts, belts to trolley, trolley to car. They'd say that you wouldn't get investment for that.

Darren A. Smith:

Very true. Very true. One last bit re primarily starting to supply an extra 230 McConnell stores, 25 McConnell stores converted to Morrison Daily, taking a total of 56. We've got 56 months Morrison Daily's out there now.

Andrew Grant:

Probably, to most people, Morrison's wholesale business has been really an unsung hero. They've built a sizeable wholesale business there. Not quite what the plans for it would be. Would they at some point, float it off? Don't know, but they've managed to keep a focus on running a pretty good set of supermarkets, but also build this pretty sizeable now wholesale business. Which obviously helps their volumes and helps them in their negotiations with the biggest suppliers because, they don't have the buying power of a Tesco or Salisbury's or an Asa, but actually with the wholesale division, gives them a lot of extra oomph when it comes to the negotiations.

Darren A. Smith:

Certainly does, but it doesn't touch on their manufacturing division. In the bits that I read.

Andrew Grant:

No it doesn't, but I guess that's another unique part of the Morrison set up....

Sticky Learning Lunches #9: Use Our G.R.O.W Model to Coach Your People with 'Reality'

Learn How to Coach Your People with the 4 Steps of the G.R.O.W. Model - Part #2: Reality Coach your people with Reality - Step 2. Use your time working from home to become the very best version of yourself. This is a Virtual Classroom of 20-minutes, followed by a 10-minute Q&A.

You Can Read the Full Transcript Below:

Nathan Simmonds:

Good afternoon everybody, and welcome to today's session. We're just gonna give it another 30 seconds. While people are turning up, I can see the numbers are increasing. I wanna say thank you to all of you people for turning up early. Hugely appreciated. I massively value, massively value. Your attention and your desire to engage and your time to be here and commit to this, it means massive amounts to myself and the MBM team.

Nathan Simmonds:

And it's, you know, it's a massive thank you from me and a massive thank you from your future self for anything that you're gonna pick up in this that's gonna help you to develop yourself and move yourself forward in your business, your careers, and with your teams as well. So, thank you from us and thank you from your future self as well. Let's just give it 30 seconds and wait for a couple more people to arrive.

Nathan Simmonds:

Afternoon. Andy, please feel free if you want to make comments, you want to ask questions or question boxes there, we'll be picking up a bit of q and a at the end of it. But also, if anything comes up that you, you wish to kind of pick up with me, you wish to query, please do. Um, this is what it's here for. I'm here to help you get as much clarity, especially around the grow coaching model this week, which is what we're gonna be focusing on.

Nathan Simmonds:

So let's start everyone, make sure you've got drinks. Gonna set you guys up for success. First of all, please make sure you've got drinks available and you've got a pen and paper, nice clean sheet. So setting you up for success for this session. At the top of that sheet, on one side, I want you to write keepers and what does keepers mean?

The GROW model is made up of goal, reality, options and will

 

Nathan Simmonds:

Keepers are the things that you want to remember from this session. So we've got 20 minutes roughly of content, a little bit of q and a and kind of calibration stuff at the end there. Keepers aiming for more than three things that I say or share, or questions that people ask and I answer. Anything that helps to stimulate a new thought for you, something that's a, a new moment when those light bulb moments, those aha uh, points, that penny hitting the floor. Now, that's the, it's the loudest noise in the room.

Nathan Simmonds:

The penny dropping and hitting the floor. So keepers are the things that you want to keep hold of. So when you reread it, it stimulates a new thought and it keeps a learning moving forward. So let's get into this because this is the home of sticky learning, making business matter. We make learning stick and these are the sticky learning launches. My name is Nathan Simmons and I'm a senior leadership coach and trainer with MBM.

Nathan Simmonds:

We are the leadership development and soft skills provider to the grocery and manufacturing industry. Let's get this show started. What are we covering today? We are covering the R from the grow coaching model. We all know what R stands book is right now. It's blazed across your screens. Let's bring it off there. So R stands for

Nathan Simmonds:

Reality. First question, open question for all of you here. What does reality mean for you? How do you define this to your clients? How do you define this to your delegates and your, the people in your teams? How do you define reality? What is it? Let's see what you've gotta say on this subject.

Nathan Simmonds:

Truth as I understand and see it. Absolutely. What else does reality mean for us? Reflect on client's current situation. Help them become aware of their reality. Absolutely. So we're getting them to reflect on the current situation they're in the current situation, their perception, absolutely. Key thing with perception is, as some of you may know, and let me clarify this with you, perception is reality. Okay? It's also a lie. What do I mean by this?

Nathan Simmonds:

It's because the way that someone sees something is their version of reality. Whether it is true or not, to the wider hole is neither here nor there according to them. It's their reality. So never argue with someone's perception. Give you a really tangible, um, understanding of this. Imagine someone that is colorblind and that maybe they don't see green, or maybe they don't see red the way that we do.

Nathan Simmonds:

Maybe they don't see it at all. Maybe they see oranges or the same color across the board. You can argue with them until you are blue in the face that roses are red and grass is green and this, that and the other. But they'll never be able to see it because that's not their reality. Super great point there. Thank you very much for that, Jane. Appreciate it. So the reality is where someone is right now is everything that has preceded this moment.

