All new blogs have moved...

Thanks for landing here and checking out my blog. All the blog posts have now moved over to the new Talent Dynamics website. There is heaps more stuff to check out, new blogs, info, opportunities etc. Do hop over. Michelle :)

Talent Dynamics Case Study from Workshop Productions

“Talent Dynamics Profiling was the first step, which has spearheaded and influenced every decision that has been made in the company since”
David Guest, MD Workshop Productions

Why we were asked to work with Workshop Productions

One of the north’s leading film production companies and based in Lancaster, Workshop Productions has a core strategic team of five, with a team of associated filmmakers and editors. Their goal is to make a contribution to creating and maintaining a British film industry, where the talent is grown and retained in the UK.

When we met back in January 2010, they were experiencing high growth and wanted to focus their attention on the development of the core Strategic Team, to allow growth to be maximised. Although it was a highly creative team, there were some real challenges around productivity levels and ensuring there was enough room for team members to feel they were making a significant contribution without impacting the speed at which projects could be finalised and produced.

What we did

In January, we ran the one day Talent Dynamics Understanding Primary Purpose workshop.

We put every team member through a Talent Dynamics Profile and shared the results prior to the workshop. On the day, we invested time for the whole team to thoroughly understand their own Profile and Profiles of other Team members.

We used creative and energetic exercises designed to illustrate and demonstrate the distinctions between the various Profiles. We also helped the team understand thoroughly the purpose of their organisation and to use their innate creativity to focus on some very specific actions they could take that could be turned into immediate commercial success.

We empowered them with a series of tools that they could effectively use to turn the value that already existed within the organisation into revenue in a much more conscious and strategic way.

Who we worked with

The core Strategic Team.

Programme timings

A one day programme in January 2010.

How the programme has impacted

Speed and productivity are the two major improvements that the Team have become aware of. This inevitably leads to increased revenue and a better bottom line.
Since the workshop, the team have been implementing specific Talent Dynamics strategies and productivity within the organisation has risen by 50%. Team communication has also improved dramatically.

There has been a much greater awareness about not just where their individual value and talent lies but how they can more effectively capitalise on each other’s talents to create improved results.

There is a greater sense of personal confidence and self-knowledge within the Team which allows new, exciting projects to be created. With a much higher level of trust, personal initiatives have been much more successful and have impacted on results much faster.

The team are now much more open to change. They feel much more connected to the purpose of the company and are able to contribute in a more satisfying and meaningful way.

Head in the Sand or Legs that run...

According to the HR Magazine, Employers fear their workforces lack of skills, will hamper their recovery.

We are meeting more and more employees who we find in a state of paralysis or fear over the economic situation and faced with job cuts and budget cuts, they feel less empowered to take action and are finding it even harder to see where they can add value. One option is to bury your head in the sand... Another is to create an environment where the team can get into flow and create some ideas to generate profit, that are ideas with legs...

This of course is the key to the success. Sometimes, just a simple discussion to get clarity on what would be of the most value right now, can have a dramatic impact on bottom line and more importantly, confidence to continue doing it!

Following just a one hour performance consulting discussion last week with one of my clients, who has been experiencing this paralysis, they were able to create a £100k action that can be implemented immediately, at no extra cost to the bsuiness, just by doing some simple accountability restructuring within the team.

So go on, have a conversation about it. Its not just about getting more training or developing new skills, sometimes its just about thinking differently...

One size just doesn't fit all...

We've all been invited on courses of how to network better/more effectively. They are always run by some outgoing, extroverted individual who has no problem meeting heaps of brand new folks, who then take time to explain to everyone else just how easy it is to do! Of course they do - they all have a natural extroversion in their profile which makes it so much easier for them to do this!! It's something they are naturally good at and therefore enjoy more.

Everyone has the ability to network successfully. There are different strategies that are more effective for the 8 different Profile Types. There simply isn't one size to fit all.

Now, I'm a Supporter profile, we are natural, face to face networkers, great at building relationships quickly, we enjoy meeting new people and don't enjoy the detail or the data analysis so much. Give me the choice of being in the office at my desk or at an event with 100 strangers - i'll always choose the 100 strangers! It's my natural talent.

I was at such an event recently. I had stood up confidently and shared my 60 second update on my company. (Extroverted profiles are OK with this public speaking as well). During the break I met with an Accumulator Profile. The first thing she said to me was "I wish I could be more like you!" I asked her why and she explained that as a member of the legal profession she didn't favour these kind of events but had to do them and that many of the legal clients were expecting more extroverted and naturally outgoing solicitors to work with! I really felt for her in that instant! I explained, that Accumulator's make the most risk averse of all the profiles and are very well suited to this role. They are the safest of all of the profiles and I assured her that I for one, would prefer my Solicitor to be an Accumulator!

