Working with new managers

WORKING WITH NEW MANAGERS

Over the years, I’ve found that a common client problem that is brought to coaching is that of a newly-promoted manager struggling with a promotion from team member to team leader. The related changes to the relationship with members of their team, coupled with developing a leadership mentality often leaves them feeling stressed and insecure about whether or not they are performing their new role effectively.

Since training in MindSonar, it has become apparent to me that one of the underlying causes of the stress lies in the client’s manager not recognising my client’s need for feedback on their performance during the early stages of their new role.   The more senior managers are generally experienced leaders who are expected to take initiative and make decisions. Consequently, they tend to be predominantly Internally Referenced. This can result in them not recognising (or remembering) that new managers may be more Externally Referenced in the context of their new roles, requiring some feedback on how they are progressing.  This difference can lead to new managers being left to their own devices and feeling unsupported, as their managers believe that they’ll either cope or request support as and when needed.

Less often, new managers feel they are not trusted because they feel that their manager is micro-managing them and giving feedback far too often.  Such cases are less frequent, but can also arise from a disparity between the Internally/Externally Referenced Meta Programmes.

In larger organisations, formal structures may exist in which regular feedback meetings are undertaken, but these still operate on the assumption that all staff are running the same thinking patterns, which of course is not the case. The result is that some feel that such meetings are too infrequent (those who are highly Externally Referenced) and some feel that it is micro-management (those who are more Internally Referenced).  Many smaller businesses have no feedback procedures at all.

If middle and senior managers were to invest in MindSonar profiles for their direct reports, they could tailor their approach to individuals, giving more frequent feedback to those who prefer it (the Externally referenced individuals), and feedback on a “as needed” basis to those who do not (the Internally referenced individuals).  This would reduce the stress and insecurity felt by all members of the team, whether new to post or not. As a result, team members will feel more motivated and so develop within their roles more productively.

Of course, there are other Meta Programmes which are at play in such circumstances, especially around the changing context of moving from team member to team leader.  The MindSonar profiles will also enable more experienced managers to support their junior managers to handle those changes too.

If you are a middle or senior manager who would like to get the most from your junior managers, then contact your local MindSonar Professional to learn more about how MindSonar could enable you to get the best out of your team, and keep each team member motivated and less stressed.

If you’re a coach who works with managers at any level, then you’ll find becoming a MindSonar Professional a really worthwhile addition to your coaching toolkit, so do consider adding it as soon as you can.

Discovering your Mission – a powerful and inspiring use of MindSonar

Clients often approach me wanting to find out what they could do to achieve a feeling of satisfaction with their life – a sense that they are doing what they are “supposed” to be doing. It’s a big ask! Until I trained as a MindSonar professional, it was also a tricky thing to work upon with clients and often took a lot of time to even get close to.

I was therefore very interested when I spotted in the MindSonar training course, the exercise entitled “Exploring Your Mission”. I have to admit I was also a little sceptical – it’s quite a claim for a single exercise.

I found the preparation work for the session very intriguing. It included questions about the things I’d enjoyed at various stages of my life and for three “heroes or heroines” of mine. It asked about the emotions and values I achieved from them.  I was intrigued by the questions, especially as several were of things I’d not considered before and so were very thought-provoking. By the end of the preparatory work I was asked to complete the following statements:

A metaphor for “I am a kind of ...”, “I am like a …“

”I believe in …” 

“My contribution to the larger whole is to …”

I then completed my MindSonar® profile in the context of “Fulfilling my mission” and was ready and looking forward to the exercise itself.

The process of exploration, reflection and discovery that takes place within the exercise was fascinating. It provided an opportunity to discover far more about what the experiences, emotions and values identified in the prep work meant to me. I began to see how they fitted together to give an understanding of the commonalities in the seemingly disparate things I’d enjoyed at different stages in my life , and of the things and characters which I admired.