Nathan Simmonds:

Everything they have learned, everything they have experienced, how they see the world, where they're planning or how they interact with things, the lessons that they've learned along the way. This is the reality, the here and now and the current. There are some challenges though, with the way that we've learned to deal with reality and we're gonna be covering those today. So we've got three points. The first one here is about big goals. And we're gonna come back into that.

Nathan Simmonds:

So we make sure we're focusing in the right way into the reality. How we can then be overwhelmed by the journey that's in front of us. And then how we learn to maximize what's come before us until this point, what we've done and the journey that we've taken. So we need to use these three points to, to help keep the brain engaged in the right way. The first thing, big goals, number one,

Nathan Simmonds:

The problem with big goals are they're big and they're meant to be. So as I said yesterday, and if you haven't seen the video from yesterday, please after this, go and watch that. It's on YouTube, it's available. Now we'll provide links for that is they're meant to be big. They're meant to be stimulating, they're meant to be challenging, they're meant to be engaging. 'cause it needs to be those three things so that the goal becomes magnetic, it physically pulls you forward.

Nathan Simmonds:

It needs to magnetize you in order to create that because it becomes a necessity, not just a maybe. The challenge that we have with the big goal though, is it can become too overwhelming. So when we're looking at the big goal, what we want to do is we want to break it down into the bite-sized chunks. Again, talking about how do you eat an elephant?

Nathan Simmonds:

You don't do it in one mouthful. You chop it up into smaller bite-sized chunks that you can learn to deal with it. Some of those will be your smaller goals that then slot into that bigger one. So you will have your big overarching goal with potentially three to four pillars in it, which are then the goals and the um, the way points up the mountain side, that's gonna help you to get there. So you can break it down into tangible points and then also work it out into objectives.

Nathan Simmonds:

This then starts to feed into tomorrow's session. So we break it down in chunks. What would make this goal easier to manage right now? How can we break this down into its lowest denominators to help move this forward? What goals could you be achieving right now that would line you up for that? Throwing some questions out here that you can write down and using your coaching sessions or for yourselves, what else?

Nathan Simmonds:

How could you break this goal down into smaller steps that are gonna help you to move forward? How can we feed into that? How does the three month goal feed into a 12 month goal? What does that look like? So we start to break this big goal down into smaller elements that we can work on. The second thing that we want to be looking at is our mindset around this.

Nathan Simmonds:

How do we often look at our goals? Something I talk a lot about with people is when we are looking at the growth mindset, when we are looking at how we work inside our comfort zones, often when we set goals, especially when we set goals that are realistic and inside that comfort zone, what we expect to happen is this is us moving towards our goal. We think the journey croda green is not working at all.

Nathan Simmonds:

We think the journey is gonna look like this. A nice straight road, nice and simple. Here's my goal, here's me and this is the journey. And then what happens? What normally happens when we think everything's gonna be plain sailing open? Question to you, what normally happens when we think everything's gonna be plain sailing as we're moving towards our goal,

Nathan Simmonds:

Get knocked off track, we slip up as we move forward along the line. And then nor unexpected crosswinds nicely put, I procrastinate Adriana. Yes, right. There's a whole different training I can do on procrastination. By the way. Procrastination is a good thing. It's very natural, it's very normal. We just have to learn how to focus it 'cause it is helpful. We have this idea of the world's gonna be perfect and oh look, I'm just gonna go over there and it's all gonna be normal.

Nathan Simmonds:

But what happens is you're going along here, the smallest hiccup here, and all of a sudden you've got a problem. And then you start to procrastinate. Even though it was the smallest thing, the the slight crosswind or the slight curve to the, the expectation causes a problem because the outside, the, the expectation you have in your head doesn't match up with the reality outside

Sticky Learning Lunch #8: Use Our G.R.O.W Model to Coach Your People with 'Goal'

Learn how to coach your people with the 4 steps of the G.R.O.W. Model - Part #1: 'Goal'. Coach your people with Goal - Step 1. Use your time working from home to become the very best version of yourself. This is a Virtual Classroom of 20-minutes, followed by a 10-minute Q&A.

You Can Read the Full Transcript Below:

Nathan Simmonds:

Good afternoon everybody. Couple of minutes early. We are just getting ready for today's training session. Gonna make sure everything's straight and everyone can see what's going on. We're just waiting for the, the last few attendees to dive in. And then we will start about 30 seconds past the hour. See where we get to afternoon. Andy, just seeing the questions coming in. If you wanna ask questions, the questions boxes there, we'll do q and a at the end.

Nathan Simmonds:

I'm gonna do as much as I can to cover some really core concepts around goal setting today and the grow coaching model. Really excited about this. One of my favorite subjects and I'm gonna see where it can go. I'm just in here if I can make this window a bit bigger. No thank you. Nice crisp. White body is clean, fresh for a new week. Fingers crossed. Like all of you. Let's give it 30 seconds. Get my pens ready.

