1440 minutes in every day....

...are you spending them wisely?

Time is our most precious commodity.  As the saying goes: 'today is the first day of the rest of your life'....so how are you spending it?

One of the best pieces of advice I ever received and therefore one that I pass onto the people I work with on the subject of managing their time is about prioritisation.  The key is to make a list....yes, yes I hear you all say: I do a 'to do' list but I never get it done.  Well the answer is yes, write a 'to do' list and then take your time to prioritise that list.

Priorities should come in three guises.  There are absolutely urgent & important/essential tasks that HAVE to be done today and these should be your A tasks.  There are then the important but not urgent tasks that should be done today, but if they are not the world is not going to end. Finally there are the urgent but not important tasks which you need to do but do not spend loads of time doing them!!  Be careful you are not wasting your time doing tasks that are not urgent and not important....you are wasting your life!!

To reduce your stress in managing ALL of those things on that 'to do' list spend 10-15 minutes every day planning what you are going to do that day. Do this in peace & quiet so that you can concentrate on what is important to you.  If you do this every day and yes I mean on your days off as well, you will find yourself more in control and able to spend your 1440 minutes wisely and you will get more done and feel much better about everything!

Once you are good at managing your time you will find it easier to manage other people & delegate effectively to improve their performance and productivity....but that is for another blog!

Thanks for your time, Suzanne Unsworth

www.rubusassociates.co.uk

Motivation & Performance

Given the current climate this is one of the hottest topics amongst managers at every level in any size organisation. So what do you need to think about…well firstly you need to consider your own behaviour. If you are the ‘doom and gloom’ person who is skulking around your work space moaning, how do you think the rest of your team feel?

Yes you may be feeling despondent but it is your responsibility as a leader of people, at whatever level, to LEAD!! This means you need to be inspiring, encouraging, supportive and positive to your teams because your team look to you for guidance. So even if it means you have to go and rant in the cellar on your own, as I used to do when I worked in the hospitality industry, to get stuff off your chest, when you get back to your team in the workplace you are positive and up beat. I am not talking about you being completely OTT in your behaviour and it has to be part of your character but remember over 55% of your message comes out in your body language with another 38% in your tone of voice, so make sure that you look and sound motivated yourself!!

The other area to consider about motivation is about our individual drivers….what makes people come to work and do a good job. Money I hear your cry….well yes money is a driver but it is not the only one. I ask this question on a regular basis in courses that I run and so often the answers are also about recognition (in the form of praise and being noticed), job satisfaction and affiliation. So yes we need money to pay the bills and put food on the table but we also wanted to be treated as an individual and recognised for what we do and not treated as a mass of people. Therefore, as managers what we also have to consider that what motivates one person in your team will not necessarily motivate another. It is your job, therefore to to get to know your people and understand what drives them to perform well and once we know that we need to press that button regularly so that they perform even better.

Finally we are also individuals so we also need to seek out what motivates us and have that conversation with our boss so that we can get the motivation that we need to perform to our best potential,

Thanks for your time, Suzanne Unsworth

www.rubusassociates.co.uk

Celebrating 10 years in business!

Well here I am 10 years in business!!  Despite the figures often quoted about start ups (1 in 3 fail within the first three years) I am still here and the business is doing well.  Yes there have been some roller-coaster moments but I would not change it for the world!!

As I have been running a business for a while now I am often asked for advice, suggestions and guidance for people setting off on their own.  I have to say this makes me feel REALLY old!!! However I am happy to help so here are some of those ideas for you:

1. Keep a good support network around you of professionals.  Your Mum, other half and best friend are important but they will always be on your side. So build a network of like minded colleagues who will give you that important feedback that will be objective
2. Always have enough money in the bank to pay the bills for 6 months
3. Ensure you have a wide spread of revenue streams...not all the eggs in one basket syndrome
4. Manage your time so that you are working when you have the most amount of energy and give yourself permission to have a break
5. Set yourself goals for the day, week,month & year which are not all financially based
6. If you cannot ask for the business then do not go into business!!
7. Have fun...if you are not enjoying it, why are you doing it?!!

These are by no means the only 'rules' that I have used to be successful, nor are they in any particular order, but they are good pointers for anyone about to buy a ticket for the roller coaster!!

Thanks for your time, Suzanne Unsworth

Developing learning material

One of the key skills any trainer needs to have is the ability to create an informative, fun and interactive learning session. But it is not only the content that you need to consider you have to think about people's learning styles....lets be honest do you want to sit through hundreds of powerpoint slides?  That really is 'death by powerpoint'.

Consider using group exercises based on real life case studies....make it real for people even though they are sitting in an unfamiliar room 'on a course'.  You can tailor the study to the industry that you are delivering to with little extra preparation.  Cost of materials and your time has to be taken into consideration and some of the best exercises I use are the simplest.  Take spaghetti and marshmallows for example...a fun interactive way to get a group of individuals to work as a team on a project and all for the cost of the materials. So group exercises don't have to cost the earth....the learning is in the discussion that you need to facilitate after the event.

When developing the material it is also really helpful if you are familiar with the venue so that you know you will have plenty of space in which to work, or not as the case may be.  So some exercises have to be table top, others need floor space and if you want to get adventurous you can think about outdoors as well!!  If you are going to do the latter please think about the health and safety of your delegates and your contingency plan for the good ol' British weather.