I also discussed with her, some specific strategy's she might like to employ with her networking that plays to her naturak strengths.

So please don't feel that you have to be this super duper over the top natural networker, constantly wondering why others are so much better at it than you. Or the complete opposite, you find you are a super duper natural networker but struggle with the detail in running your organisation! Realise your natural talents, utilise your natural strengths and find a team to support you with the talents that don't come so naturally to you!

Are you enabling or preventing great performance?

Your Leadership Style has a direct impact on business results

According to the CIPD: “…before people can become successful leaders, they do need certain attributes… Self-knowledge, to understand their own strengths and weaknesses… these attributes will help to develop trust, without which, leaders will not command loyalty”

It is widely accepted that if you want to improve your Leadership capability and your business, a hugely important aspect to improve is yourself. When we are coaching leaders or working with teams, we often find that improving a leaders self awareness, through a Talent Dynamics Profile debrief or one of our 360 measurement tools, will have a dramatic impact on their and the team’s performance. Whether that be something as obvious as improving relationships with clients, understanding what motivates your team, or less direct blocks such as improving productivity or creating more efficient systems.

Sometimes leaders are trying to carry out a role in a leadership style that isn’t their most natural, which makes it harder to do. Other times, they are using their most natural style but finding it isn’t having the same ‘natural effect ‘ on their team as it’s a style the team don’t enjoy being led with…

Aware of your leadership style?...

Take the Creator Profile, we have been working with, who has been trying to lead the team as a Supporter. He has been so out of flow and finding it so challenging, not in the least bit enjoyable and guess what, neither has his team! Increasing his self-awareness is allowing him to start to play a very different role in the business, in a much more effective way and is allowing members of the team to do the same.

How can I improve my self-awareness?

There are a variety of ways you can gather feedback and increase your self-awareness… It’s not the tool you choose, it’s what you do with the feedback that's important!

Talent Dynamics Profile

We always start with the Talent Dynamics Profile Test , debrief and report, which gives you very specific self awareness and can be used in conjunction with Coaching to really drive your performance. It has a very specific strategy related to each of the profile's and so is extremely practical. Recently a leader told me as a result of, understanding his profile, becoming more aware and implementing some strategies, he saw a 20% increase in turnover…

360 degree feedback

Gathering some feedback from those you work with can be incredibly powerful. Why not try and ask your colleagues some specific questions like:

1. How am I doing right now?
2. What do you enjoy about my leadership style?
3. What do you find challenging about my style?
4. What should I stop/start/continue doing?
5. Where does my style create the best results for the business?
6. How does my style inhibit the growth of the business?
7. How can I enable you to be even more effective?

Even just asking these basic 360 questions will be a great start and you may get some very interesting feedback. You can add some specific questions of your own as well.

When you ask the questions, ask at least 5 or 6 people. Encourage peers, direct reports and leaders to give you feedback. Always ask one person who you know will give you some challenging feedback – remember, there’s a reason why they will be challenging and perhaps increasing your self awareness with that person could drastically improve that relationship!


Click here to see a short video on the benefit of Talent Dynamics Profiles

Connecting the natural talent in your team to sustainable profitability

In today's fast changing and extremely volatile trading environment, large and small organizations are experiencing challenges, the likes of which haven't been seen for over 50 years.

According to the recent report Creating People Advantage: Talent Management is the number one challenge for organisations in every region and industry today. Ensuring employees are performing at their best, increasing their productivity and occupying roles best fit for their strengths and talents is crucial for business sustainability and growth.

Absence from the workplace in the UK alone last year cost £11.6 billion! Low morale, cited as one of the primary causes of this dramatic increase in workplace absence, which often has a direct impact on the disruption in work flow.

According to the Training Journal - 50% of workers resign due to poor quality management and managers who are not sufficiently trusted or reliable in delivering the value they are expected to. By not having the right leadership and talent management in place, organizations are losing high-quality members of staff who have frankly 'had enough' to their great detriment.

Quality Graduates are now increasingly assessing potential employer's attractiveness by the values of the organization and its level of trust in the marketplace. In a complete recruitment turnaround, they are doing the choosing now.

Today, it is the trusted organizations and the trusted brands that find their products more and more attractive, their staff are shown to be more loyal and productive, and their market share is rising. They know that the key to their continued success is to nurture that trust from individual to individual, from team to team and from organization to customers and shareholder. They know that the way to build that trust at all levels is through increasing value, collaboration and flow.