The discoveries I made about myself through this exercise, combined with my MindSonar profile, came together in an incredibly powerful way. I came to understand a lot more about situations in which I felt stuck and I identified ways in which I could change some aspects of both my business and personal activities to make them more fulfilling and less stagnant. I felt genuinely inspired and enabled to make really positive changes to my life.

I would recommend this exercise to anyone looking to improve their feelings of overall satisfaction or to discover their direction in life. As such it will be particularly useful for people who are at a crossroads in life such as career change, post-divorce or retirement.

If you’ve already done the MindSonar “Exploring Your Mission” exercise please share your experience of it in the comments section. If you haven’t and would like to, then get in touch with your local MindSonar professional to find out more and to arrange one – it’s definitely worth it!

 

 

Improving Motivation and Job Satisfaction – the importance of the Graves Drives

One valuable use of MindSonar is to identify a person’s motivators.  For example, this is important when designing recruitment and retention strategies for an organisation and for individual teams, and when coaching individuals who want to achieve a long-term goal which will take time and dedication.

In using MindSonar for these purposes it’s important to look at the Graves Drives within each profile.  These will tell you a lot about the values that matter most to the individual – the things that they need to get from the given context in order to feel fulfilled and motivated.  By looking at the Graves Drives of the individuals concerned, it usually becomes apparent that, even in the same context, different people have quite different values.

For example, in people considering changing jobs in a particular sector, I have seen some who prioritise the Graves Drives Powerand Competition, and others for whom Learning and Order are the priorities. Similar differences can exist even between members of the same team.

By knowing this and by being aware of the impact of not enabling individuals to obtain them (namely, dissatisfaction and demotivation) managers and coaches can develop a more tailored approach to motivation.  This could be by using different language when describing the opportunities available – emphasising those aspects which match what is important to the individual, or (for larger organisations) it could be about providing a more varied range of any optional benefits available to staff.

Without the information that is provided by the Graves Drives as identified by the MindSonar profile it is all too easy to fall back on the assumption that all people are motivated by the same things. Such an approach can lead to poor recruitment and retention results for companies, or to coaching clients becoming disenchanted with their progress towards major goals.

Of course, the whole profile should be taken into account as thinking styles are also an important consideration, but without an understanding of the individual’s values, much could be missed.

If you’ve done a MindSonar profile, have another look at your Graves drives and think about how they are influencing you in that context – could you improve your own motivation by taking them more into account?  If you haven’t done a profile yet, then why not contact a certified MindSonar Professional to arrange one – it could make all the difference to your success!

Two Meta Programmes that can be the Cause of Stress in Business Owners

In my work with self-employed clients, in various contexts connected with their work, I often see a profile which shows a very score for Internal Locus of Control. Sometimes so high that the corresponding value for External Locus of Control is just 1. This is commonly combined with a high score for Internally Referenced.

It isn’t surprising that these two Meta Programmes are high in people who have decided to go-it-alone and become self-employed. After all, to start a business and drive it forward requires someone wiling to take control and make judgement calls about a lot of things. However, those with extremely high scores often find themselves suffering from stress and feeling as if they are unable to cope with demands of their business. My experience is that this often occurs because of two limiting beliefs:

a) that they are responsible for everything – including things over which they can have no influence at all, and

b) that they should not to seek the support and advice of others who could help them with various aspects of their business, as they should know best themselves

These two beliefs result in high levels of stress as they worry about many things which are out of their control, and also spend a lot of time on information gathering and other tasks that could more helpfully be obtained from others or delegated.

The powerful thing about working with these clients with MindSonar is that it provides evidence for some of the thinking patterns underlying their problems, and enables coaching to be focussed on moving to a more helpful thinking style. Of course, as we look across their full profile, it becomes clear which other Meta Programmes are also adding to their current issues and they too can be addressed as needed.

Going through a client’s MindSonar profile with them gives them opportunity to reflect more objectively on their thinking and to explore how these two Meta Programmes, along with the rest of their profile impacts upon their experience as a self-employed individual.