Nathan Simmonds:

I'm sticking to the four colors here. I'm not sticking with my multitude of pens here. I'm gonna be using green, red, blue, and black. Lemme know in the questions in the chat. Make sure everyone is okay with me using green and red on a whiteboard in case. Um, please let me know. 'cause I'm keen that if I put anything up there in these colors that you can see them, that you can digest them, uh, and take them on board.

The GROW model is made up of goal, reality, options and will

 

Nathan Simmonds:

Last couple of people coming in. Let's make sure you're set up for success. First thing is, do we all have drinks? Hydration. It's getting warmer. I wanna make sure that you are all good. Today's episode is brought to you by pucker teas, pucker hubs, licorice and peppermint. Let's get into this content. Let's do this. Okay.

Nathan Simmonds:

Welcome to today's Sticky Learning lunches. This one is gonna be all about the grow coaching model and we're starting with goals. First of all, my name is Nathan Simmons, senior leadership coach and trainer at MBM Making Business Matter, the home of sticky learning and the provider of leadership development and soft skills to the grocery and manufacturing industry.

Nathan Simmonds:

And these lunchtime learnings are all about giving you as much content as we can during these interesting times that we're experiencing, so that when you are managing coaching, working with your people online or even when you are returning back to work, fingers crossed in a couple of weeks time, that you are able to utilize his skills and be the best version of yourselves.

Nathan Simmonds:

Today is gonna be, as I said, all about the, the goal setting element of the grow coaching model. Oh, bear with me. There's a question coming in here. Colleagues not receiving links to the meetings. For some reason I have asked Sarah. Good. Okay, so there's a couple of email addresses here. I'm just gonna dunno if I can forward that copy.

Nathan Simmonds:

Um, bear with me note. So I know Sarah, who is supporting me back of house for this. Um, Sarah, there's a message here from s saying that one of the people didn't get any links to the, um, broadcast. So I'm just hoping that, um, that's gonna be picked up and we can get connected with these, right? So I'm just gonna unshare my screen. Here we go. So how many people here can you let me know in the questions? Let light up the chat box. How many people here know what the grow coaching model is? Have used it, uh, and understand it.

Nathan Simmonds:

Let me know in the chat box right now just while I'm getting this up on the whiteboard. How many people have used Yes. Yuck. Yes, Mr. Whitmore. Absolutely no understand used. Good. Yes. So Mr. Whitmore, John Whitmore, I'm looking for the book. Yes, was the creator of this model. And it's one that is pervasive through coaching simply because it's really easy grow GROW, it sticks in the head and makes people think. So the first part is all about goals. What do goals mean to you? No screen. Bear with, can everyone see me on the camera right now?

Nathan Simmonds:

Yes, yes, yes. Okay. Grand. Okay. Just making sure. Fantastic. Very familiar self, but team leaders need to embrace this. Yes, absolutely. Julie, we all need to be embracing this. So for you right now, listening to this, what does goal or goals mean to you directly? Let me know.

Nathan Simmonds:

Thanks Cy. I'm not sure everyone can see that question. You said more a face for radio. So it is a face only a mother could love goals, endpoints. Good. What else have we got? Goals identifications should occur from questioning and probing. Absolutely. I'm gonna get into that as opposed to giving advice completely. As coaches, we never give advice and we talk about that in the free coaching resource that we've got.

Nathan Simmonds:

We can provide a link to that shortly. Something to aim for, a topic area to work with. Absolutely. So for me, the goal is a target. It's an end point. It's somewhere where we're always going. So we're always aiming for some sort of bullseye here, like the arch. We're aiming at a target. We need to understand where it, if we are going,

Nathan Simmonds:

00:06:20 We need to have absolute clarity on what we are aiming at, what we would like to achieve and what we want to accomplish. Absolute clarity, it's the same. It's like when we're buying a ho a holiday, we don't buy the airplane, we don't buy the in the in-flight meals or movies. We are buying a destination. We need to go know where we are going to. And the goal is all about getting the clarity on that when we are going there. And it's super important that we get super clear on that and we need to start using more questions when we're talking to our people.

Nathan Simmonds:

Because if we lead, if we're setting things without that definition, people aren't gonna know where they're going to 'cause vague goals lead to vague results. So it's through the questioning that we use when we're setting or when we're working in the goal setting area that is gonna give us that enthusiasm, that excitement of, oh, that's really interesting. Oh look, there's my holiday in Cancun. Oh look, there's my skiing trip in Switzerland. I'm gonna get excited about that.

Nathan Simmonds:

Like, I'm gonna get excited about my goals and where I'm going because definition of destination escalates enthusiasm. It's the same with holidays and it's the same with our lives. But the problem is we spend more time planning a two week holiday to Mexico than we do with what we're doing with our lives. And this is the thing with the people in our teams, because people, their leaders, their managers previously haven't got into the depths and asking them questions to help them find that for themselves rather than giving them the advice and telling them what to do and helping them to get a same job as them or a similar position.

Nathan Simmonds:

And it's really important that we're getting to this, is that parenting and leadership are not two sides of the same coin. They're one and the same thing when we are leading it is like being a parent. These people become our work children. And when we have children, no parent in their right mind wants their child to be equal to or less than them. Every parent wants their child to supersede them.

