This is Part I in a series of four blogs detailing how Small and Medium Enterprises (SME’s) should be planning to meet the challenges of 2023. Rather than setting a course for ‘survival’ following a detailed plan will enable a growth mindset that will pay dividends throughout the challenges of 2023.
These are difficult times and they are going to require careful navigation in 2023. The single most impactive thing an SME owner can do when looking forward is to create a plan for this next 12 months that tests and challenges both themselves and their business. Planning can mitigate risks and create options to ease the pain points that will be experienced in the next year. SME business owners will need to look to their strengths and make the most of those so that the challenge can also become an opportunity.
Larger organisations are also finding these times as difficult. Only Apple Inc. have grown profits in line with expectations of the big tech giants in the last 12 months with such stalwart companies as Amazon and Microsoft experiencing huge turbulence in profits. As in life, confidence, certainty, planning and self-belief can go a very long way in an SME. Here in the UK in a recent Institute of Directors survey members reported that despite the challenges they remain optimistic about the future, with 60% expecting continued revenue growth this year. There is an understanding that profit margins are going to be affected and that increasing costs cannot all be passed on to the customer if the SME is to stay competitive. The approach to pricing and marketing is key this next year above all others.
The challenges for SME owners are never-ending. They will always have to find innovative ways within their 12 month plan to stay afloat, but also to gain a competitive edge by addressing the core problems that they are able to anticipate. In 2023, the challenges for business owners are even greater as the economy has only made an anaemic recovery from the pandemic and is experiencing increased costs created by the disruption of Russiaโs invasion of Ukraine. These times require not just innovation and boldness but they also require transformative thinking.
The core elements for the SME plan in 2023 must be about growth, upscaling and about creating significant transformation by shaking off their โsurvivalโ mode. There are some opportunities to create change in this adversity that will support business growth in the long-term.
Emotionally intelligent business ownership is a must.
Leading the business with emotional intelligence and empathy
There have been times when leading with compassion and emotional intelligence may have been considered as faddism or as an optional extra. To be competitive in 2023 emotional intelligence in business is absolutely essential. This will enable the business owner to perform at a higher level and similarly allow development for the people that work for the SME. Many are describing the โgreat resignationโ following the pandemic in which individuals are considering their careers and their futures. This is leading to difficulties for all organisations, including SMEโs. It is vital that leaders understand that part of the reflection for their people is that they want to feel safe and more cared for and that this need for care in their work, if met by reciprocated compassion, empathy and bravery by business owners, not only will they keep the loyalty of their best people, it will also cement greater team spirit and encourage ever greater levels of discretionary effort to be given.
The use of emotional intelligence, the demonstration of compassion as a leader must start with the way that the leader of the SME looks after themselves. Even in an organisation working frequent long hours there are ways for the leader to manage their own wellbeing in a way that encourages others to do so. This breaks an increasing โpresenteeismโ culture that can prevail when leaders feel threatened by the sort of challenges that are being faced now and will continue into 2023.
The following article published on LinkedIn by Professor Amanda Kirby contains a really useful 10 point plan for each business owner to practice what they preach and think about how to show self-compassion and to lead others with compassion.
This takes the qualities of emotional intelligence and empathy a stage further in that it is about what is provided for the employees of an SME. This is the fuel in the tank that will power the growth of the SME through 2023 and energise the ability to meet the challenges faced. It will certainly avoid one of the biggest challenges facing businesses, burnout of staff. There are practical benefits of successful wellness and wellbeing plans for employees but also having such an approach is saleable in the job market and can guarantee getting better quality recruits and retaining the best and most skilled staff when businesses are battling to keep their people.
Research from the Association of British Insurers (ABI) shows that offering health and wellbeing benefits to staff can play a valuable role in also boosting productivity. Three in five SME’s state that providing health and wellbeing benefits has significant impact on supporting the productivity of their company. This increases to 7 out of 10 in medium size businesses. Worryingly, only one in five are aware of their legal requirement to provide information on benefits to new employees by their first day of work. It may seem like a luxury for an SME in 2023 to engage with staff and consider what can be done to enhance wellness and wellbeing. Yet, in thinking about the clear and demonstrable link between such programmes and increased productivity, increased performance and reduced absenteeism they are a must. This equates to a reduction in overheads and an increase in profits to the business. The programmes need not necessarily involve huge investment and can be made up of healthy snacks, great hygiene, workplace access to mental health support and fitness plans from local gymnasiums as examples.
In Part II of this series look forward to pointers for how the SME can plan to counter the economic headwinds that are predicted in 2023…
So, the summer is over, the children are back to school, what are you doing with all your spare time? (That you so wish you had!)
You are working hard as a business owner and entrepreneur or in your chosen career and the transition from shapeshifting through the summer between home and your business or work will have been exhausting and an endurance test, but now the frustration is ramping up because even with the children back at school or nursery, that pressure is no less. The frustration is largely aimed at yourself because somehow you perceive that you should be feeling the benefit of the sun setting on the summer silly season of juggling.
This year of course, that juggle has come at the end of two years in which family and work life has been turned upside down through the pressures of living with covid, trying to keep jobs and businesses buoyant and potentially simultaneously becoming a home schoolteacher as well as a carer for other family members. The toll of all of this is both physical and mental and the result of it can be a growing self-doubt that your control over your own destiny is ebbing away into the far distance.