Until the next time...

Planning a training programme

It is interesting when you speak with a client how optimistic they are in their thoughts about how a training programme will be rolled out into an organisation.  One year a client, in June, asked me to run 6 workshops in July because everyone had to have the training by August 1st....I was still delivering the sessions in October.

This was not due to my bad diary management but people who are planning a training programme do not realise how important the logistics of an event are.  You have to consider:

• Availability of the venue and not just any old room, but one with natural daylight and plenty of space for the delegates
• Time of year for holidays and for operational peaks 
• People need notice for courses, especially if it is more than one day out of work, so that they can schedule their work and organise their team.
• Optional dates are much better to 'sell' than the phrase 'you must go on this course'.  Imagine what it is like for us trainers if the delegates don't want to be there!!
• Managing cancellations and re-arrangements especially if it is a mandatory programme has to be done effectively; again this is a big logistical issue that organisations have to consider
• Minimum & maximum delegates on a course are critical to the success of the learning event and us trainers will develop the programme around those key numbers.  It is very hard to run a course for only three people if it was designed for twelve

So if you are arranging a training programme or about to meet a client to arrange to deliver one please consider the above (not exhaustive but a start) so that you can ensure that the investment is not wasted.

Being a delegate

As part of my professional development I have been this week on a two day course.  It made a change to be on the other side of the room!! It made me reflect on what you have to consider about your delegates and your delivery, be it a presentation or a training course.

What surprised me was how important the small details were to me and how important it is to manage expectations throughout 8 hours.  For example how easy it was to see and read the powerpoint slides and how frustrating it is if the presenter moves the slides to a different order to the handout that you have or show you slides that you don't even have copies of!!  Also given that I was one of 15 delegates, all of whom had a learning background there was very little consideration given to the different learning styles of the group, the energy levels in the room or a variation in delivery pace.

So the learning for me has been great, not only on the subject but also about how I look after, respond to and vary my training style in the future....so a worthwhile investment!!

Writing proposals

Every client wants to see, in writing, what you are going to deliver to their people…a proposal of your services, the costs and most importantly the benefits of giving you the business.

This proposal is often based on the information gained from the initial meeting that you have had with the client; the facts you have gathered from your conversations that led to the meeting and the research that you have done on the company.  If you fail to pick up on key messages at any of these stages you may have missed vital clues your competitors have picked up on, thus giving them the advantage not you.

So your proposal should be:

1. Informative & reflective of the details that you have ascertained…repeat back the key facts that you have identified which will confirm you are both on the same wavelength 
2. Facts…be careful that you present facts as facts and your opinion as your opinion.  To ensure that you remember these key points make sure you always take notes at every meeting be it face-to-face or on the phone
3. Fully costed…there is nothing worse than receiving a proposal with items that will cost not either covered or mentioned.  A classic here is not disclosing costs of specific materials or what you mean by expenses…your client is not daft so be clear!

However what you do not want disclose in your proposal are:

1. The full course content because if you do not get the work, you are handing your course on a plate for someone else to deliver!! 
2. The detailed break down of costs.  So, if you are going to charge for development time put it as a reasonable project price, do not itemise it out as this is an area that you could negotiate on, should you need to. 
3. Whatever concerns that you have about delivering this solution…your choice of language in the proposal must be positive, so use statements such as ‘the delegates will learn…’ etc.

The key thing to remember about your proposal is that it is the next step in building your relationship with the client and therefore it must be polished, professional and personal.

“We don’t know what good service is… until we don’t get it!”

“We don’t know what good service is… until we don’t get it!”

Then we tell everyone about it…how bad it was, how disappointed we are, the fact that we are never going to shop/eat/visit/use that service again.

So as we are all in the customer service business we need to make sure we don’t take our eye of the most important person to us…the customer.  You might think that as a trainer you are in the business of developing potential however we also have to consider that every person who attends our training programme is a customer.  Therefore we have to consider the following:

• ·      Was their experience on the courses that we delivered a positive one?
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• ·      Where we value for money?
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• ·      Will they recommend us to their colleagues?
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• ·      How would they rate us as service providers?
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• ·      Were you on time and fully prepared to run the course when the first delegate arrived?
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• ·      Did you portray professionalism in your manner, dress and use of language?
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This is nothing to do with your skills and knowledge as a trainer in your specialist field.  This is to do with you...some examples:

• ·      Not exploiting your clients by selling them more days than they need, you are not a rip off merchant!!
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• ·      How easy are you to contact both for the client and for the delegates, their staff should they have a post-course query
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• ·      How helpful are you with questions on the course, that are often ‘off-piste’, but are important to that delegate?

What you must remember is that your training course is part of your sales process.  Unlike selling some products, our key product is ourselves and therefore there is always an opportunity to develop business whilst you are delivering a programme.

Developing the four generations

As the four generations of veterans, baby boomers, Gen X & Gen Y work together in organisations it is important for managers to recognise that you have to manage them differently. I was involved in a great debate about this in a recent development programme that I ran and you could see the light bulbs go on in the room as people started to realise: "that is why I get on well with Person A and really struggle to relate to Person B".  If you then explain that Gen Z or the digital natives will be in the workplace within 5 years, and look what has changed in the last 5 years, it is then that you realise that as a manager you have to raise your game...your own personal development is not something you can be complacent about.