Nathan Simmonds:

And it's our responsibility as leaders is when we're asking questions about goals, that we are inspiring those individuals to think at a higher level so that they can supersede you so that they can get promoted so that they can do greater work in the, the pursuit of their own happiness and the pursuit of their own fulfillment, but in turn helps to grow the business. And as a result of them doing that, what you will experience is the equivalent of parental pride in the people you work with, the teams that you lead and the, and the the individuals that you support.

Nathan Simmonds:

So it's got to get crystal clear with his coaching questions. His goal setting is asking people to help 'em create their own destination that is aligned to the business and helps both elements to ex uh, to exceed and succeed. Absolute clarity.

Nathan Simmonds:

So goals. Let's drop back into that for two seconds. Getting that clarity in our goals. What two pieces of information do we need? If we are using sat nav, what two pieces of information do we need to put into our mobile phones or whatever device we're using that makes sat nav work destination good. Let's get even clearer on that. What part of the destination do we need?

Nathan Simmonds:

Postcode? Yes, postcode destination. So the first thing that we, we, we, we get really conscious about putting in is the destination that we are going to. The reason we have, we get, we remember that part so clearly is because when we get our phone, when we get the, the, the, the hardware, it asks us to put the home destination in first anyway. So that's always saved.

Nathan Simmonds:

So we always know where we are, but we get a little bit complacent, um, and often don't think about where we are. And that's part of, um, the reality phase. So we'll do that tomorrow and we're gonna share a link for tomorrow's session. So if you haven't already registered for that, we're gonna share a link. So you can do that after this training. The next piece of information that you are always putting in is where you are going.

Nathan Simmonds:

If you don't know where you are going, satnav can't help you. And I've said it before and I'll say it a million times again until the day that I die. You cannot buy a ticket to anywhere. But here I'll,...

Sticky Learning Lunches #7: Get the Right Tech You Need When Working From Home For You and Your Productivity

Identify the tech you need when working from home and how to make it work, so that you can be more productive. Use your time working from home to become the very best version of yourself. This is a Virtual Classroom of 20-minutes, followed by a 10-minute Q&A.

You Can Read the Full Transcript Below:

Nathan Simmonds:

Good afternoon everybody. It is Thursday. I feel like it's a Friday. It's night. It's a Thursday. Welcome everyone to today's session. We get we are again, we're just a little bit early. We're just gonna wait for everyone to come into today's session. So let's make sure we're setting everybody up for success. First things first, phones. Let's make sure our technology, 'cause this is the thing that's stopping us from doing good work.

Nathan Simmonds:

All your phones, let's get your phones out. Flight mode only, zero distractions. Let's minimize the technology while we're using the technology, I'm sure that's some sort of oxymoron happening right there. And also making sure we've got a drink available. We're just waiting for a few more people to turn up. Just seeing if I can see how many people I can see here.

Technology is important when working from home

 

Nathan Simmonds:

Just gonna give it a couple more seconds. Make sure you've got pens, paper ready. I'm gonna be sharing a couple of different ideas and, and models here to really help you get that focus while you're working at home. Make the most of it and make sure that this technology isn't holding you back. Um, and that we're not using it or having to create an obstacle which we're not paying attention to because it's very easy to get lazy with technology.

Nathan Simmonds:

But it's the same models that we're using physical uh, and working face-to-face as it is working with the technology. It's the same models we're using and when we apply them rather than getting lazy. 'cause the tech takes that, that effort out of it for us. So we think it makes it easier for us. We have to reapply those models with more vigor and more focus to get the best out of them. Let's give it one more minute and then we're gonna fly into this. Are ready.

Nathan Simmonds:

Brilliant. So we're in. Welcome to the sticky, sticky learning lunches. It's MBM, the Home of Sticky Learning. I'm just gonna take the screen share off so we've got that up there. Home of sticky learning. So we are soft skills provider to the UK grocery manufacturing industry. And these sessions are 20 minute micro learnings in these interesting times that we've got.

Nathan Simmonds:

And these are gonna happen for as long as you need them while you are working at home. And, and you need these, the, these tips and these ideas to help you get the best out of your environment, the best out of your situation and the best out of yourself so you can be the best version of yourself. Today we are looking at technology

Nathan Simmonds:

And actually how it's holding you back. So we're not gonna talk too much about the tech side, we're gonna talk about how we work our way around it. So what's the tech we've got, the first thing we need to make sure we got is a decent laptop.

Nathan Simmonds:

And we talked a little bit about this in space, making sure it's ever elevated so you can see it so you're not constantly hunched over and it's not pulling you and push and putting pressure on the wrong parts of your spine as you are working because that pressure is gonna cause pain and that that pain is gonna cause distraction, which is gonna stop you from doing good work. Even a small amount of pain over a long period of time is gonna cause a, a depreciation in the value that you can add. Okay? So let's be aware of this.

Nathan Simmonds:

Elevate your laptop, get comfortable. Mobile phones, huge distraction. I've got mine there, I'm aware of this. We need to be aware that it takes about 20 minutes for your concentration to fully engage in what you're doing. And every time that you get a ping, a beep and a buzz, your concentration is gonna go back or that, that, that timer from maintaining your concentration goes back to zero and a snap and it takes time to pick up again.