A toolkit to help you find your balance
These tools are hard change, but they will work for you
Has September brought you back to that familiar feeling of being overcommitted? Do you sense that the old enemy of overwhelm and white noise is deafening you? Are you feeling stressed out and completely out of balance? Are any or all of these happening for you?
Working hours feeling out of control as you catch up after the holiday?
Feeling tense, stressed, or overwhelmed with the constant juggle?
Missing out on quality time with family or friends?
Eating quick meals and have no time for real exercise?
Feeling exhausted and wondering when your mojo will ever come back?
Falling behind on important work tasks, your to do lists and your life admin?
Sleeping poorly again?
Then this toolkit is for you!!! It will make you feel less stress, more in control, more productive and create the satisfaction and fulfilment that you deserve in creating more quality personal time, increased revenue in, and focus on your business and there is only one cost to youโฆ you will lose your โoverwhelmโ.
โThe ONE tip I can passionately share with others about balancing motherhood while running your business is this: Understand and accept that something’s gotta give. Sometimes the housework has to give. Sometimes the business has to give. Sometimes my marriage has to give. Sometimes the kids needs have to give. The only true goal to a balanced life should be to make sure that everything doesn’t give at once.โ
Renee Wood, President, The Comfort Company
Walking the tightrope of a healthy worklife balance can be achieved
Tool #1 – Start by saying โnoโ, start by working out what you will stop. If you are saying ‘yes’ to changing your worklife balance then you have to be saying โnoโ to so many other things! Say โnoโ.
Firstly, remember that this is your life and your profession / business, there is no formula and no perfect solution that others have magically found, so make sure that you are ploughing your own furrow by creating the plan for change that suits you and your family. Turn down the white noise of others who always know best!!! The hardest thing for proactive people like you is that saying โnoโ is really hard because it feels like one of two things :-
Letting others down when of course they need you, they are used to all that you do!
Letting yourself down because saying โnoโ must be failure, you always keep it all together no matter what!
Start the process of saying ‘no’ closer to home, start it with โyouโ. Not saying no to your own striving to cram 48 hours into 24 hours is your first enemy in truly getting in front of this feeling of being stranded on the endless merry-go-round that has just replaced the circus juggling of the summer holiday!
Tool #2 โ Think about 12 months ahead and of the ebb and flow of your work, business and home life โ plan for them now!
โNo plan survives first contact with the enemyโ Helmute Van Moltke 1880
โEveryone has a plan until they get punched in the mouthโ Mike Tyson (appraising Van Moltke!)
So plans can be tricky ! Though having no plan at all definitely guarantees chaos, you can make this approach work for you. Only you know when the busy times are in your work and business and how they may coincide with very busy times at home such as Christmas, birthdays, holiday periods and other such commitments. This year you can guarantee that Christmas will be in the last week of December!
Can you prevent these times from being busy? (NO)
Can you create time that doesnโt exist to make them easier? (NO)
Can you trim your overstretching more rather than the Christmas tree? (YES)
Can you be kinder to yourself? (YES)
Can you delegate more at these annual pain points? (YES)
Can you plan and prepare others for this now (YES)
This is the diary equivalent of saying no to your yourself and to others. Planning for it can make others on point when you need them to be and some other expectations will need to be scaled back at these times to show true kindness to yourself. This part of your 12 month plan is a vital part of your essential personal and professional growth. Look after yourself.
Tool #3 โ Delegating may be a โtrustโ challenge, but you have to do it!
This links very closely to Tool 2 above, delegating is one of the ways that you can overcome known pinch points both at home and at work or in the business. It can be constructive for those that you entrust delegation to and can be a positive benefit in their training and developing. Delegation also applies at home and you may have to enrol the support of family members, pitching in and doing more to get the vital breaks that you need. Delegating is one of the key aspects to achieving a healthy worklife balance.
I can hear you now as you read this, โMmmmm, yes delegation is all well and good but itโs easier to do it myself, it will take less time than teaching someone else, will it ever be done to my standards, Iโll only have to redo itโ.
This is the hard part of delegation, but it is worth taking timeโฆ
Train Others – Trust Others – Treat Yourself
Your time and energy is finite and by adopting this approach you are more likely to prosper in business, to prosper with your worklife balance and to feel that you are investing in yourself. There is no doubt that in the โtrust othersโ part of this will be a need to relinquish control. For more information on this see my previous article,
What will define your success is rethinking the reason that you are delegating by listing all of the positives that it can yield. High amongst these is freeing you up to do the things that matter the most rather than feeling bogged down in the day to day. Delegating will also sharpen the process of recruitment, selection and development of any of your key staff because you will be conscious that they must be skilled individuals as well as trusted.
If you are running a business there is a real difference between scaling up a business as a successful entrepreneur and being self-employed. Two of the key ingredients that good delegation will fuel for your successful enterprise are :-
You need to ensure that you have a good quality worklife balance, this will promote your health and happiness without which success will not be sustainable.
You must ensure that the business is working for you and not you for the business. This is about choice, freewill and carving the time for you in terms of home and family as well as time to consider and focus on your personal and professional development and the growth and upscaling of the business. You working for your business is purely being self-employed and not about you being able to use your energy and passion as an entrepreneur picking the strategic direction of your business or organisation.
