Sticky Learning Lunches #53: The Leadership Upgrade #3

Today's topic, The Leadership Upgrade part 3. "Worried if you change you won’t know what to expect? Part #3 of the Unique Leadership Coaching model ‘EVOC’ Obstacles, If you always did what you’ve always done. You’ll always get what you always got. Get prepared, get aware and plan for a better future.

You Can Read the Full Transcript Below:

Nathan Simmonds:

Uh, go green and we are live. Hello everyone. Good afternoon. Welcome to Thursday. Let's just give it 30 seconds. Let the last people just get into the room. A few more people still arriving by the sounds of it. My neighbors are actually trying to get into the room as well, but physically, so if you hear any loud banging, that's not us. Apologies. Good afternoon Cameron. Good to see you. Colin. Good to see you again. Thank you. Fabian, Howard, Martin, Matt, Petra, Stewart, Tim. Thank you everyone for being here. Let's just give it 30 seconds. Give it a moment. Oops. Excuse me. Mobile phones. My one hiding across the other side of the desk. Wow.

Nathan Simmonds:

Right. Let's get everyone set up for success. Let's make sure that we have got that little airplane lit. Zero out the distraction, a hundred percent attention on exactly what we're doing here today. Making sure you've got a drink. Let's make sure we stay hydrated. Get the brain lubricated and let's make sure we keep this learning sticky. Dry brain equals dry session.

Nathan Simmonds:

And then finally, fresh sheet, fresh thinking. So we wanna make sure we've got a clean notepad in front of us. At the top of that page, you are gonna write keepers and these are the things that you wanna remember, that you want to reread, that you want to use to reignite that thinking, to help keep these ideas expanding and flowing into the work that you are doing. I think we are here. I think we're all good. Good afternoon, Victoria. Good. See you Ivy. Thanks for being here again.

Part #3 of the Unique Leadership Coaching Model

 

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. We are the leadership development and soft skills provider to the grocery and manufacturing industry. And the idea of these micro learnings is to help you be the best version of you in the work that you do. Whether that's while you're at home or whether it is helping you to return back to the office. Let's dive into today's session. Good afternoon Vonne. Good to see you again. And Lana, thanks for being here. Really appreciate it.

Nathan Simmonds:

So we've already covered evaluation, we've already covered a bit of the vision. So we've taken time to look at ourselves. We're looking at 360 feedback, whether we do this once a year, but actually ideally, ideally, as this idea came to me as we were doing the session, two days going, breaking it up into bite-sized chunks. So maybe you're asking smaller numbers of questions about a very specific part of your leadership, coaching, communication or feedback, whatever it might be, and getting some input on that on a regular basis, maybe once a quarter. Then taking the time to build the vision.

Nathan Simmonds:

Where do you want to get to? And I use the analogy a lot. It, it's the same as sat nav. Where am I now? Where do I want to get to? Where am I now? Where am I going to and making sure I've got the right information that's gonna help me get where I need to be. And this pen is now departing. Let's see. That'll do. And today we're gonna be looking at obstacles. We're gonna be looking at those things that hold us back. And before I do that,

Nathan Simmonds:

I'm just gonna drop in the link for the future sessions and rightfully reminded, come off the full screen. So in the chat box you can see the link there. It's got the previous sessions. If you haven't seen them, they're on there already. You can click onto them and rewatch 'em. And also, if you haven't signed up for Monday's session where we're gonna be looking at the last part of this framework, which is around how to create the actions, now's the time to do that.

Nathan Simmonds:

You've got the link there, click through, sign up, get yourself registered so you're live in the room. And also if you know people that are gonna get value from this, share it with them. Really important that we get some of this information into more leaders so that more leaders are thinking this way and approaching life differently rather than thinking they're already perfect, rather than having no idea where they're going and actually just end up complaining about the problems as they come downstream.