Nathan Simmonds:

So every time we're going into a meeting, we're having a conversation, we've got pings and we've got beeps and we've got buzzes or even having this conversation with me, every time that happens your concentration is gonna drop. So again, it's causing a barrier to that movement. The other thing that I wanted to point out as well is getting a booster. We talked about this a little bit before about building the space.

Nathan Simmonds:

I've had two boosters. The last one I've got is from bt. It's amazing, okay? 'cause the moment I shut my door, the moment I change the location of my laptop, I'm cutting off the, the reception for my wifi. So unless you've got a cable, you need to be mindful of this. So this is as far as we're gonna go into the tech side of this really. And I didn't wanna go too deep on it 'cause I know the tech side and the space.

Nathan Simmonds:

I can be very technical side of things. Okay? Just diving into that first part, now we're gonna break down a couple of models that are gonna help you do this. How many people here have meetings in their diaries? Back to back You can see some yeses and nos. Let's see this in the, in the questions box. How many people have got meetings in their diary going back to back?

Nathan Simmonds:

Me? Yes. Okay, who else? Yes, come on. Who else? I plan a break in between Sean, you wise lady on occasions. Yes. How many? And this is right now we're working at home in this space. How many people when they were working face to face in the office had meetings back to back? And I know the answer's gonna be the same. You don't have to answer that one.

Nathan Simmonds:

When we're working face to face, we have this kind of, this, this misnomer in our head that we can finish this meeting at 12 o'clock and then we can walk across to the other side of the building and be in the next meeting at exactly 12 o'clock. It's not gonna really happen is it? 'cause what happens is the meeting you are here maybe with someone really important, you finish that meeting but you finish it late 'cause they've got things to talk about and you want to wrap up and you don't wanna seem rude to rush away.

Nathan Simmonds:

But then it takes you another five minutes to get to the meeting over here and you turn up to the meeting 15 minutes late. Now if that meeting is a one-to-one or a coaching session or a developmental conversation with one of your teams or or a member of staff and you are turning up 15 minutes late to that session, what are you saying to the individual open question to you guys?

Nathan Simmonds:

What are you saying to the individual If you are turning up to their one-to-ones and to their developmental conversations and you're turning up 15 minutes late, what are you actually saying? Correct? What else are we saying? You are not important to me as one. Definitely. How does the person feel when we do this? Yeah, absolutely. You are not as important to me as the person, the previous person. You are not my priority.

Nathan Simmonds:

Your time is not as important as mine. Exactly this. And we do that face to face. And then what we do is we rush into the meeting and we say, ah, I'm really sorry I'm late. I was with so-and-so, and we were talking about this and the person goes, ah, it's okay. No it's absolutely fine. And then the head's thinking no it's not you don't value me all my time.

Nathan Simmonds:

So we need to start thinking about actually how we plan our diaries and how we plan what we're doing. Now the reason I say this is 'cause it's even easier to fall into this trap when I'm sitting on g uh, blue jeans or Zoom or teams or whatever it is and I'm having a meeting with this person, I think I can press this button and I can press this button and I'm gonna arrive exactly in the right time.

Nathan Simmonds:

But we don't because the meeting always overruns 'cause we structure it, um, without, we don't put the elements in place to make it work. The other part is what we are not doing for ourselves is actually giving ourselves a chance to decompress from the previous conversation. So if you are in a, a really important meeting with a customer, a client, you are senior management, whatever it is, and you are sitting there and you've got loads of actions.

Nathan Simmonds:

And you've got all these thoughts racing through your head and you're going from meeting to meeting, on a scale of one to 10, how likely are you to forget some of those elements that you needed to make sure you were taken away? If you are rushing straight into the next meeting, one being not at all, 10 being absolutely gonna forget some stuff, 10, 10, 8, 1 7.

Nathan Simmonds:

It's about making sure we're completely on point and we need to give ourselves a little bit of breathing space to decompress so that we can make sure we've got that thinking square in our head so that then when we walk into the next meeting, we are not carrying any baggage from the previous conversation. So when I walk into that meeting room at 12 o'clock, because that's the time my one-to-one starts with this person, I'm walking in there and making sure that I'm focusing on them.

Nathan Simmonds:

Because when you are having a one-to-one with someone, when you are giving someone feedback, when you are doing a coaching session with one of your team, who's the most important person in the conversation? Open question for you. Them, them, them always. So if I'm walking , oh si just to, to be difficult. So when you are walking into that meeting and you're still carrying baggage from that previous conversation, when you are walking in there late, you are always telling them that they're not the most important person....

Sticky Learning Lunches #6: Get to Know Your Employees and How People Feel Whilst Working Remotely

Use these two simple methods to find out how people feel because happy employees are productive employees. Use your time working from home to become the very best version of yourself. This is a Virtual Classroom of 20-minutes, followed by a 10-minute Q&A.

