HRM Coaching Blog

Are certain people making life difficult for others at work? London Career Coach Hannah McNamara explains what you can do about it.

Problem behaviour at work affects everyone. It affects the people on the receiving end and it also affects those who are bullying and argumentative in the first place.

But how do you deal with it?

The first step is to take a pro-active stance, take command and control it in a positive way. It used to be that punishment was the only way forward and indeed some form of disciplinary action may be required. But prevention and support should also be provided, along with a strong and positive management style that will go a long way towards preventing such occurrences happening in the future.

Both coaching and mentoring have led to positive changes in such individuals, as they are offered practical and supportive solutions to change the behaviour that has so affected them and their colleagues. While it will take time to get back to a workplace which is more positive in nature, if you can provide leadership that everyone looks to for advice and support you will be setting the stage for that to gradually evolve.

It can be a tricky balance to present a face of management that is both firm yet supportive in the right ways, but it is vital to do so. You should also keep a close eye on how things are progressing and be prepared to meet with members of staff who have concerns or issues about any kind of detrimental behaviour they are experiencing at work.

Many businesses are now turning to neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) to produce better results over both the short and the long term. NLP is designed to help you understand the behaviours of others from both audio and visual signs, and can therefore help in two ways. Firstly the offending member of staff will learn how their behaviour affects others in a detrimental way, and secondly they will also learn how to make positive changes that will help to eradicate the problem behaviour altogether.

As far as your role as a manager is concerned it is vital to ensure that you learn to identify problem behaviour as soon as it arises, rather than finding out about it from staff members. By providing a hands on management style you can learn more about how your team works and thus get to know your team a lot better than perhaps you do now.

By looking at long term solutions to problem behaviour rather than quick fixes, you will find that your team works in a more harmonious way as a result.

© Copyright Hannah McNamara 2008

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If you or someone you work with is having trouble with a difficult member of staff, or a co-worker, HRM Coaching can help. Call 020 7939 9910 in confidence and ask for Hannah McNamara or visit www.hrmcoaching.com.

The more time goes on the more we learn about each other – and this is especially noticeable in a working environment. But not only do we learn different things, we also learn in different ways.

In a recent article in the People Management magazine (available to read on their website at www.peoplemanagement.co.uk) it is mentioned that learning within a work environment should now be more individually led, rather than constantly attending mass training events. The article provides a fascinating read, not to mention a very convincing argument for why this individual stance should become the norm rather than the exception.

There is every reason to think that with the proper structure, this type of self-propelled learning could actually work rather well. Why? This is simply because not everyone learns in the same manner.

Let’s look at a typical example. Let’s suppose you set up a training session which takes place predominantly using a slide show and talk to get your message across. You may have chosen this method because it’s a method you like yourself.

Now some of the people who attend your training course may take in a lot of what you are saying. Others may study the slideshow carefully and take in a great deal of information in that way. Others may struggle to take in much at all – not because your presentation skills are boring in any way, but simply because they don’t study very well in that way. If you gave them a pamphlet that listed your presentation step by step it might be a different story – it all depends on which way they tend to learn.

That’s where individual learning can really be a winner. Provided there is a supportive framework in which the whole thing works, there is no reason to suppose that better results can’t be obtained, and motivating staff won’t become a lot easier.

It would be wrong to say that each individual employee will be totally alone though. A good move would be to start motivating staff to take on learning opportunities to grow and develop their skills during the coming weeks and months. The idea can also be brought up during discussions about their personal development plan; if you can identify the best ways of learning in their individual case, then you will be able to steer them in the right direction for making the most of every learning opportunity which comes their way.

© Hannah McNamara 2008

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Hannah McNamara is the Managing Director of HRM Coaching Ltd. HRM Coaching provides Career Coaching, Executive Coaching and Leadership Development Programmes. Call 020 7939 9910 for more information and a free initial consultation to discuss your requirements.

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Do you feel as if you don’t always get the results you want? If you are constantly struggling to get the best out of your staff, it could be your people skills that are the culprit.

Even though people in a job role are required to do what their manager asks of them, the way they are asked can have a lot of influence on how they actually carry out the request. It relates to the old ‘I’ll do it but I don’t have to enjoy it’ attitude.

A good way of making sure you get your team working for you instead of against you is to look at the title of this piece again and replace the word ‘persuasion’ with the word ’motivation’.

Now we have a different image – instead of seeing a manager trying to persuade someone who isn’t that interested, we see a manager motivating someone and upping their level of interest by doing so. That almost always leads to a desire to do the job that is asked of them and doing it to the best of their ability as well.

Motivating staff should always be a number one priority. People tend to mirror the attitude of the person they are speaking with, so if you come across as just wanting to get the job done without having any interest in the person who will be doing it, you can hardly expect to get a good job done in return.