Nathan Simmonds:

'cause they haven't prepared for them. 'cause they didn't expect them. And actually most of the time, 99% of the problems that come downstream, we know they're gonna happen if we ask the right questions. And not enough people are doing this. This is why we have challenges in leadership. This is why we have challenges, um, in certain teams because we are not self-evaluating. We, we don't have our own vision and we're too reliant on someone else telling us what to do.

Nathan Simmonds:

And actually the obstacles are the things that we need to embrace and, and see before they come downstream so that we can line up the challenges in front of us in a chronological strategic order and overcome them now gradually improving our skillset as we step over each one of them. Hope this is making sense. So where are we going first? Number one, it's all about how we frame it.

Nathan Simmonds:

So it is how we, it's the labels that we apply to this. And I talked about this a bit before, um, in regards to ourselves, when we're doing personal development and when we're doing goal setting and also when we're doing negotiation. It, it's different ways that we focus our brand. When we're looking at, at feedback, which we're gonna look at in a couple of weeks, and you're looking at personal development. So what you think of someone is how you treat them. So what you think up here, the content of your head dictates the content of your math. And when you're doing your own personal development, the phrase I use is, is what you think of yourself is what you will achieve.

Nathan Simmonds:

And you may remember me hearing this or if you've worked one to one way that you would've heard me say this. So the moment we start thinking that we are not capable or no, it is beyond us, we'll find reasons and excuses to make sure it is beyond us and it stays that way. When we have a situation, actually it is the way that we think about the thing that turns it into actually what we believe it is. So what we think of a situation is what it becomes. So especially when we're working in feedback or we're looking in these um, looking at these challenges coming downstream, the moment you think it's going to be a problem, it becomes a problem.

Nathan Simmonds:

Everyone with me, this makes sense. Gimme some yeses on those. Show me you're alive. Yes, I've got some yeses. Good. So let me say this again. What you think of a situation is what it becomes. Let me hit you with a couple of key quotes that, you know, ring true on this one Marcus, or really know things. Things are neither good or bad. It's the thinking that makes them. So I have no idea how many thousands of years he said that it was right then. And it's right now when we see these obstacles, we'll use a little bit of drunk logic. The problem isn't the problem, it's your attitude to the problem. That is the problem.

Nathan Simmonds:

Captain Jack Sparrow on rum and even he was getting it right. The challenge is though, when we frame it and we hang these labels on things and we see them as issues or we see them as problems, that's what we turn them into. So when we're delivering feedback or even to a leader or someone in our team and we say this is going to be a difficult conversation, what are we saying that the conversation is going to be? What are we actually saying about the person that we're actually going to talk to? How, what, how are we actually labeling that individual before we even get to them? So are we making it more or less difficult for ourselves before we even go into it?

Nathan Simmonds:

And I've got my notes here, I'm just gonna make sure, because the moment that you judge someone, you cannot influence them. Remember this, when we do feedback, I will repeat this again. At the same time, the moment we judge a situation, we deem ourselves as incapable of influencing it or changing it. So we have to address how we are looking at it. Now, common error. Common error or or belief. Fake news. That crisis in Chinese means two things. Someone said the crisis, the word crisis means, um, no danger or, and or opportunity. I did some research on this.

Nathan Simmonds:

It's a misnomer. What it actually means is there's a tipping point. We've got a a a moment in there where we can change and go in different directions. Something could happen, but we've got an opportunity to look at what else is going to happen. Questions come in here, but how can you control your feelings? Example, somebody I, I do not like for example, you have the option to the choice to respond or react whether you like them or not.

Nathan Simmonds:

Whether they've done something to upset you or not, you still have a choice of how you wish to respond to them. Guaranteed though what you think of someone is how you treat them. So if I'm thinking no, they're an idiot or you know, I don't want 'em around them, my words will change shape. And the conversation and the outcome of that conversation will also change as well.

Nathan Simmonds:

So when we go back into this is, okay, well what's this person asking for? How can I help this person right now? How can I change my responsibility? Oh sorry, my, my ability to respond,