The balancing conundrum is baffling without a plan
Tool # 4 โ Create boundaries and ensure you are disciplined over your working hours โ donโt become that โalways onโ leader!
This positively links to the mantra in Tool 3,
Make your business work for you, not you working for your business!
This in many ways sounds like entrepreneursโ heresy discussing the concept of being aware and setting yourself boundaries of how long your working day will be day by day and in total number of working hours that you want to work weekly. Long hours can become a habit or addiction which you feel is the essential ingredient of success but over the longer term this results in working hard but not smart. It also results in a decreasing return on the hours that you invest and in a physical and mental toll that can be serious for you and your family. Studies have demonstrated that 40 hours a week has been proven to be the optimal working week to keep unnecessary stress and overwhelm at armโs length. In the UK an average of no more than 48 hours in a week has been a legal requirement for many years. In the UK there is also medical evidence that working 11 hour days increases your risk of heart attack by 67%, a sobering thought!
Boundaries thinking can be supported by the notion that you should treat yourself as well as you treat your own staff. We recognise that at times there will be busy pulses of work but with careful planning and with boundaries placed on your working day and week you can become a game changer!
This is a hard change for you because you may be hard-wired to work maximum and unhealthy numbers of hours. Watch yourself, keep a working hours diary so that you can review how you are doing. Make this issue a part of your 12 month business plan, be hard on yourself, face the mirror and work out what is driving your behaviours.
A break from your ‘always on’ can feel liberating
Boundaries and a business digital detox โ On the subject of boundaries it is time to think about what issues might be drawing you into the always on culture of leadership. Just as in life, it is very easy to get drawn into social media work, emails on your laptops and other mobile devices. The outcome of this is long hours, no clear relaxation time and a blurring of your personal and work boundaries.
How to do this? There are a number of considerations for this. Work out how your business hours relate to your digital business activity, get them shorter and get them aligned. Consider what will work best for you with your tech! You may want different work to home devices or at least ensure that the browsers, email clients and apps that you use are different for domestic and work. There are a number of health benefits for this and some tools that you can use to ease the โalways onโ digital white noise such as sleep modes on your devices, automated chat facilities on your website rather than always email or messaging.
Tool #5 โ Health and wellbeing, you-time, mini-breaks and time to reflect
So you will already know that boosting your physical activity reduces your stress levels and improves your health and wellbeing. Creating a focus on your wellness is not a luxury with the spare minute here and there that you can find, it has to be a part of your 12 month plan and that has to be translated to every day, every week and every month. Making sure that you have created time, no matter how small, for physical activity will help your body, soul and mind. It will reenergize you and is a great time to have cutting-edge ideas with the white noise of the work and home day being suspended.
This is another one of those tools that is about โhard changeโ. For it to really have a chance of surviving first contact with the enemy, real life, then you will need to combine it with Tool # 1 โ say no at work and at home to create a block of time that is for you. Then combine it with some of the tricks of exercising when you are on your everyday activities too. You need to consider that prioritising time for health and fitness is not a luxury but an essential. It will lead to many other benefits such as your health, your sleep quality and giving you the positivity to tackle your workday with even more vigour. Happiness in this context is about happiness in all areas of your life. The impact is both physical and mental in spending time on yourself for your essential fitness. Looking after yourself is very much like the analogy of how to behave in an air crash.
Get Your Oxygen and then you can take care of everyone else around you including your business. Just like on the planeโฆ.when there is turbulence and the masks descendโฆ.you donโt take care of everybody else firstโฆ.you also put the mask on yourselfโฆget your oxygen and then take care of everyone else around you. the ONLY way to balance a healthy business and a happy home is to take care of yourself first so you have the energy to care for all the needs of clients and kids.
Tracy Fox, Having a heart for God.
You should make sure that you have good blocks of time for your fitness but you can also complement them by being innovative with small bursts of exercise whilst you are on other essential tasks. This might have to be a reality on some days, there is no doubt that between your job and your family, it can be a challenge to find time always to head to the gym.
So why not do some exercise in your office or your kitchen? Calisthenic exercises can be combined within your normal workday such as taking 10 minutes to walk up and down the stairs in your work building or whilst out shopping or collecting a delivery. If you are driving to a meeting there are breathing exercises you can do, podcasts to take in, to prepare yourself, to relax and to control your heart rate. In the evening or at times when you might be able to get 5 or 10 minutes to relax you could use one of many relaxation apps available.
Take mini-breaks to reset yourself – The value of a very brief time-out cannot be underestimated, it will totally restore your confidence that you are gaining back control of your day, it will bring down your heart rate and it will almost certainly make you even stronger and more effective for the remainder of your day. The โalways onโ mentality that you have can equate to a โnose to the grindstoneโ effect that lasts from the moment the alarm clock goes off or alternatively, your little cherub crawls into bed next to you, to the final moments that exhaustion takes over you last thing at night. Breaks of just 10 minutes during which time you step away from your work focus to do something totally unrelated โ like breathing exercises, Pilates stretches or a just a quick walk around the block โ will hugely impact on reducing your stress levels.