You Can Read the Full Transcript Below:

Nathan Simmonds:

Good afternoon. I wanted to open up the window. We've got a couple of minutes before everyone's coming. I can see there's a few people already waiting, so I wanted to start this session off as quickly as possible. Get you in the room. Say good afternoon to you. See what's going on. Bear with me. Today's session is all about emotions. That's one of the key things we're gonna be looking at today. I

Nathan Simmonds:

'm just rejigging some of my windows so I can make sure I can see what's going on. So the first question for me right now, how is everybody feeling right now? So this could be week 2, 3, 4 of current situation of the coronavirus lockdown. Good morning. Uh, good afternoon Andy.

Working from home can distance you from your employees

 

Nathan Simmonds:

How are you currently feeling in this situation? You've got the chat box. Question box over here. Plug it in. Tell me how you're feeling right now. I wanna see what emotions are coming up. Gonna blow my nose. It's a bit clear here today. On a scale of three, then one being not so good, two in the middle, three feeling good on a three scale. How are we feeling? Three is a good. Two's in the middle. Got a couple of in the middle East. How else are the rest of us feeling? One, not so, three being absolutely. How are we? A few more people still coming into the room right now,

Nathan Simmonds:

Just getting a gauge of how we're feeling while the rest of the people go. Again, let's make sure we've got drinks handy and available. Herbal teas. We've got pen and paper ready. We're gonna dive into this very shortly. I wanted to let you know we are not gonna be running at this point in time, a session this Friday, Friday off for you guys. Everyone's thinking in different places. We are gonna be running the session tomorrow, again, one o'clock tomorrow, Thursday, last session for this week, which is gonna be around the, the technical, the technology side of what we're doing for work and at, at home.

Nathan Simmonds:

So welcome back. Absolutely. We're just getting into this. We're gonna share the link for tomorrow's session. If you haven't already registered for tomorrow's session, Sarah's gonna drop that link into the chat box. Click through there in a in a minute while we're doing this, and while you're listening and register for tomorrow's session, which is gonna be a bit more about technology for tomorrow to help you working from home.

Nathan Simmonds:

Ah, good. There's the link. Thank you very much. What are we covering today? We are covering emotions, how we are feeling, how other people are feeling, what are our emotions, how we are going to direct them and what we're gonna do with them. And some quick route to help us make the best use of them. Okay, Good. I think everybody's in,

Nathan Simmonds:

Let's bring this to life. Who right now is experiencing yes or nos in the, in the questions of chat box, who right now is experiencing some new emotions or, um, experiencing a higher level of emotion right now in this current situation? Yes. Or nos in the chat boxes? Who's experiencing more emotion right now? Yes. Yes. Coming through? Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Guys, let me be frank and honest with you.

Nathan Simmonds:

It was a loaded question. Okay. We are in isolation. We're in a lockdown situation. We talked a bit about this, um, last week about the isolation. These are some of the symptoms of cabin fever at a very kind of low level. So the emotions, we're starting to get a little bit more erratic. We're getting a bit more snappy. We don't know what to do them with them. We are in close proximity to those we love and we care about just at a very intense level.

Nathan Simmonds:

And for those of us that maybe haven't got gardens or haven't got access to green spaces, they can get to that, that relate, that closeness is getting quite, you know, is getting a, a completely different level of intensity with it. And we're gonna look at some of the things we need to be doing that's gonna help us move through this. So what are our emotions? The first thing we wanna understand is what are our emotions? Taking your advice. I'm not using the purple pen today. So definitely not.

Nathan Simmonds:

Our emotions are a gauge. They're like a barometer for the quality of our thinking. Everything that we are experiencing always starts with a thought. So whether that thought was what you learned from your parents, what you've learned from TV or a book that you've read or from your previous experiences, the moment that you go into that experience or a situation similar to that, the thought kicks in and then the emotion comes out.

Nathan Simmonds:

So every thought, every emotion is predicated on a thought. And Marcus really has said it most clearly is things are neither good or bad. It's the thinking that makes them that way. Things are neither good or bad, it's the thinking that makes them that way. So every emotion you are experiencing when you are looking at a situation is based on how you are thinking about it.

Nathan Simmonds:

The key element here, and one of the lessons that I I love teaching through making business matter is what you think of a situation is what it becomes quick tie into how we deliver feedback when we are giving someone feedback. Bonus points here in the chat box. What's the normal conversation or what's the normal title of a conversation when we want to go and give someone feedback about something they've done wrong? What's the normal con uh, titles we give to these types of conversations?

Nathan Simmonds:

Steely silence. You've gotta go and give someone. So-called negative feedback. What's the normal business title or kind of in politically incorrect title we give to these conversations, coaching sessions and performance. Ideally it would be shit sandwich. We've got one of them. . Yeah, a bowl looking, that's also another one for it. The normal one. We've got some good stuff coming in here.

Nathan Simmonds:

The normal one is the difficult conversation. Disciplinary. Yeah, depending where you are in that journey. How many people here have been taught to how to have a difficult conversation or you've gone on a training course called difficult conversations?