This is the real basis of Talent Dynamics. What we do when we work with large teams is to directly connect the natural talents of the companies most important resource, its people, to high individual and team performance, resulting in sustainable profitability. We measure the level of trust and flow through the organisation at the scale of the individual, team and company and then deliver a series of tools that empowers each individual to increase their effectiveness within the corporation.

What can I do about it with my team?

Whatever size your organisation or team is, it's likely that some of what I've just shared will be landing home for you too. There are so many really important techniques that we use in Talent Dynamics, that I would love to share with you but for the purpose of this article, I'm going to share 3 very practical ones, that you can begin to work on with your team right now.

1. Ensure your team are connected to the Organisations Primary Purpose

One of the quickest and most effective ways to start to create a high performing team (and in my view, the most important one to get right from the start) is to have your team highly connected to the purpose of your organisation. Most organisations think their primary purpose is to make profit, when actually it is to add value: value to the market or community it serves and then to leverage that value profitably. High performing teams understand, that when an organisations fails to add value, it soon loses its place. The more value it adds, the greater its place. When an organisation fails to leverage effectively, the cost of its resources exceeds its output and it soon loses profitability. The more effectively it leverages, the greater its profit.

This is a critical first step in building a high performing team, so please give it the attention it deserves.

2. Know your individual and Teams Natural Talents

Discover what it is that makes you and your team members 'tick'. Then, align your organisations accountabilities with peoples talents and preferences and you will see how everything changes. A recent client told me that "Talent Dynamics… has greatly accelerated both our learning and ability to put in place the vision for the substantial growth we are in the process of achieving" Imagine working in a team, where everyone gets to do the stuff they are really good at and really enjoy and through doing this, everything gets done by the best person. How much more fun can you have when this happens? When you understand the natural talents of individuals, you will also very quickly find out if you have the right balance of profiles in your team and who you could be missing just now to really accelerate your business success!

3. Create an environment where collaboration and value exchange is part of your daily routine

We call this PSR (Personal Social Responsibility) We help organisations and teams to actually measure the level of trust and flow at individual, team and organisation and look at specific ways of increasing those scores. A key to getting into flow, is that you can only get into it by getting others into it. This calls for understanding step 2 really well first. Once you know what makes the team members tick you can help them to get into flow much more quickly.

The level of Flow in your organisation is determined by the personal effectiveness and fulfilment of each employee. Having employees in Flow, results directly in the attraction and retention of your staff and ultimately, your customers. As employees get into flow, so does the whole team and so onto the Organisation.

When individuals are in their Flow and the whole team has a balanced dynamic - each member contributing to the overall Flow of the team - levels of innovation, creativity and effective action soar. Absenteeism, inertia, procrastination and negative attitudes disappear By implementing just these 3 steps in your organisation, you can start to build your 'dream high performing team' or to really increase the current levels of your teams effectiveness.

Meeting Lord Sebastian Coe and discussing Primary Purpose of Organisations

Engaging the Team with Hearts and Minds
It was very exciting to have Lord Sebastian Coe as the keynote speaker at the recent People Development Summit in Barcelona. His opening speech for the Summit focused at why London won the Olympic bid – I said why and not how, as this was one of the reasons London won. Lord Coe focused his team on the why and not the how!

Just minutes before, I had been discussing over dinner, with some of the UK’s leading Learning and Development Managers and some of the most respected and competent Training Suppliers, about how Talent Dynamics always begins by focusing teams and organisations at their Primary Purpose and how that links to value and leverage… we had been discussing this as the theme at the table was ‘thoroughly engaging the team with hearts and minds’ and being careful not to run employee engagement as a process.

We all smiled then when Lord Coe backed up everything we had just been discussing in his opening speech!

“Rarely are there only 2 horses in any race. The markets keep moving”

Lord Coe told us how the Olympic bid was being viewed as a “2 horse race” but in his experience there was no such thing – indeed the 1978 European Championships in Prague had been labelled a 2 horse race, between Seb and Steve Ovett. As it turned out… Neither of these 2 horses won!

“The perception was we wouldn’t win it: we would get to a worthy semi final only”

Lord Coe went on to explain that London was so far behind the other cities in approval points to win the bid it didn’t seem possible they could win. He knew why he was leading the bid and it was his passion for connecting young people to sport. He knew the impact the Olympics could have on young people entering both professional sports and sport for fun and could see that the Olympics was an enormous opportunity for young people in Britain.