Tool # 6 โ Create a diary plan of your day / week and month โ Love your plan!
Your calendar / diary / planner is your saviour!. This should be your one-stop shop to be able to see what you have on during every day/week/month. Consider colour coding your activities and make sure that you have combined work and home in this diary! This toolkit advocates separation of your work and home life in as many ways that you can achieve, but if you want to protect your time to gain that balance, then this is the one part of your toolkit that advocates the creation of combining in one place work and home commitments.
This plan will be better if you can create more automation in it and be able to see it on your phone โ this means that you have given yourself the very best chance to avoid the imbalance of clashing work and home priorities โ this means that the decision is yours about what you do do and what you donโt! It will be your saviour in preventing you from booking a client meeting when you have that all important anniversary meal to go for.
Take this from being your reactive tool to view your busyness in one place (YIKES!), to making it work proactively for you! Start to block time out for you, time to think, time to exercise, time to meet friends, time to spend longer on the school pick up. Delegate to make this happen!
When you start this, make sure that you have blocked out one weekend every month for doing absolutely nothing or at the very least, as little as possible! Recharge your batteries!
Whilst on the subject of โtimeโ, Richard Branson has a really innovative approach to time management as an entrepreneur that works best for him. He tries to make sure that he does more of what he really enjoys doing such as hobbies and sport and he finds that this energises him and as a result of that he feels that he finds ways to get more into his day and does the tasks that his business empire needs, as well as flying into space too of course!
Learning from others will speed your journeyYou can be the author of your balance in life
Give it a try!
I hope that you find this toolkit beneficial. There will be trial and error in using it and ways that you customise it specifically for your own circumstances. Changing the outcomes of clashing business and home responsibilities is essential for success and happiness and it should form the heart of your 12 month plan.
If you would like a free copy of this toolkit please get in touch with your details and I will email it directly to you. Otherwise feel free to use the 6 tools contained here and make a fresh start to make the difference that you can make.
How often do you feel stressed by the fact that you canโt control something or its outcome? Your 6 point plan will make a positive difference.
The feeling of loss of control is painful!
The sense that you need to gain control of an issue but cannot do so is all consuming and dominates every thought when it takes hold of you. As desperate as these feelings are, there are solutions that are in your control.
This feeling is painful because it is based on fear
This feeling is painful because we are not the best version of ourselves when it takes hold
This feeling is painful because it creates an anxiety to control things beyond the original issue
When we feel this way a huge part of us knows that we are potentially being self-indulgent, we feel that others just donโt understand why gaining this control is so all consuming. This means that we canโt possibly rest until we have forced ourselves onto our perception of the solution.
But just hang on a moment, be a little kinder to yourself before you start to rethink your process of taking control. This article includes some tips and a 6 point plan to get in front of this painful emotion.
So how does this pain feel when you fear the lack of control?
This fear of losing control means that we are certain something is about to get out of hand and almost impulsively we start to try to grapple for control. Our instinct to protect is as natural to us as holding our breath when we go underwater. A broad array of fears takes over and they are all such difficult feelings that our instinctive brain seeks to avoid them and forces us to behave to protect. These feelings may include hopelessness, powerlessness, despair, rage, grief and loneliness.
It is the fear of feeling our instinctive emotion in an unbearable way that again harkens back to the human instinct to survive at any cost and to stay alive. We project this fear onto others in a doomed to fail effort to prevent those awful feelings and that projection comes in the form of trying to take control over the outcome. It is important to understand this better, this cognitive recognition means that :-
We see that this is a natural instinct
We start to understand it better
We start to demystify it
We start to believe and accept that we can gain a sense of personal agency
This feeling is also the root of why so many people fear change on an almost visceral level and for leaders and people going through change it can be liberating to understand this fear. We are then able to identify what this feeling is and take charge of ourselves and find our ways of understanding that our chimp brain can be corrected through rational thought processes.
Our vulnerability causes our need to control
Why is this so important now?
The reason that understanding this now is so important is that post covid and at a time of economic crisis there is a great sense of uncertainty and a great sense of the loss of all our norms. The so-called โnew normalโ often does not feel normal in any sense to us. These events mean that those that feel this anxiety are likely to attempt to gain control even more, they feel disenfranchised unless they get in control.
For us to be able to do well, to be successful and to be happy as these challenges are upon us as a society and as individuals then finding a way of navigating these negative emotions is important. This means that using these tools to think differently about the process of gaining control will enable us to handle change, to embrace opportunity and really start dealing with this issue here and now.
The avoidance of this behaviour will also lead to us having better relationships with those around us because the very process of gaining control can create conflict or at the very least resentment in others who are unfortunate enough to come across us on our โcontrollingโ mission!
Help is on the way, needing to stay in control is perfectly normal!
When we have this instinct to maintain the status quo and to avoid our feared inevitable destiny by taking back control, we are simply responding to our natural human instinct and also to the natural way that our brain works. The reason that we naturally do this is that from our early childhood we interpret change as uncertainty and in that state there is danger to our life. It is about our instinct to survive. It is said that 5 times every second our brain tries to assess if what we are doing and where we are is safe, if not we start to protect and disengage. This happens subconsciously as well as at a conscious level.
Why not check how you measure up on this fear?