Nathan Simmonds:

Absolutely. So what are we saying that the conversation's going to be difficult? So what happens is, at the start of the day, oh, I need to have a d difficult conversation, um, with this person, oh, do you know what that means? They're gonna be difficult. It's gonna be difficult. Do you know what? I'm gonna go and find something else to do over here and I'm gonna spend my whole day being busy with all this stuff that needs to be done to justify why I don't have the conversation with that person over there because of the label that we're applying to it.

Nathan Simmonds:

So what you think of a situation is what it becomes and then you start to add your emotions to it based on your previous experiences. So it's super important. We understand it's the thinking process that is the, is the initiator of where we're going with this. So what is it we want to do with that life lesson here? Valuable one is it's the labels that we're attaching to it that are causing the problem.

Nathan Simmonds:

And it's now we do this to ourselves and we do this to other people as well. We judge our ina inabilities and our capabilities by attaching different labels to what we think other people think we're capable of doing complicated. What we need to remember though is labels are Velcro, not super glue. So you can change those labels at any given time and that includes in the isolation and the working from home situation we're in right now.

Nathan Simmonds:

Let me give this to you as another question. What's one of the things that's frustrated you most about working from home and being in isolation right now? What's one thing that's challenged you most or caused the frustration to come up? And by the way, if anyone can see the questions there, side just said, just married my wife, that that was a previous statement he made. Not in answer to the question that I've just asked. Just covering you there. So I've got you back. Missing out on conversations, absolutely.

Nathan Simmonds:

Communication, breakdowns, delays in decision making. So we've got three great points that's come up there. Flip it around with a different question. What's the positive opposite of those things? We take that last one. The delays in decision making. What's the positive of those delays in the decision making? When we got the more time to think absolutely missing out on conversations. What's the positive opposite of this?

Nathan Simmonds:

This? So we're starting to think a little bit differently. Choice over who to speak to. That's amazing. Ab absolutely this. So it is the moment, the way we think about one thing from one angle. It causes the emotions to come up and the frustration, we shift the angle. Actually what's the positive opposite of this? What's the benefit in this? Okay, let's go from that angle and start pulling out because all the time you'll get your, you are stuck in your frustration.

Nathan Simmonds:

It's causing hesitation all the time that you are complaining. You're keeping yourself stuck to your circumstances because complaining is the glue that keeps you stuck to your circumstances. You cannot activate solution thinking while you are complaining. So it's super important.

Nathan Simmonds:

Exactly this another point here. Don't hear things that would evoke a negative reaction in

Sticky Learning Lunches #5: Finding Your Own Space and Stop Working From the Kitchen Table

Find out what space you need to create when you work from home, to avoid working from the kitchen table. Use your time working from home to become the very best version of yourself. This is a Virtual Classroom of 20-minutes, followed by a 10-minute Q&A.

You Can Read the Full Transcript Below:

Nathan Simmonds:

Wonderful. So welcome everybody to the first of the Sticky Learning lunches. Thanks very much for coming on. I'm gonna get myself so I can just share my video with you guys. Hello everybody. Let's stop sharing that screen. It says bear with me for two seconds.

Nathan Simmonds:

Let's get that full screen. So guys, um, you can see me, I would love to be able to see you as well. So please go over to the right hand side where it says you can you share webcam. Please do absolutely vital. In this day and age right now in the current situation, that we can see people that we can connect even by doing this via video link, we still get the same or certain level of those chemical reactions we get from actually seeing people face to face.

Nathan Simmonds:

So I would love to see you guys in the webcams over here. So please, right hand side, click on the share webcam so we can see who's on here. And also see your smiling faces 'cause that will help me in these trying times, give people a couple more minutes to get on. Please make sure you've got a drink with you. Staying hydrated. Super important. Alright.

Working from the kitchen table

 

Nathan Simmonds:

Just checking time 1 0 1. Good. A couple more people arriving. This is a fairly new experience, especially to me doing this. And gonna move my chat box up to the other side so I can see what chats are coming in. If you have any questions, there will be a q and A at the end, but please write them down, share them in the box, put 'em in the questions box so we can pick them up at the end.

Nathan Simmonds:

Good, it's 1 0 2. Let's start with this. So guys, welcome to the first of the Sticky Learning lunches. Fantastic to be here. Fantastic to share with you guys, especially in this day and age. Right now with our experiences, we are making business matter MBM and we are the Homer Sticky Learning and we're also the soft skills provider to the UK retail and grocery industry.

Nathan Simmonds:

So excited for this opportunity to share this stuff with you guys. And like I say, it's vitally important that we do this, that we get these moments to learn and we get these moments to expand our thinking while we've got time to, while we're at home, home, um, while we're working in these different dynamics and different environments. Super important. So before I get into introductions about me, I wanna make sure we're setting you guys up for success.

Nathan Simmonds:

So the first thing we're gonna do, get your phones. If you're not watching this on your phone and you're watching this on your laptop, get your phones out. Let's make sure we're getting absolute attention on what we are doing. First and foremost, get your phones, get 'em onto flight mode. I'm just gonna check my make sure mine is on. Yeah, flight mode. We wanna zero out those distractions and we're gonna talk about that again a little bit later on in this session.