As a coach I find the MindSonar profiling tool incredibly helpful in this context and am seeing the positive impact it has upon my clients. In particular, I’m finding that the contextual nature of MindSonar makes it easier for my clients to accept the results and so be open to change. I have not found this to be the case so much with other psychometric tools which can be perceived of labelling the client, and putting then “in a box” – something which many people reject, especially those who are highly Internally referenced.

What combinations of Meta Programmes are you finding in your clients that re causing commonly seen problems for them? Let me know in the comments box below.

MindSonar for the self-employed

Here in the UK, the number of new businesses starting up each year is rising significantly, with 660,000 being set up in 2016. However, statistics suggest that as many as 40% of start-ups don’t make it to 5 years. I suspect the same is true for many other countries too.

It’s not surprising therefore that coaches are often approached by clients who are in the early years of their business . Many are wondering why they are struggling to keep the business afloat and are suffering from more stress and unhappiness than when they were employed. Many are already considering ending their business to go back to employment, where they felt more comfortable.

A MindSonar profile analysis for these clients can be incredibly powerful. It enables them to identify any Meta Programmes they are operating which are not helpful for a business owner, and which might be getting in the way of their success and happiness. Once problem areas are recognised, coaching can then enable the client to identify the Meta Programmes they want to develop in themselves and also ones which might be best strengthened in the business by outsourcing a service or employing someone else.

The Meta Programmes likely to be causing such problems vary depending on the individual and their circumstances. However, I often come across problems in such clients who have particularly high scores for one or more of the following four Meta Programmes.:

1. Options
These clients have lots of ideas about the directions in which they could take their business or the ways in which they could market their services, but do not have a planned strategy for implementing them. They talk of the all the possibilities and they usually have lots of unfinished plans and ideas. MindSonar provides a way for the client to identify this way of thinking and so enable them to determine how to address the problem. This could be choosing to develop a higher Procedure Meta Programme in themselves, or to outsource some elements of their business to someone who already has a well-developed procedural approach.

2. Reactive
These clients have often thought a lot about how to develop their business and have a lot of knowledge about what can be done, but they have taken few or no actions to implement their ideas. They can always think of another piece of research which is needed before action can be taken. Once this is recognised by the client, they can work with their coach to enable the client to develop a stronger Proactive Meta Programme.

3. Proactive
Strange as it sounds to some, there can also be problems for self-employed clients with a very high Proactive score. They generally have good ideas about what they could do in their business, but take a scattergun approach to implementation. Typically, they’ve tried out each of their ideas but without any level of consistency. They do not often spend time waiting to see what the outcome of each action is as they quickly move to the next. Once recognised, coaching can then be used to enable the client to develop a stronger reactive Meta Programme.

4. Internal reference
Although a good level of Internal reference is helpful for the self-employed, if it is very high it can lead to a reluctance to learn from others, and even a reluctance to research their market. This can lead to failed marketing and product development as customer needs are not being met. Consequently, coaching can to enable the client to develop a stronger reactive Meta Programme can prove useful.

Working with these clients to identify triggers and activation statements and to activate resources is a helpful start. Combining this with solution focussed work such as Intensive Goal Description can bring about quite dramatic changes in their experience of running a business.

As I mentioned earlier, there can be problems for the self-employed with other Meta Programmes, particularly if they are a sole trader. This is not surprisingly as many are trying to cover many roles from marketing and accounts to being the specialist in their own field. The strength of MindSonar is that it can be used to help them recognise, and further develop, flexibility in their thinking styles, thus helping them become more successful in their role and, hopefully, less stressed.

Types of Inner Conflict – How to Identify them in a MindSonar Profile

Pavlov: Experimental Neurosis

In MindSonar we work with the distinction ‘towards’ versus ‘away from’ thinking. This distinction has a long history, be it under a different name. In the beginning of the 20th century, experimental psychology already used this distinction when they were researching what they called ‘experimental neurosis’. The famous I.P. Pavlov was one of the scientists involved in this research.