If you try the link below you will see a brief questionnaire that will allow you to place a gauge of exactly where your focus is in terms of these fears taking control over you. This test allows you to see if you have a tendency toward an external locus of control, this means that you will be routinely worrying about aspects that you cannot influence in any way. If you have an internal locus of control then you are much less likely to behave the way that this article describes. It is a really useful process to try before you start the 6 point plan.
So what can you do to change your fear of losing control? Circles will do it!
This pattern of behaviour that almost constantly can create white noise in our lives can be avoided, it can be controlled by us. It really is possible to reframe the things that trigger us to try to feel back in control and as a habit that we learn we can grow to decrease our fears.
We really can leave this fear behind with a new approach!
The start of this process is to ask yourself what things you honestly truly can control rather than merely influence or worry about. Some of this thinking was put out there initially by Steven Covey in โThe 7 Habits Of Highly Effective Peopleโ. In this book he considered circles of concern and circles of influence, and this has been taken further with another circle, the circle of control.
This is a fabulous way that we can differentiate between what issues might be going on in general (concern) or in some very specific cases such as improving our wellbeing through exercise, diet, positive thinking and creating more time for ourselves (control). What will typically happen without being able to apply this technique is that we may find ourselves worrying about all things and attempting to gain control over all of them.
When we discover that we cannot gain that control we may experience very specific anxieties about these issues and in the process of trying to gain control we cause damage to ourselves, waste our time, we waste our energy and there is a good likelihood that we will damage our relationships with family, friends, colleagues and potentially in a business environment, we will do damage to our business, organisation or team.
The basis of this model is that we can disentangle all of those fears, worries and psychoses into a process where we narrow down from concerns, to issues we may have an influence over to the final matters that we alone truly have complete control over.
By doing this and by really focusing positively on letting those concerns go in terms of believing our personal mission here and now is to control such issues then we better understand our circle of concern pain points. If we then focus on being positive about where we may have an influence only and understand fully to what extent that is possible then our approach to our circle of influence can become more realistic and less fraught with anxiety.
This then allows us to truly focus our energy on what we can directly control, this then become fruitful and enables a more balanced and wellbeing driven series of actions that we learn and can repeat. This approach means that then we lighten our load of stress and worry and we prevent our natural human brain from attempting to control concerns, influence and control areas. This is a way of truly giving ourselves the energy to make a difference where we can and to give ourselves a holiday from trying to control what cannot be controlled and all of the negative consequences that this causes.
What might a typical circles of concern/influence/control chart look like for you?
This process can be done with a little time and patience to start to map the issues that trouble us into the three circles. It will be unique for each of us and it demands absolute honesty with ourselves. This is something that we are doing for ourselves and in many senses this supports us to have an internal locus of control that leads to better wellbeing, to a greater sense of personal agency and to the avoidance of the waste of energy stressing about the non-controllables.
This demonstrates how clearly much of what creates our anxiety cannot be โcontrolledโ
Try this to tackle your loss of control feeling โ your 6 point plan
Print out the blank circles of control poster above, this will allow you to start the process to consider your mindset on what you feel is a concern, what you have influence over or what issues you have complete control over.
Make sure you are in a place where you can think and wonโt be disturbed, this should definitely be a little time away from the white noise that you are putting to one side just for you.
Ensure that you have some post it notes, or similar and write down the things that occur to you as concerns to you, these will be the things that have been troubling you over time and you will find it eye-opening just to write them down and to see them together. Place them inside / around your circle of concern circle. Prepare yourself for this list because seeing the issues together can be overwhelming but remember this process is about navigating a way to see these issues in a more philosophical way.
Now, your next stage, look at your concerns again and looking at the example above try to see if any of those notes can be placed into the circles of influence or control. Controlling is a high bar though as they are entirely in your control to be placed there.
Challenge yourself on those matters that are in the Concern circle, check if there is a way that you might be able to gain some influence. This might be covering issues such as tricky colleague, manager or friend relationships, but through a third party route you may be able to build some bridges, in which case this will be able to move this issue to your Circle of Influence. Think about ways you might be able to influence the things that are still in your Circle of Concern.
So at this point, having truly exhausted what can be moved to the Circle of Concern and Circle of Control you now have your final list. Write them up from the post it notes or type them if you are creating a digital copy. I would recommend that you save the document on your phone or mobile device as a photo or PDF so that you can refer to them when you have feelings of growing anxiety about your feelings of a lack of control. Remember these key FACTS:-
Areas of Concern – If you look at your areas of concern that you may have been taking so personally in the past and may have been exacerbating your anxiety, in fact in truth you have no ability to influence or control them. Your values and beliefs are a huge part of your strengths and so it is ok to consider wider society issues without them dominating you and in so doing find a new found freedom. Remember they may also sit alongside other realities that are not influenceable by you such as the weather. Puts the worries into context doesnโt it?
Areas of Influence โ So these sat amongst the whole range of issues that were stressing you and often meant that you felt high frustration and to a certain extent not able to clearly see what to do about them. Now in fact through this process you recognise that you cannot control them, but with some tact and diplomacy and with a plan you can get some influence over them. In many ways this is cathartic, it gives you a release and leaves you feeling that you can be more proactive in dealing with the issues themselves without feeling abject fear and the need to over-respond in gaining full personal control.
