Sticky Learning Lunches #51 :The Leadership Upgrade #1

Today's topic, The Leadership Upgrade Part 1. Got promoted and wish someone showed you how to Lead? – Part #1 The Unique Leadership Coaching model ‘EVOC’ (Self) Evaluate, take a deeper dive into your leadership style and capability.

You Can Read the Full Transcript Below:

Nathan Simmonds:

Let's wait for this, right. Okay. Just doing a screen share waiting for the last few people to come into the room. It is absolute pleasure to be here in front of the whiteboard again, so many eager people just looking down the list here at the moment. Alan, thanks very much for being here. Thanks very much. Andy's saying rocking the shirt. Thanks. It's a changing color scheme for me, Cameron. Long knot time. No speak. Really good to see you, Colin and Fabi and gerd. Howard Ivy, thanks for being here again. Martin, looks like the first time I've seen you here. Matt Brown, welcome back Ming. Good to see you, Mohammed, to be, I'm gonna go with Mt. Tim Moore.

Nathan Simmonds:

It is an absolute honor to be sharing this sticky learning lunch with all of you. Eager people. I'm not sure I've seen so many people in the room waiting to get in. This is phenomenal. Welcome to today's Sticky Learning Lunch. Last few people arriving. Lee, welcome Victoria. Hello. Thanks for being here again. This is gonna be good. The weather outside is terrible here. My shirt is making up for the difference in the, uh, darkness that is outside the gray. So let's get everyone set up for success before we kick off today.

Nathan Simmonds:

First things first, get the phones out. Let's make sure we're zeroing out the distraction. A hundred percent attention on what it is you are doing right here is, which is looking at your leadership skills and looking at your personal development as a leader or even how you are gonna help to develop your leaders. 'cause this is something that is still vitally missing or vitally important that is missing from modern work, modern society, humanity as a whole. And it's something that I'm very, very passionate about. So phones on silent. Let's eliminate the emails.

Nathan Simmonds:

Let's eliminate all of those distractions which are gonna stop you from learning here. Stage. Second thing, making sure you've got a drink available. Let's keep you hydrated so you can keep your brain lubricated and make this learning stick. And finally, the last stage of setting you up for success for this session. Fresh sheet, fresh thinking. So I want you to find a nice clean page in your notepad. And at the top of that you're gonna write keepers.

Nathan Simmonds:

And the keepers are the things that you wanna remember and the things that you wanna remind yourself about. So when you go back and reread it, it's gonna reignite that thinking. It's gonna get the new ideas forming and get the actions in place to keep you moving forward. Hope this is clear with everyone. I think this is the last few people in the room still look up more arriving. Beautiful.

Click the image to take a look at your leadership style with this sticky learning lunch

 

Nathan Simmonds:

Let's do this. Welcome to today's Sticky Learning lunch with me. Nathan Simmons, senior leadership coach and trainer for MBM Making Business Matter, the home of Sticky learning. And we are the leadership development and soft skills provider to the grocery and manufacturing industries. Idea of these sticky learning lunches is to help you be the best version of you and the work that you do right now, whether it's working from home or whether it's preparing you to return back to the office. And today, what are we covering?

Nathan Simmonds:

We are covering evoc, EVOC. So lemme get this up on the whiteboard for evoc is a leadership coaching framework that I built in the MBM lab to help p compartmentalize their thinking, to give them a structure so they can do that self-inquiry and start to create their version of reality based on a leader. So it's about helping them to create the pictures in their heads so that they've got something to strive for and that they can show people around them where they're going and help to mobilize that team.

Nathan Simmonds:

I think I've dived straight in. I dived straight in with the content over enthusiastic, but we're gonna run with it and I'll pick up the other parts as we go in. So what does evoc EVOC stand for? Evo? The first part is to evaluate. And this means taking the time to look at yourself. It means taking the time to reflect on what you've been doing for the last year, two years, five years. It's about looking at your habits and the way that you behave and interact with people inside your business so that you can actually see what's going on.