“If you can get young people to see something different and extraordinary, you can give them a ticket to set them off…”

Now his job was to turn the focus of his team away from ‘how’ they would deliver the Olympics safely, securely, on time and on budget (which everyone knew they could focus at later) and shifted the team to why they were part of the Olympic Bid team. Why London should host the Olympics. Why they were giving up their time and leaving well paid jobs to be a part of this…

“A generation of Youngsters who may now be moved to take up a sport…”

Changing the focus of his team led to London gaining 30 approval points in 6 months taking then to 60 points! He asked them all to understand internally why they were a part of this bid and why London should be picked and then he asked them to externalise that to others.

“ It happened as a result of a more compelling story and narrative”

London won the Olympic bid – it was a surprise to many people but not to Lord Coe and his team who were dedicated and passionate about the difference they were about to make to millions of young people across the UK!

So perhaps this week you can take some time out with the team from the how and the process improvements and refocus everyone on your Primary Purpose:

Why your organisation is here… Why you are here?

Helen Urwin Founder of The Halthean Corporation shares the impact of a recent Talent Dynamics Programme

Testimonial from Helen Althea Urwin – founder of the Halthean Corporation – Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

March 2010

I decided to take part in a Pilot Talent Dynamics Programme in November as being a consultant in the field specialising in Full Potential Branding, I work with leadership Teams regularly to help them get the maximum out of their people and I saw this as a great opportunity to be able to participate in a programme with my entire team, as opposed to facilitating it, which is my traditional role.

What was fascinating for me to understand was how to increase the trust and flow in the team given that this was already very high. However having briefed Michelle and Jan, of the plan to double in turnover this year, we discussed the impact this could have on the team and how they would need to quickly raise their personal levels of performance to meet a challenging year of growth, along with the need for the entire team to be functioning much more in flow and quickly.

The Talent Dynamics team facilitated a fun, engaging and thought provoking 2 days. I witnessed changes in members of the team over this time as they grew to understand their profiles, their natural talents, the reasons why they had easy or challenging relationships with one another and more importantly what it would take for the organisation to experience more trust and flow, resulting in more clients, new products and sustainable profit.

Three months on from the programme and we now have a unique language which we use with one another. As a result of the 2 days, we were able to discover new areas of value that could be created by allowing others to get into flow, doing what they love and what they are naturally talented at. We now have new members of the team, working on innovative new areas of the business, adding flow and value to our current offerings for our clients.

We have a new rhythm and routine, thanks to our understanding and implementation of the Talent Dynamics Pentagram process, which gives us our daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual flow. This has enabled us to focus on what matters, when it matters and has given clarity to all the team.

Members of the team know who to pass the ball to with confidence, trust and certainty now. This has resulted in an opportunity for me to take much less of an operational role day to day and to really focus on the strategic, business building side of our brands and has created the space for all of us to raise our game and step up into our natural talents to perform even more confidently.

I would sum up Talent Dynamics saying that it has greatly accelerated both our learning and ability to put in place the vision for the substantial growth we are in the process of achieving. I will definitely be working with the Talent Dynamics team again in the future and have been very happy to highly recommend them to add value to my clients.

When was the last time you got naked with your team?

Why is getting naked good for business?

Ok, so this blog might not be quite what you expected it to be...

but it's a serious question for leaders and I've been giving it a lot of thought as we launch the Talent Dynamics Super Flow Roundtable this week, helping leaders achieve the results they desire with their businesses, by getting naked and really working together on solutions...

Now what I mean by getting naked with the team is this - sharing the business results honestly, looking at business performance, warts and all - an opportunity to air the dirty and clean washing with utter transparency. Comparing estimates against actuals. Combing through the P&L, sales targets, productivity of individuals, customer complaints, systems and processes, what the competition is doing etc...

If you want to make a difference, solve that sales issue, work out why the latest promotion hasn't had the results you expected, you are going to need to take a closer look at it, maybe take it apart and put it back together again and the best way to do this, is with someone else, who can give you an expert opinion but they are going to need to look at the whole picture to be able to help. That's the whole point of getting naked in the first place...

But I don't want the team to see how it looks Naked!

If you had a problem with your car, you would of course take it to the mechanic and say "its got a juddering problem" or whatever the problem is, you wouldn't then stop the mechanic looking under the bonnet because you know the engines a mess and you are embarrassed...how can he fix the car?

If you were feeling sick and you went to the Dr and said, "I've got this really itchy rash and I want some cream to clear it up please" and the Dr asked you to take your clothes off so he could take a look, you wouldn't say. "oh no, it looks too nasty, can you just give me a solution without looking at it please?" How can he possibly know what prescription to write?