Nathan Simmonds:

The next thing you wanna do is if you've got your email open, if you've got Facebook open LinkedIn, close them. The moment you get a ping, a beep, a buzz, your distraction, your attention is gonna go to there rather than actually learning anything here. So we're gonna do this for 30 to 40 minutes maximum. So I'm full attention to what we're doing here so that I can help give you some ideas that's gonna push your thinking, that's gonna help you get more focused on what you're doing.

Nathan Simmonds:

And expand your capabilities to work even better in a home working environment in these new environments that we find ourselves in. So kill the distractions before they kill you. Next thing you want to do pens and paper. Let's make sure you've got a pad and some fresh paper available. You've got pens, paper, whatever it is you wanna write with.

Nathan Simmonds:

Give yourself a nice blank sheet. You wanna make sure you remove it from any of your other notes so it doesn't get lost in those. Okay? That way when you go back and read it, you can actually go back with it or you don't, uh, put it out and throw it away with the actions that you've already done, but you keep it there as a fresh reminder to keep this thinking fresh, upfront and moving forward. Good, that's a little bit of the housekeeping.

Nathan Simmonds:

Who am I? Well, my name's Nathan Simmons, I'm senior coach, senior leadership coach and trainer for MBM. Um, I've got 20 over 20 years of leadership experience. Been working from home now on and off for quite some time. So I've got some, um, already real life experience of doing this. We also opted to homeschool as well. So for you guys out there that have got your children at home at the moment, we've been doing that for a while as well.

Nathan Simmonds:

So I'm happy to take questions from that at a later date just to help you move through that. Again, it's a new experience for a lot of you just wanna say though, you're doing a great job and you are very capable of doing this, okay? So keep hold of that thought and keep doing what you're doing. Be curious and help those kids learn and that's the best thing you can do for yourself and for them. What else?

Nathan Simmonds:

I also qualified as a leadership coach over almost eight years ago now. I've been focusing on leadership development for the last night. Absolutely vital that we learn these skills. So there's not many people out there teaching this stuff to us. And what I teach and how I teach, it's uncommon skills, taught in uncommon ways that are gonna help you to be the best version of yourself.

Nathan Simmonds:

Okay, today what we're gonna do is we're gonna start breaking down a, a pneumonic, an acronym for helping you to work better at home. And we're gonna do that over the next two weeks. And we're gonna do one session every day, um, for the next working days over the next two weeks 'cause you've got Easter right in the middle. So the first thing we're gonna be talking about from the mindset model is to manage to manage yourself.

Nathan Simmonds:

In this session we're gonna cover four key areas of things you can do to help manage your focus, help manage your time and help manage your actions so you can get the best possible results and increase your productivity by maximizing your focus on that. So what's the first thing we want to cover in our manage model? The first thing we want to cover is our to-do list. Uh, sorry, apologies is the routine. Routine is absolutely vital. There's so many people at the moment. There's over 10,000 searches a month done on Google for time management

Nathan Simmonds:

And there's a demand out there for people wanting to find out how they can manage their time better. But the truth is you can't actually manage your time 'cause time's infinite. It's not something you can grab hold of and deal with. The only thing that you can actually manage is how you focus your attention inside that space to make sure you're getting the outcome that you want at the end of that space.

Nathan Simmonds:

So routine is absolutely vital. The first thing that we can do when we're dealing with our routine is we want to book three different times into our day. The first one of those times is our start time. We want to know when we're actually gonna be doing our work. 'cause it's easy to get up in the morning and think, oh, I've gotta work with this email. Oh, I've gotta take this action.

Nathan Simmonds:

And the first thing that we do at 6 37 o'clock, whatever time is it, we jump straight into our social media or we jump straight into a work email and we don't actually structure out how we're gonna get there. And next thing we know it's already 10, 11 o'clock and we, and we found that those actions have run away with us. So the first thing we wanna do is book a start time. That way we know when we're going to commence our day and we've got time before that to prepare ourselves mentally for the day ahead.

Nathan Simmonds:

Breakfast time with family, clearing your head whether you do meditation or journaling in the morning or exercise, making sure you are creating a window for those things before you actually go into your work workspace office. The second space, the second time we want a book is our lunchtime. And it's absolutely critical that we stop and that we make sure that we are energizing ourselves physically, but also mentally taking ourselves out of whatever work we were doing wherever we were working.

Nathan Simmonds:

And taking that time to have a break, digest, reflect rehydrate, and then come back to that space ready to do even more work and more focus for that afternoon rather than just going through and just knocking actions off that to-do list. The third time is when you're actually gonna stop. 'cause it's easy. And I've done this recently with some of our clients. I've sent an email in the evening at 9 30, 10 o'clock at night, not expecting to get a response until the next morning and I'll get a response five minutes later.

Nathan Simmonds:

Why? Because they're sitting at home with their work phone or their laptop nearby. 'cause they haven't actually got the, uh, the framework of what sort of day they wanna be working. So instead they just keep it on because they think they need to be on call constantly when they're working from home. But actually it's super healthy to make sure you're stopping a a a point in the day so you know when you are working too. 'cause we have Parkinson's law, we may talk about that a little bit more in a second, but work will fill the time that's been allotted to it.

Nathan Simmonds:

...