Staff who have motivational bosses with good people skills tend to look on them for leadership and advice all of the time. If this isn’t the case in your office, try operating an open door policy and encourage members of your team to use it.

Staff motivation shouldn’t be an occasional activity that only gets rolled out when something needs doing. It should be an ongoing activity that helps to bolster confidence and drive the team forward. It helps to create a far more positive workplace, and you’ll achieve far more together as a result.

In this sense, although persuasion techniques have their place, motivation and interest in your staff should always take the upper hand. Of course you still need to maintain your position as manager, but provided the lines between you and your team aren’t blurred the motivational technique (with a dash of persuasion thrown in for good measure now and again) will reap rewards again and again.

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HRM Coaching in London, UK provides one-to-one and group Executive Coaching and Management Coaching helping professionals to be more effective at work. To find out more please contact us.

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Meetings are often the backbone of most managers’ days. But they have a habit of descending into a spiral of existing just for the sake of it, and can actually end up hampering productivity and performance instead of enhancing it.

Most managers tend to fall into two groups when it comes to meetings. Some love them and hold them frequently, while others avoid them like the plague. The reasons for the often strong reactions for and against meetings all make sense when you consider their uses and how they can be abused.

On the plus side meetings can help to promote a dialogue between co-workers, and bring to light any issues or problems that managers may not previously have been aware of. On the negative side meetings that are poorly planned or even unnecessary can waste valuable time that could be better spent doing something else.

It helps to have some kind of policy in place with regards to meetings – even if it is only for your own personal use. Some kind of regular meeting to touch base with your co-workers is always a good idea, but this should be held no more than once a week.

Every time you consider holding a new meeting, ask yourself what the purpose of that meeting is. Is there a new contract or job that your team needs to be properly briefed on? If so make sure you have time to prepare and set an appropriate time and date for the meeting to take place.

If on the other hand you simply need to alert your co-workers to some new general information, is there really a need to hold a meeting at all? A simple memo would probably do away with a significant amount of the smaller meetings that take place countrywide every single day.

The golden rule for planning any meeting is to ask yourself whether the time you will be taking away from the working day is better spent in the meeting. If it is then you know there is a need for it. If the answer is no, then at least you can stop short of planning a meeting that isn’t required.

For those meetings you do go ahead with, time should still be of the essence. Letting even the most vital meetings run on longer than necessary can be counterproductive. Making sure you stay focused and concentrate only on the subject in hand will help you to conduct better, faster and more productive meetings every single time.

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Planning a difficult meeting? HRM Coaching offers facilitation services which will help you to achieve your objectives for the meeting. We help you prepare and help you to chair the meeting so that all issues are discussed, everyone is heard and that time is not lost going round in circles or on unproductive discussions. Call Hannah McNamara on 020 7939 9910 to find out more.

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It seems it’s time to have a serious rethink about the way we work. According to a recent article in People Management Online (http://www.peoplemanagement.co.uk) working in an office may actually be severely hampering our productivity and passion for our careers.

While more and more businesses are becoming aware of this, and moving towards allowing more freedom to work from home as a way of getting more work done, not everyone is as forward thinking.

So what should you do if the people in the upper echelons of your business can’t see the way forward and still insist that everyone works nine to five at their desk?

While you may not have the ultimate power to be able to allow employees to work more freely, you can still have an effect on the way time is managed within your department. The best way to do this is to get everyone involved and seek suggestions as to what progress can be made.

It is not unheard of for the powers that be within a business to rethink their approach to flexible working once they see there is a real desire and need for it – so long as it can be proved that the business will not suffer as a result. If you can demonstrate that things may actually improve then so much the better.

There are two methods of asking people to input their own ideas into how the business – and more appropriately your department - can manage its time more effectively. Firstly you may wish to call a meeting with a view to discussing what people would like to change and improve. There may be methods of exchanging information and dealing with issues that are currently long winded, and could be made far simpler if everyone got together and hashed out a new plan.

Secondly, if a face to face meeting doesn’t seem to fit the bill you could put together a questionnaire for your employees to fill in. This can be anonymous if you wish – you may get more honest opinions if this is the case.

Opening up a dialogue with your employees can help in two ways. Not only does it help you to keep in touch with the everyday challenges and issues which arise (not all of which you may be aware of) but it also creates an open, two way method of communication with the people you work with every day.

This will lead to improved methods of working, better time management and better understanding of the roles everyone has in both the short and the long term.

And it may also raise a flag in favour of flexible working – one which the higher powers may see and take note of.

© Copyright Hannah McNamara 2008

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HRM Coaching specialises in helping organisations to get the best from their staff. For more information please see www.hrmcoaching.com or call 020 7939 9910.

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