Its the same with your business. Getting seriously naked is the best way to view the problem and then figure out the solution! Its when you involve the team with the whole picture and allow them to add value in the way that comes most naturally to them, that you will find their commitment to the business increases and the quality of the solutions roll in so much faster!

Once you have seen it all... You can start to focus on solutions!

Its like this - Those of you that know me, know that I'm a big fan of transparency in business and leadership. Its my experience that when you share with the team what's really going on, they have an opportunity to step up and take some action.

I worked with a business recently that was under performing quite seriously and it wasn't their normal policy to involve the operating team in all the detail, in fact they felt that keeping the information from them was the best course of action and that the leadership team would figure it all out - it wasn't the best course of action of course. The team knew things weren't going well and as no one involved them, they made up what they didn't know - gossip was rife! Once the leadership shared the issues, the team were more confident and able to step up, as they knew the whole picture. They were now able to contribute ideas and more importantly solutions that really made a difference to the business performance.

Best of all they really owned both the problems and the solutions together.

So why not strip off...

I urge you in the next few weeks to try it - get naked - and see what new ideas and fresh inspiration you can come up with together in your business!

Getting naked with the team, doesn't necessitate taking off your clothes, although i've heard some training organisations employ this method! That's perhaps a future Talent Dynamics programme...

Being focused on what matters in 2010

New years eve, sat round the fire with a glass of champagne. My friends and family are discussing their resolutions for New Year. Some have been really diligent and written them down, others are making them up on the spot... So I suggested before we set the 2010 ones, that we take some time to look back at the 2009 ones to review: which had worked best and which hadn't...

Very few people in the room could even remember what they had expressed last year. I could remember all of mine. I was asked how I even remembered what they were, when they were set so long ago and so I shared this with everyone and if it works for you too, then I'd love to hear back.

Goals or Resolutions?

First of all I never set a resolution, for me it feels less likely to really happen than a Goal. A resolution conjures up the need to resolve to change and usually incites the: lose weight, stop smoking, be nicer, blah blah blah... whereas a goal for me feels like it has more substance and i take more time to word it carefully in order to achieve it. A Goal feels much more action orientated for me

Set enough to Stretch but not too many to overface

You can easily over face yourself with far too many or not stretch yourself with too few. My suggestion is at any one time have between 3 and 7 goals on the go. If you have 3, then they are likely to be very big demanding goals. If you have the maximum of 7, allow some smaller, more achieveable ones. During the year, when you achieve a goal, you can replace it with another so that over the course of the year, you can achieve much more than 7.

Focus on getting better at what you are already good at

Those of you familiar with Talent Dynamics already know that you have certain skills and talents that you are much better at and enjoy more. A suggestion of mine, to make your goals more achievable, is to have at least 50% of your goals as things that you are already good at and that you want to get even better at in 2010 - BTW, you are much more likely to achieve those ones and quicker. Its more fun to have those kinds of goals and they help to keep us in flow.

Keep them visible

I can remember mine because I keep them on my desk in front of me and read them often. Ask yourself when you go to bed at night 'how did i do today?' and when you wake up 'whats my focus for today?' These 2 questions can serve as your daily review on your goals. If they are visible you will always have them in your mind to achieve

Share them with others

If you have a Coach or Mentor, then you can share your goals with them and they can help monitor your progress and motivate you to keep achieving. If you dont have a coach (apart from maybe adding that to your goals list!) then you can share them with friends and family. Its amazing how others want to support you and you never know who in your immediate network may be able to help you out immediately (as I found with one of mine that I shared on New Years Day!)

Check how compelled you are to achieve them

There are 2 ways I do this for myself. Firstly, I read what I have written and notice how I feel about it. My gut feeling always tells me if I even want to achieve the goal - sometimes I can tell I have written a goal because I should do it and not because I wanted to. The 2nd way is to score each goal as to how motivated you are to achieve it out of 10. Be honest with yourself, if your motivation is less than 8, again, review this goal. Do you really want to achieve it? Are you even going to try?

and finally and in my opinion most importantly...

Focus and take some action every day

Focus is so important to achieve your goals. Whatever you and your team focus on is what will get done. Fact.

Each day decide what action you will take towards your goals and spend some time reviewing what worked and what didnt and how you can improve it for tomorrow. Sometimes its just taking that very first step thats the hardest, so make it a baby step and keeping taking baby steps until you feel ready to take a slightly bigger step. Rome wasnt built in a day remember...

Best of luck to you for achieving your goals this year. Have a fabulous 2010!