Areas of Control โ so these are those that you can legitimately say are entirely your responsibility and do not rely on third parties. This will be a small list but understanding it allows you to only feel responsible for a much smaller number of issues. This hands more control to you as you focus your proactive energy at what really matters and recognising these three types of issue supports your sense of wellbeing too.
This 6 step process will give you a plan that truly demonstrates to you how you break down the myriad of worries and concerns that have been causing sleepless nights into a manageable format in which you can remind yourself how to interact with them and what you can truly control.
So, give this a go and see what differences it makes for you
As a coach I am very well aware just how common these feelings are and they can be affecting you as you read this, you may know someone else who suffers from this anxiety or you may be a manager or leader who see this in your team members. Please share these thoughts and ideas and see if they can make the difference.
For many the new normal of our working lives includes some form of hybrid or remote working. For others who may have continued at work throughout this time or have recently returned fully to work the challenge of finding time to invest in ourselves, to kickstart our careers and maybe also to put into place some of the resolutions we may have made to ourselves about improving our wellbeing remains a constant challenge.
Coaching will give you that vital kickstart in your career and your wellbeing but how do you find time for it and is it affordable? In order to be completely flexible for my clients who may only be able to find an hour early in the morning, at lunch time, in the evening or over a weekend I have developed a series of online coaching sessions at ยฃ50 per session on specific subjects that are designed to fit neatly into a compressed one hour session. They can be selected individually or as a series.
Coaching and worklife balance
Weighing up the future
For many of us the last two years have meant that we have considered what we want from our personal as well as our professional lives. The question of worklife balance has been a constant feature so that greater balance and happiness can be realised. But for many even the term ‘worklife’ has been challenged and a more accurate sentiment moving forward is ‘lifework’ balance. The difference is small but subtle in that it reflects not just the time that we prefer to spend but also the notion that we ‘work to live’ rather than ‘live to work’.
We need to do a better job of putting ourselves higher on our own ‘to do’ list
Michelle Obama
The tools for work and life
The ‘great resignation’ effect is causing many people to look for changed career prospects and for diversification in their current role. This calls for leaders to clearly demonstrate their commitment to their staff and to invest in them. This also links to the stresses and strains that have been created by the pandemic. There has been a growth in mental health difficulties and this has been met by an increased expectation amongst employees that their wellbeing and mental health needs will be addressed through an employer that sees the value in a happy and healthy workforce.
These pressures mean that investment in wellbeing support services, in increased training and in coaching and mentoring are vital to keep the commitment of our staff and also to develop them even further through a skills based investment. There is a direct link between this type of investment, individual happiness, performance, productivity and profitability. This coaching series offers affordable bite size development on aspects of individual and leadership based activities and can be considered by individuals or by organisations more widely for their staff.
Personal Development Coaching
In order to gain the edge we sometimes just need that extra help and finetuning that coaching can provide. Coaching is very much about drawing on strengths and learning how to capitalise on them, it can help to identify ‘blockages’ for you such as assertiveness, creativity, working to your values and the art of negotiating and influencing. These sessions are self contained but of course they can be a starter toward a more complete coaching experience in which a plan is created with goals mapping out the next 12 months.
Coaching these subjects radically shift you toward the new you!
Leadership Masterclass
This series of one hour coaching sessions create pointers and further self-development to consider to become a more rounded leader equipped to meet the challenges being posed in these times of uncertainty. Being able to grow self awareness and to truly appreciate your leadership style and traits is a vital part of leading with empathy and being able to be the leader to your people that you aim to be. The masterclasses also support you in passing these messages on and can equip you to run such development and awareness sessions within your teams.
These sessions also target the assets that good leaders should possess to better support their people through the continued pressures of remote working and to be confident to understand the theory of change and how it affects us all as individuals in uniquely different ways. Nuancing our leadership skills is hard work, coaching is hard work and if you enjoy a challenge then why not try one or more of these online sessions.
Each online session costs just ยฃ50 or ยฃ120 for three booked as a courseFor more information, contact me and click on this image. Good luck!
Reflecting on new ways to function well and influence your work culture
Do you sometimes find that there are times when your desire to achieve something or to even hold a good and open conversation in the workplace is compromised by organisational culture and individuals in that culture and does this disappoint or frustrate you?
This can lead to a feeling of personal frustration where you feel compelled to be true to yourself or perhaps even more deeply, due to jarring with your long held values, the outcome can become conflict or disassociation from your organisation. Leadership theorists would state that true leadership requires you as an individual to always tackle this situation through challenge, to walk your values every day. However, professional pragmatism and Machiavelli can equip you with a real world view and with an empowering solution to this dilemma.
Machiavelli suggested the potential to adopt a different route to managing such a situation. Adopting professional pragmatism, a sense of wisdom about the way your organisation functions practically or through entrenched culture, may lead you to deal with such compromises differently. This may also allow you to exercise different leadership skills to negotiate and influence a solution. Negotiating and influencing is a recognised means to reaching mutual solutions that are successful. This solution may be imperfect in leadership theory but adopting the realism of the culture you work within will achieve results and importantly avoid the head on collision that you may feel that can cause catastrophic disillusionment leading to you seeking other employment or to finding yourself in a destructive conflict in any case. This approach can then be better seen as influencing and changing culture from the inside.