Pavlov created ‘approach/avoidance conflicts’ in dogs. In terms of meta programs we would say: Pavlov trained his dogs to want to go towards and go away from at the same time. First, he conditioned them with one stimulus (for example a bell) to go towards a food bowl where they were rewarded with food. Next, he conditioned them with another stimulus (for example a horn) to move away from the food bowl because if they stayed there they were given an electric shock. Then, both stimuli (sounds) where presented at the same time: the dog was put in an approach/avoidance conflict. He wanted to go towards the food bowl to get the food and at the same time he wanted to move away from it to avoid the shock. When subjected to this conditioning, the dogs started to show strange behaviors; they stayed completely still or they started doing illogical things like running in circles.

This is what was called ‘experimental neurosis’. Human beings sometimes find themselves in quite similar situations. We call them dilemma’s: on one hand I want to give my boss a piece of my mind (towards, approach), on the other hand I don’t want to get fired (away from, avoidance).

Types of conflict

Psychology makes a distinction between three types of conflict:

Approach/approach conflicts (I want two things, but I can’t have them both). We would say: towards/towards conflicts. When we look at the emotions that thinking ‘towards’ and ‘away from’ are associated with, we expect that this kind of conflict will evoke mostly sadness and anger.

Avoidance/avoidance conflicts (I don’t want either one of two things, but I can’t avoid both of them). We expect that this kind of conflict will evoke mostly fear and anxiety.

Approach/avoidance conflicts (I want one thing and I want to avoid something else, but I can’t have the one thing and avoid the other). In this situation we expect a mix of the above-mentioned emotions.

Conflicts in MindSonar work

In MindSonar we are gathering information on someone’s criteria and their counterparts. These are towards- or approach-issues and away from-  or avoidance-issues. The positive criteria the respondent gives us are things they want to move towards. The counterparts are the things they want to move away from. Similar to when Pavlov’s dogs wanted to move toward foor and away from electric shock. If Pavlovs dogs had filled out MindSonar for the context of ‘Being in Pavlov’s experiments’  they could have filled out ‘Tasty food’  as one criterion and ‘Being safe from electric shock’ as another criterion. With a counterparts: ‘Being hungry’  and ‘Getting shocked’.

Here are some things you could do, as a MindSonar Professional, with the criteria-information in terms of these three types of conflict.

  • First have look at the ‘towards’ and ‘away from’ scores.
  • If the ‘towards’ score is high (say 8+), then look for approach/approach conflicts. Have a look at their hierarchy of criteria and discuss with the respondent if they can achieve all of those criteria simultaneously. Are some of them exclusive, meaning they cannot both be achieved at the same time?  Then there is a potential approach/approach conflict. You may find emotions of anger and sadness. Unless the hierarchy of criteria is very clear. In that case (clear hierarchy) it may not be a problem. Sure, they cannot fulfil both criteria at the same time, but is doesn’t bother them, because criterion 1 is clearly more important than criterion 2. So they are happy achieving a lot of criterion 1, even if that means they won’t achieve much criterion 2.
  • If the ‘away from’ score is high (say 8+), then look for avoidance/avoidance conflicts. Have a look at the counterparts in their hierarchy of criteria. Discuss with the respondent if they can avoid all of those counterparts simultaneously. If not, there may be an avoidance/avoidance conflict. You may find emotions of fear and anxiety. Here also, the problem may be ameliorated or prevented by a clear hierarchy of criteria.
  • If the ‘towards’ and ‘away from’ scores are balanced, look for approach/avoidance conflicts along the same lines as the other conflicts.

And what could be a solution?

And if you find any of these conflicts, what’s next? In terms of coaching, helping the client clarify their hierarchy of criteria might be helpful. Or – as a next step – you might help them negotiate between parts, if you know how to do that. How can the two parts of the person, one of which wants to achieve A and the other wanting to achieve a mutually exclusive B, cooperate, in order to achieve new goals that are satisfactory to both of them?