Nathan Simmonds:

And that's the first stage we're gonna be looking at today. But then the next stage we're gonna be looking at tomorrow is we're gonna go into the vision. So where you want to take people, where you want to get to. When we're talking about leadership, it's really important and we understand this when we are leading, we are out front taking people there. Now if we don't know where we are going, how are people gonna be able to know if they want to follow you? So it's really important we understand where we are going and what our vision is.

Nathan Simmonds:

The truth is, and I heard recently that a great thought leader that often inspires me said that no, not everyone is a visionary leader. And right now I'm gonna call BSS on that. Everybody is a visionary leader. If you have eyes in your head, you have vision. If you are taking somewhere, going somewhere, you are a leader. 'cause you are leading the way for yourself or for someone else. Even if you throw a ball for a dog, you are a visionary leader 'cause that dog is enthusiastic and enthused by your behavior that it wants to go and get that ball and bring it back. So let's get really clear.

Nathan Simmonds:

As human beings, we have all, we all have the capability to create a vision and lead people there. The O stands for obstacles. It is not about. And when we get into this later on, it is not about being stuck by things, it's by about having the reality to see things as they are. See what your challenges are and then understand what it is you need to do to move beyond them. So you can get a real clear viewpoint of what's happening. And then take the right rea um, actions,

Nathan Simmonds:

Just . Let's get a fresh one so that we can go and create. So we can come up with some new ideas that are actually gonna help us beyond this. That gets us into this 'cause we understand who we are. I hope this makes sense to everyone. Everyone with me so far? Yes or no? I know I've dived straight in with the content. I've got really enthusiastic. I saw lots of friendly faces and went straight in. That's definitely a typo. Jamie , you meant to say All good

Nathan Simmonds:

So this is the model. So this has given us a four part structure, very similar to the grow coaching model with goal reality options and way forward. So we're gonna break this down. The first part that we want to do though is we want to get absolute clarity on who you are. 'cause if you don't know who you are, how is anyone else gonna know what they're buying into? If you don't know what you are capable of and what makes you tick, how's anyone else gonna be able to get involved?

Nathan Simmonds:

How's anyone else gonna help you achieve what you see in your head as the big picture for your business, for your department, for your family, whatever it is. So we have to take the time to do this evaluation piece. It is so absolutely vital. Who has heard of confirmation bias or biases, mental biases? Who has heard of those? Yes or no? Couple have got a mixture here. Yes. Bits no. Yes. Okay. High level view. When we have things like a confirmation bias,

Nathan Simmonds:

Primarily when we do a job interview, they call, they refer to this often as thorns and halos thing. You know, you see someone, um, I'm sitting there about to interview someone with my very bright purple shirt on and this person comes in with a, you know, a nice beard and glasses and a very nice purple shirt. All of a sudden I'm starting to get a confirmation bias. They look like me, they dress like me. They must be a good person. Therefore maybe I'll give them the job, not based on whether they've got the skills or not, but because they look a bit like me or they talk a bit like me. So we start to kind of, we sway our, we are, we have our opinions swayed based on what we think of the world.

Nathan Simmonds:

The challenge is when we're doing the self-evaluation piece, if I'm a leader or I've been in a position for a long time and I haven't got enough people around me to challenge my way of thinking or approaches, I start to think that my way is the only way I start to become blinded by my behaviors. 'cause maybe they worked with this group of people or in this project and I think that's the only way. So I just stick in that track, in that, in that groove and I just stay there. Boss bias, absolutely, Howard love it. I might have to use that one.

Nathan Simmonds:

So it's understanding that when we get caught in that rutt and we need to get a clarity on, you know, what is working, how am I interacting with people? How do I take the time to reflect on myself to make sure that I'm doing the best for myself and for those in my care. Questions has come in. It's uh, how honest someone will be in evaluating themself. Absolutely. So this is where we get this confirmation bias. We get a personal bias to ourself because we've been doing it for such a long time. We, you know, we've become blinded.

Nathan Simmonds:

It's like the horse with the shy horse with the, with the blinkers on. We don't see what else is going on. We just go, okay, I'm just gonna go there in this way and not think about anything else.