Values make us and they can change culture positively
Machiavelli is often associated with dark practices but this aspect of achieving ambitions and objectives through pragmatic means is often overlooked as a viable and successful means to keep personal control and to achieve results in the real world. Another way of potentially viewing this is the concept of not trying to โwin every battleโ but rather look to the longer term in order to nuance your leadership influence. Ultimately, success has many facets and by maintaining working relationships, reaching a team based practical solution then the longer term success of an individual and the wellbeing flowing from that may potentially demonstrate greater maturity and less naivety.
The theory on professional pragmatism
Badaracco is a contemporary academic who has written on this subject. He has taught this subject for some time at Harvard and describes the awareness that this approach almost represents a โworldviewโ which can function in the reality of the imperfect workplace. This of course does not deny circumstances in which compromise may not be acceptable and a stand should be made for several different reasons.
Occasionally, this thinking allows the notion that the pursuit of all values and personal aims and objectives might be viewed as idealistic or naรฏve and that the truth in an imperfect world might be as challenging as โwhat if there is no right answer?โ. This may mean that the right answer is the one that best accords with organisational values and the circumstances prevailing at that exact time to achieve the best outcome possible at that moment. This also recognises that changing an embedded culture cannot be achieved overnight and requires careful work to influence.
Leadership is a struggle by flawed human beings to make some important values real and effective in the world as it is
Joseph Badaracco, Harvard.
Pause for thought!
Self-limiting beliefs and coaching
A fundamental role for an executive or business coach is to engage with their client and to assist them without leading them to find positive solutions and to be able to โunblockโ any of the issues that may be preventing them from being their better selves. An aspect of this is to challenge and explore any self-limiting beliefs that might be expressed by clients. These can originate from a range of diverse sources such as childhood, interpretation of learning or life experience amongst many. The individual can start to assume these self-limiting beliefs are unassailable facts over time and they become custom and practice. One such self-limiting belief might be a literal martyrdom to feeling that values must always be unswervingly followed and that there can be no successful personal or professional relationship had with those that do not exactly share those values. This can create an environment of winning and losing for the holder of this self-limiting belief and leading to a belief that true self-worth comes from being the source of knowledge that guides others. In some senses this can become egotistical or judgmental to the casual observer yet to the individual practicing such self-limiting beliefs in fact it feels righteous and true.
Coaching can support you to express values differently and better
Having a sense of personal โagencyโ
In mythology, the โFatesโ are a group of three weaving goddesses who assign individual destinies to mortals at birth. The Fates were Clotho (the Spinner), Lachesis (the Allotter) and Atropos (the Inflexible). It is possible that in waging a direct battle on individuals in an embedded culture that Atropos is the one to blame for leading the actions of the individual. However, I would like to suggest something more updated on this internal conflict, the idea of โagencyโ. Wanting to be โmeโ regardless of the consequences shows a lack of faith in personal agency.
So what is agency? It is the ability to take action or to choose what action to take, to influence your own life, to change your own thoughts and to have faith in your ability to handle a wide range of tasks or situations. Having a sense of agency is also associated with being able to take responsibility for your actions and having an โinternal locus of controlโ over what happens.
Of course there are many things outside of our control. We may think that we should be 6โ4โ and look just like Brad Pitt, or have a wonderfully slim body, long flowing hair and look like Scarlett Johansson but such dreams are outside of our control, and as such we should focus on โcontrolling the controllablesโ. This means that you can acknowledge a different way to influence the jarring of personal values with embedded organisational culture. One of the things you can control is that moment when you say: โThis is who I am. Iโm me. What do I do about this situation?โ
Being true to yourself but thinking differently retains personal agency
When simply being you may need nuancing!
In their soon to be released marketing book, โJust Evil Enoughโ, the authors, Alistair Croll and Emily Ross talk about how a successful marketeer of the future needs to be prepared to โsubvert systems to create attention that can be turned into profitable demandโ.
My contention here is that this thinking is relevant to how we view ourselves and the choices that we make to tackle situations and to achieve what we want to. In other words, how we achieve a sense of agency, of controlling our controllables, and tackle some professional dilemmas with pragmatism. This allows us as individuals to turn subverting systems around and to point that insight to ourselves, rather than the market. So what could subverting your usual way of seeing a values based dilemma look like? This may mean demonstrating the bravery to step outside of your known mediums to find new, creative and more challenging ways to think.
The authors propose that to do this effectively then our traditional normative thinking must be replaced by more radical formative thinking in which norms are challenged. This may include the limitations of our own ego, unconscious bias, our desire to be heard and of course our desire to be right.
If we simply respond to our ego and its need to just be us then this may result in us reacting instantly to our fight or flight instinct. This inevitably limits us, may create a bias in our judgement and propel us to think we are right without mounting a challenge to react and respond differently. Remember therefore by using professional pragmatism, by subverting our thoughts that we can be much more than our thoughts. In these circumstances when we gain agency and control, when we do more than react to our instinctive deeper self, then we instantly create a different dynamic, try it, it may change your career.
