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Jo Andrews

About Jo Andrews

http://www.thetrainingrock.com

Posts by Jo Andrews:

Towels or plants?

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Do you think of your team members as towels or plants?

Before you think I’ve really lost the plot let me explain…

I think it’s fair to say that the 80’s style ‘boss’ approach to being a leader, was to get as much out of each employee as possible; get their money’s worth out of every person every day and focus on the bottom line. You know, productivity = output = money. 

Much like wringing out a towel and getting every last drop that you can. 

In the short-term, you might get more out of them; one extra sale, 5% more productivity, a project completed a day early.

And what’s the human impact? Being micromanaged and squeezed for every last drop feels suffocating.  Not sustainable for the long term, so on the horizon will either be burnout or resignation (or both).

 It’s also exhausting and frustrating to lead like this.  

Thankfully, there’s a shift away from that ego-driven style of leadership, towards a more trust-based approach; enabling employees to thrive, growing their confidence/skills/career AND achieving and exceeding goals. And although this way of leading takes training and practise, it’s easier, more comfortable (for both parties) and much, much more profitable in the long term.

Why? Because staff have space to breathe, trust their leader, feel safe to try new things and make mistakes and will learn. 

When the culture is such that it’s safe to put you hand up and say “I need help”, when trust is high, when respect is established, THAT’s when people thrive and loyalty is cemented. 

And that’s where the plant comes in. We don’t stand over a plant and shout at it to grow. 

We provide rich soil (culture), give them time and space (trust) and feed them (training) to help them grow. 

We don’t dig up the roots on day 2 to see why they haven’t grown.  When we come back a week later, we see growth. We keep an eye (listening) and continue feeding them when necessary (training). 

A month later, when the leaves are huge and there are new buds sprouting, how magic does that feel?  

Plants grow, towels get nicked….! 

So if you want to grow your team and not end up back on the recruitment wheel to replace the people you squeezed dry, grow plants, don’t wring towels!

The Great Resignation

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Unless you’ve been living on Mars recently, then you’ll have heard of The Great Resignation.

Most articles and news reports were referring to the rate of people quitting their jobs in the US. But as is often the case, we soon followed suit here in the UK.

According to HR news, 85% of UK businesses have been affected, with negative impacts on employee wellbeing and problems attracting new talent being amongst the problems.

But the biggest challenge?

Retaining staff.

The most common reason for people leaving their jobs:

  • Not feeling respected
  • Not feeling trusted (often because they’re working from home)
  • Not feeling heard
  • Feeling undervalued
  • No development prospects
  • And who is responsible for ALL of those things? 

Their leader. 

Yep, not the HR department, not the MD, not anyone other than their direct leader, who may not be being supported by THEIR leader…..

And do you know what the most common career route is for people leaders?

They’re blooming marvellous at the job they were doing before. So they get promoted and suddenly they’re people leaders.

There’s just the slight oversight as follows:

Leading people effectively requires a different skillset from doing the job that those people are doing.

Let’s just say that again for the people at the back:

LEADING PEOPLE EFFECTIVELY REQUIRES A DIFFERENT SKILLSET TO DOING THE JOB THAT THOSE PEOPLE ARE DOING.

If these new leaders are open to learning and developing this new skillset then hoorah! But if they’ve been promoted purely based on their skills while they were doing ‘the job’ (and often ‘because they’ve been there the longest’) then the impact of the skills gap will be felt by their team members, themselves (it’s rubbish going from being great at your job to being a bit crap!) the team’s results, the company and ultimately the cost of replacing the people who will inevitably leave because of all the reasons above.

So….. if you’ve got a challenge with retaining your staff, how much support/training/coaching have your people leaders had? 

How much work have you done on creating a culture where people feel supported, heard, valued and trusted?

Need some help? 

Let’s chat. 

Which animal influencers make the best leaders?

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This is probably the question I get asked the most often (after ‘can you hear me, am I on mute?’)

It’s a great question and it won’t surprise you to hear that it’s not a straightforward answer.

If you’d have asked me in the 80’s, (which you wouldn’t have done, because I’d have been at school….) then I would confidently say that the majority of corporate leaders would have had Lion as their top influencer; being ‘the boss’, barking instructions, intimidating staff and defaulting to a controlling position. Thankfully, we now see that as old fashioned leadership. 

Don’t get me wrong, embracing your Lion traits at the right moment is not wrong. With Lion as my second influencer, I’m absolutely not anti Lion, just very sure (having learned the hard way) that over use of the Lion’s traits, isn’t the best way of leading.

What matters more than which your top influencer is as a leader, is having a solid awareness of your vulnerabilities and what triggers them to become prominent. This is one of those things which is really easy to say, much harder to do. It’s usually one of the real lightbulb moments on our workshops. 

We often measure ourselves by our strengths, but measure others by their vulnerabilities.  Which obviously means that others measure us by our vulnerabilities. 

So it’s all very well having great strengths (which all of the influencers do) but until we understand what triggers our vulnerabilities and how we manage them, it’s difficult to really thrive as a leader.

I’ve worked with leaders with pretty much every influencer at the top and it’s always the case that regardless of their top influencers, it was the degree to which they’d made an effort to understand both their own influencers AND those in the team which had the strongest bearing on how effective a leader they were.

Let’s take a Honeybee, for example. They come with brilliant organisation and attention to detail. Who wouldn’t want a bit of that in the team? But when triggered, they can be dismissive of other people’s ideas, because ‘their way is the right way’. Not so great.

Or a Cheetah with their drive to achieve and focus on results; again, great! But when their competitiveness kicks in at the expense of their relationships, it becomes problematic. 

The Dog is the people pleaser in the team – we all love having a Dog in the team, but they’re in danger of being so busy looking after everyone else that they don’t look after themselves. And that’s not great for the long term.

So you can see that it’s not so much about which influencer is at the top, but more about the self awareness of whichever influencer(s) you have. 

Once you understand your own triggers and how to manage your vulnerabilities when they show up, if you also understand the strengths and vulnerabilities in your team, then you’re set up to not only get the best out of your team as individuals, but to ensure that the team works as a well oiled machine. 

If you haven’t taken the TRAIT test yet, go here and meet your animal influencers. 

Turning Tricky Conversations into Collaborations

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I ended the first half of 2022 with a day I won’t forget in a hurry.

I was doing a lunchtime webinar on turning tricky conversations into collaborations – great!

In the morning, my website was hacked and went offline – not great!

So just as a load of people were trying to take the TRAIT test, they couldn’t access it.

But you know how lovely people are, they were patient and kind (actually, they were on mute, so there wasn’t much they could say…!)

Now there’s always a positive when we’re faced with negatives and the clear positive here is that I’ve managed (with the help of my amazing husband) to get a brand new website up within 24 hours of the other one going down. Suffice to say we are both sleep deprived today…..

Here’s a recording of the webinar. So grab a cuppa, get comfy and enjoy!

Oh and for the full experience, I’d suggest doing the TRAIT test first.