Click this image if you would like more information…
The last two and a half years has seen huge disruption to us all as individuals, both professionally and personally but also to businesses. This disruption has ranged from reeling at change resulting from the pandemic, to assessing a global economic crisis created by booming oil prices and conflict in Ukraine following Russiaโs invasion. Now the time has come to grapple with a new way forward, to fight back and to make the very most of the opportunities and challenges ahead. So why is now the right time to invest in coaching in you or your business? Read onโฆ
Take time to reflect and invest in yourself
All Affected Somehow!
How are you affected by these uncertain times? In one way or another all our plans have been affected by the last two years and what might be yet to come in a deeper recession. There is no doubt that some groups have been disproportionately affected more. Women are estimated to have suffered career damage up to 80% more than their male counterparts due to increased caring responsibilities that have fallen on their shoulders and may still be enduring as working from home often involves a much trickier family balance.
What can make up the lost ground? How can employers keep women in key roles and develop them to such roles?
Executive and business coaching is an essential investment by our organisations in their people and their talent, it demonstrates confidence in people and of all interventions, coaching has a proven track record of succeeding and demonstrating the highest results for the best return on investment. McKinsey research in the USA also shows the same disproportionate impact of this time on female entrepreneurs and business coaching offers some ability to create a plan for the next three years to stabilise and create personal growth and growth in the business.
New normal does not have to be ‘same old, same old’!
Why Wait? Act Now! Coach to adapt!
Some may think that coaching is something to do in a few months when more normal ways of working may have returned and the economy might have settled but in fact coaching is vital for now because coaching tackles the impact of unprecedented and unexpected change on individuals and a high quality professional coach will also understand how to deal with the presence of trauma for clients. Now is the time to restoke the fires of careers and professional development conversations. Coaching supports leaders and ambitious aspiring employees to adapt, to develop and to become a part of the โGreat Reshuffleโ rather than โGreat Resignationโ.
‘Now is the time to restoke the fires of careers’
Coaching provides the way to be on the front foot and to make the most of the opportunities ahead and to exploit and maximise changed ways of working. In this way individual leaders can hit the ground running and drive success through an active career plan with a coach to maximise strengths and to set and support progressive goals.
People Get Results
The Strengths of Coaching
Coaching creates the opportunity to reflect and make the most of strengths!
It is so important to truly step off the merry-go-round of busyness and to treat ourselves to reflection and to development time. Though diaries may be chaotic or for some they may be clearer, either way this is a unique and priceless time to develop as a leader, block out time to book a coaching session in which coaching can identify a defining successful outcome for the next 12 months and how to make the most of all the current opportunities through maximising our strengths. This may range from development opportunities as an individual or leading transformation within teams or the organisation as a whole.
Taking time for yourself in coaching, back yourself!
Coaching drives objective planning and tangibly delivers results!
Now is the time to come to difficult decisions on the way forward, to take stock and to create a plan to achieve goals. This is opportunity time as the working world may never truly be the same again. How to take time out to develop and make the most of current circumstances to balance achieving ambitions? Now is the time to spend time thinking more about your wellbeing and being the best version of you so that you identify and take the opportunities before you. It is possible to take the best elements of what has changed to become happier and more effective through coaching.
Goal setting gets results!
Coaching encourages objectivity and challenges bias
As you use some of the space created by coaching and take a step back, coaching will enable you through challenging conversations and a focus on results to think through exactly where you are now and what you need to do to reach where you want to be. A coach provides a neutral sounding board and the objectivity to talk through what are the blockers to your progress and how to navigate them and to do so in a completely transparent and open way within a confidential process. Coaching offers no judgement but it does create challenge, mostly the ability to challenge yourself, to consider how you can best learn from experience to move forward. This will create guiding principles for your next 12 months and a new and clearly defined empowering belief in yourself.
Impossible is nothing
Muhammad Ali
Take your opportunities
Coaching provides structure and accountability
Coaching will create the truest form of accountability, by holding a mirror up to yourself, you become truly accountable. Your coach uses a range of tools to support this but one of the most powerful is your annual plan on page and the accountability that you have to achieve your monthly goals that create the success that you seek in all of the key themes of your life right now. Your coach supports you in dealing with situations and creates the impetus to deal with obstacles and move forward faster, unimpeded. Coaching helps you to see issues very differently and you will proactively develop and deliver and be truly accountable for the changes you make.
I am also an associate coach of New Level Results and we are one of the only coaches organisations where you can see and track transformational results and the return on investment in coaching using award winning software called ‘The Curve’. Using this software and results based coaching methodology creates a tangible and measurable plan to enable you to achieve far beyond your ambitions and to face challenges that you might never have dreamed possible. A coxless team of four women were coached using this methodology by New Level Results coaches to become world beaters and to be the first to row across the Pacific Ocean from California to Australia.
Book a discovery call to access a free coaching consultation with me to discover how to achieve your goals in uncertain times. Click on the image below:
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When simply being you may need nuancing! Do you sometimes find that there are times when your desire to achieve something or to even hold a good and open conversation in the workplace is compromised by organisational culture and individuals in that culture and does this disappoint or frustrate you? This can lead to a…
In uncertain times post pandemic and during a recession using an Executive Coach or Business coach can help you to navigate to a successful career or business. Contact Mark at Applebright Coaching
